In honor of Chicago having two first place baseball teams, I am pleased to present my latest tale of personal misfortune and misery with a baseball theme.

WARNING: Graphic Images follow that may be upsetting to younger or more sensitive readers. (Knowing my followers and readers, that should get some views.)

I recently had the displeasure of head-butting a rock in my pond. The result was blood streaming from the inside of my nose and from this wound on the outside of my nose.

I now regret my decision to turn the hole I dug into a pond. That reminds me, I need to check and make sure that freezer in my garage is working properly. If you “get” that joke, you read my previous post (thank you), but you do need some serious professional help. Seek it immediately.

Anyway, head meets rock = Strike One.

I was pretty sure that I did not need stitches. My wife was convinced that the wound needed stitches and more professional attention than washing it out with a garden hose that the dog drinks from. I feel bad enough for her being seen in public with me as it is, so to appease her and avoid her being seen in public with me sporting a gaping nose wound (good name for a band), I agreed to seek medical attention. As I entered Urgent Care, I was told in no uncertain terms that the question was not whether or not I needed stitches, but how many. The answer was four.

Wife being 100% correct about the wound needing stitches = Strike Two.

I was convinced that I had broken my nose. I will never forget the sound of impact that reminded me of walnuts being cracked when nose contacted large, immovable rock (which, by the way, is my wife’s pet name for me). But nothing seemed displaced and it wasn’t bent to one side.

You can’t cast it, so I just needed to let the broken nose heal on its own, right? Urgent Care insisted on x-rays which I allowed in order to validate my nose break and vindicate my diagnosis. I left Urgent Care unvindicated with diagnosis unvalidated. The x-rays came back completely negative for a break.

Head being hard enough to avoid a broken nose = Ball One.

For readers scoring along at home, that makes it One Ball & Two Strikes.

However, me being 100% wrong about breaking my nose = Strike Three.

Three Strikes and I am out, as will be my stitches from my unbroken nose in a day or two.