For all of the "baseball isn't athletic, baseball requires little skill, baseball isn't dangerous," people out there: You're wrong.

You'll never convince me that baseball isn't an incredibly hard sport to play. And you'll never convince me that like golf and tennis, baseball requires an incredible amount of mental toughness.

But it also requires a lot of courage. Especially to be a pitcher.

Sixty feet-six inches is the distance from home plate to the pitchers mound. That distance is the same at age 13 and at age 30.

Grown men throwing the ball upwards of 90 miles per hour, and grown men hitting the ball at speeds of more than 100 MPH.

Every time you step on the mound as a pitcher, you are at risk. You could be hit by a ground ball that's harmless. You could get hit by a soft liner that doesn't hurt. But you're also one pitch away from what happened to Archie Bradley on Tuesday night: Being hit in the face. Don't look if you don't want to see it, or hear the sound of ball on bone.

The ball was clocked off the bat of Carlos Gonzalez at 115 MPH.

I've been hit in the ankle, the foot, the back, the ribs and the chest, but never the face. I had one incredibly close call, in which the hardest ball ever hit off me just happened to find my glove as a total act of self-defense.

Sure, Bartolo Colon doesn't look like a great physical specimen. But every time that guy takes the mound, don't tell me he's not a strong and courageous athlete.

Prayers for Archie Bradley. Prayers for all pitchers.

 

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