It's often said that one of the most important parts about playing the outfield is staying on one's toes. After all, you never know when a fly ball, line drive or a cement truck might suddenly come right into your path.
Wait, hold that. Cement truck? Believe it or not, that's precisely what was running across an outfield in New Braunfels, Texas, where an enormous truck was involved in an accident on a nearby highway and was forced directly onto the local high school's baseball field. The truck drove directly across the entire outfield in the process. The unexpected field entrance even forced one high school outfielder to rush out of the way to keep from being run over. You can see more photos of the accident scene here.
As reported by the San Antonio Express-News and New Braunfels' KNGB-AM radio, New Braunfels (Texas) High's Monday baseball practice was interrupted when a cement truck tore through the school's right-field fence just before 5 p.m. The truck, driven by an unidentified 51-year-old man, was reportedly trying to merge into traffic on a nearby highway when it struck a Ford pickup truck which was stopped at a yield sign.
With the truck careening out of control, it broke through the school's right-field fence and rushed all the way across the outfield, eventually exiting through the left-field wall. According to New Braunfels baseball coach Doug Edwards, Unicorns outfielder Mark Zuniga was actually directly in the path of the out-of-control vehicle but was alert enough to see it enter the field and correctly judge how to dodge out of its path.
"It's amazing that nobody got hurt," Edwards told the Express-News. "The whole thing happened so fast, and luckily Zuniga ran the right way out of the way."
The driver of the cement truck and two other passengers in the vehicle were taken to an area hospital for the treatment of minor injuries, though there were no reports of serious damage done to any victims in the crash.
Incredibly, New Braunfels officials had the holes in both fences patched up in time to play Tuesday's scheduled game against San Marcos, though they might wish they hadn't done so in time; the San Marcos matchup proved to be the Unicorns' first district loss of the season, 7-3.
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