Sandlot baseball players come from all walks of life, with a proliferation of ragtag teams populated by artists, graphic designers, musicians, service industry workers, city employees, construction workers and teachers. Most are amateurs generally a far cry from the game shape of professional athletes, so it would make sense that minor injuries such as bruises and pulled muscles are just part of the game.
But as the sandlot trend has blossomed from one early San Antonio-based team to seven at last count, much more serious injuries are becoming part of the game.
In March, entrepreneur Mattison Bills of Three Six General butcher shop in San Marcos and player with the Texas Dingers suffered a broken ankle with torn ligaments on a routine slide into home base during a scrimmage. An initial diagnosis left her facing surgery estimated at $20,000-$30,000, a bill she’d have to foot herself having been “between insurances” at the time of the injury.
“I thought this was a safe sport, that’s why I signed up,” she said.
Metal fabricator Alan “Stoopz” Weissling is recovering from his third eye surgery, all to repair significant injuries sustained by taking a curling liner to the eye socket while playing for Los Slowpokes in June. Weissling, 32 years old with a spouse and young child, has already reached the maximum out-of-pocket expense level of $8,000, with more medication, rehabilitation and potential surgeries in the future.
Non-athletes welcome
The decidedly non-athletic Weissling said he barely knew what a home run was when he first started playing. His wife Jeanelle Jean Ruiz had played college softball at Texas A&M International University and expressed interest when the Texas Dingers team was first forming. Weissling would go along to scrimmages just to watch from the sidelines and look after their child, Pecos.
A group of Dingers split off to form Los Slowpokes, and eventually, his friend Keeton Foreman, Ruiz and others on the team persuaded Weissling to participate. “I couldn’t hit anything,” he said, laughing, but “at one point, they were like, ‘You’re on the team, whether you like it or not.”
The game, the low-pressure atmosphere and the community camaraderie got to him. “I still couldn’t hit the ball for quite some time, but I just kind of fell in love with it.”
One fateful day in mid-June, Los Slowpokes were deep into a night game with the Arsenal Abejas, the second of a doubleheader at Pittman-Sullivan Park. Games are often shorter than the standard nine innings, and after the seventh, Weissling thought the game was over. Players wanted to play another inning, though, so he went back out to take his place in low-action right field, “fully not expecting anything to come my way at that point,” he said.
“I kind of mentally checked out already … I really wasn’t paying attention like I should have been,” he said, and as beer is a popular part of the game, he wasn’t “dialed in and sober.”
He said he doesn’t know who hit the ball that would change his life trajectory and has never asked. The high line drive first looked headed toward center field but started curving to right, and he realized it was his ball to catch.
“It went just under the lights where I kind of lost it for a minute,” he said of the “nasty hook,” and “that thing came in in a matter of split seconds.”
He heard the thunk and thought he’d caught it. “And then I was like, why am I laying on the ground right now?”
The ball had hit him square in the left eye, breaking his orbital bone and causing a dire condition called orbital compartment syndrome, an immediate medical emergency that if not dealt with quickly can result in blindness.
Sandlot fan and unofficial team photographer Tanner Freeman hopped into action, drove his pickup truck onto the field and rushed Weissling and Ruiz to a nearby clinic.
A scary hit
The clinic doctor suggested the injury wasn’t serious and said that the CT scanner wasn’t functioning so no medical services would be performed, and that Freeman should take Weissling to a hospital emergency room, but that there was no need to rush.
The Brooke Army Medical Center doctor who would later treat Weissling was flabbergasted that the clinic doctor failed to recognize how dire the situation was. She put him under immediate close observation, continually measuring pressure in the eye to see whether it would relax or surgery would be required.
A measurement near the highest end of the spectrum would send him into surgery that night.
After a successful canthotomy procedure to relieve pressure inside the eye socket, Weissling was told he would need to return in a few weeks to have the reverse procedure done to restore muscle and tissues around the eye, but a complication arose later and another surgery was needed to insert a stent into the eyeball to allow for fluid drainage when the interior pressure gets too high. The stent is now a permanent feature of Weissling’s left eye.
Ruiz saw the whole thing, from the crack of the bat to the impact on his eye. She rushed from her shortstop position and knew right away the injury was more serious than most.
“It was scary,” she said, and it reminded her of a similar incident during an early Dingers scrimmage when an outfielder lost sight of a fly ball and it cracked his forehead, resulting in an injury that also required surgery.
Though a signature feature of the sandlot baseball ethic is accessibility to all, Ruiz said the mix of experienced athletes like her with non-athletes like her husband can open the door to serious injuries.
“I recognize how dangerous of a sport it is,” she said, though athletes are trained to avoid injury. “I’ve been seeing and hearing more in my short time playing sandlot than I have with my long career playing softball.”
Rallying support
The sandlot community has rallied support after each serious injury. A friend of Bills’ started a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $5,000 to help her with medical bills. The price of surgery came in at $15,000, and she’s on a payment plan to lessen the impact of the cost.
To raise funds for the Weissling family, the San Antonio Sandlot Association had a T-shirt sale and Headquarters Salon is holding a gift card raffle. Freeman held a smash burger plate sale fundraiser at the Arsenal Church the week after Weissling’s injury and is organizing a Tacos and Tackle Garage Sale on Sept. 16.
“We have a great community around us,” Ruiz said. “Everybody came together to help a friend out.”
The money raised has been enough to cover Weissling’s initial medical costs and help support the family. But he faces the uncertain prospect of a career change as he is no longer able to work as a metal fabricator, with welding and heavy lifting far too risky for his eye.
“It’s a huge shift for me,” he said. “Because not only am I dealing with an injury, it’s like what am I gonna do for the future?”
Despite their setbacks, both Bills and Weissling say they’d like to take to the field again once they recover.
Bills has already participated in some practices, hitting while someone runs bases for her. “It’s good to get back out there but it’s not a priority,” she said, now focused on her recently-opened Howdy Child barbecue restaurant in the Pearl Food Hall.
Asked if his sandlot career is over, Weissling said, “I want to say no. … I really enjoyed it. So I’m hoping that I can keep playing. I will do so with very good eye protection.”
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