The game of baseball can break your heart; your team fails, a critical game gets lost, the key player going down, or they could just pack up & move to the West Coast. Is it possible to have a Change of Heart? See what happened below:
"A star with both the bat and glove, Roy Campanella was agile behind the plate, had a rifle arm and was an expert handler of pitchers." - National Baseball Hall of Fame (website)
A Change of HeartWritten by Barbara Feeney © |
Published: New York Daily News (02//06/1958) |
The Bums are gone; good, I'm Those old short fences, ciggie That winning spirit couldn't The ecstacy of Are locked with scorecards, Of bleacher days. But who But, then — a bulletin comes It's Campanella! And they Paralysis! The tragic Who can forget the impish The ever-crouching Thrice MVP, the catching Was loved by each and every And now, the world has tumbled Today are flooding heaven's We never thought we'd feel this But Campy's crash has taught No matter where they choose to |
A Change of Heart by Barbara Feeney © |
In It's Good to be Alive by Roy Campanella (University of Nebraska Press, ISBN: 0803263635), he wrote the following moving words at the start of Chapter One:
"My mind is so full of thoughts as I sit in my wheel chair and get ready to dictate the story of my life... a life that has been so eventful, so exciting, so wonderful... a life that was almost taken away from me but which God spared... a life such as few people have been fortunate enough to live.
Where shall I start? How do I begin? There is so much to tell. Shall I begin with the automobile accident? When I recovered consciousness in the car and discovered that I was paralyzed? Shall I start with the time I came out of the anesthia after they cut a hole in my windpipe to allow me to breathe?
Shall I open with the time I presented a baseball to a little boy in the hospital with me; and, after I apologized for not being physically able to autograph it for him, he said simply, 'That's all right, Mr. Campanella, I can't see.'"
Source: It's Good to be Alive by Roy Campanella.
Campy was a true star in the Mexican League, the Negro Leagues and in the Major Leagues. His final major league game was played on September 29, 1957 — which was also the final major league baseball game ever played at historic Ebbets Field.
This poem — A Change of Heart — is a Baseball Almanac exclusive and appears here with expression written permission from the author.