[SAump]

I saw an umpire go down immediately after getting hit in the jewels. He was wearing a cup at the time. I'm no investigative reporter but I figured the ball hit the cup, and the back edge of the cup smashed into one side of his testicles. From his painful reaction, I imagined the cup probably saved his life. I was shocked to find out what really happened. Go figure. The ball hit him squarely in the middle of the cup and the hard plastic cup collapsed. The plastic cup wasn't hard enough to protect him from "serious" injury. For a short period of time, he carried the cup around to show everybody who asked about his health the damage to his cup. There were 2 stress fractures near those small air vent holes. Those were the weak points. The cup actually worked up to its maximum limit. The injury was unavoidable and reminds me of the legal statement found on the inside of MLB batting helmets.

FWIW, I wear a cup on the bases. I don't feel the need to run miscellaneous errands between ball games and I don't believe it is right to reach in to extract a cup in front of the public. The new banana cups are more comfortable than the older solid plastic cups and offer no more inconvenience around my XXL bigass than the tight XL jock. I guess I am too manly to go change out of my jock before the next game.

Did I tell you the story of the guy who forgot his cup and wanted to borrow mine?