ST. LOUIS -- They were strangers when Victor Caratini stepped into the batter's box to face Daniel Poncedeleon during a school-day game at Principal Park in Des Moines, Iowa, last May. What happened next left the Iowa Cubs catcher and the Memphis Redbirds reliever forever connected.
Poncedeleon regretted the pitch as soon as it came out of his hand. What was designed to be a sinker, down and away, instead arrived flat and center-cut. Caratini drove it up the middle. Poncedeleon couldn't lunge out of the way quickly enough, and the ball struck him in the skull.