Softball has always been my life. At the age of three, I started to play tee-ball. Can you imagine little mini adults running around chasing after a softball? Super cute!! Anyways, tee-ball is exactly how it sounds, you put a ball on a tee and you hit the ball with a bat. I played softball for about 17 years. Of course, all those years came different injuries but I am going to talk about one major one that still affects me to this day. My knee.
After promoting to coaches pitch, then life pitch, I tried out for a softball team where I became the pitcher. When you’re the pitcher, you basically have the ball all the time and control the timing of the game. When you pitch, you use every muscle in your body for about 3 seconds to provide force and velocity behind the ball to win the pitch. This is what a softball pitcher looks like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9d2evfGPcc
Now, as you can see with Jennie Finch, you. can tell that she uses her legs, arm, and abs to pitch. Back in July of 2015, I was playing for a travel ball team called So Cal Dirtdogs. This Dirtdogs team was elite. We had girls that ended up going to Loyola Marymount, CSUN, and Nebraska. I was 17 and just beginning to be looked at by colleges. Since I was not the tallest girl (I’m only 5’3) I was overlooked. This game was very important. We were doing great in this tournament and I was set to pitch in front of a school that I was very excited to maybe go there. The school was Loyola Marymount (https://www.lmu.edu). I was super excited to showcase myself to them since they seemed to be the one school interested in me. I ate my normal pregame breakfast, McDonalds Sausage muffin with Sweet tea, and was ready to perform my best. I warmed up really good and was excited to play. My first warm up pitch in the game was great, my second pitch was when it all happened.
My second pitch, my foot kept going and my locked and started to bend backwards.
Now take the video shown above with Jennie Finch with the hyperextension of my knee. I was out for the weekend, and the next few after that. I scheduled an appointment at Southern California Orthopedic Institute. When I went in, I was told I had a bone bruise that would take about 3-6 weeks to fully heal. That left my summer without softball.
This bone bruise changed my knee life up until this day. To this day, my knee gives out and it forces me to elevate my knee for the rest of the day. Some injuries you can dust off and keep playing, but other injuries, you need to rest and force yourself to sit out and take a break.
Work Cited: www.youtube.com,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjLGcd8QePQ, https://draxe.com/bone-bruise/
Kaycee's Sporting Injuries 