Story time!

I was playing softball last summer. Just casual, adult beer league kinda thing. Nothing too intense. But one of the guys on the other team brought his son and asked if he could play. He was probably around 14 or 15. We said sure he can play, just make sure he knows the league rules - specifically no sliding into bases.

But right away we could tell this this kid was taking this far too seriously. On his first at bat, he hits the ball beyond the infield and has a chance at a double. I'm playing second base and it's going to be a close play at the plate. And sure enough he decides to slide full force to try and beat the ball, despite the no sliding rule.

He slides cleats first right into my right foot which was planted on the plate. It was with enough force that it upended me and knocked me over. Forgetting for a moment that this guy was just a kid, I shouted "For fuck's sake!" and stood up to confront him. At which point my ankle sorta gave way and I felt a huge shooting pain on the top of my foot.

The kid's dad ran on and confronted me telling me not to be so aggressive towards his kid. I was still sitting on the ground at this point because my foot hurt a lot.

After that preamble, this is where I get to the point. He said "he's just a kid, and a big, tall guy like you should be able to it". I'm 6'5" so I am tall but why would that factor into how much pain I was in? (for the record, I ended up with a damaged Achilles tendon and two broken metatarsals. So it was legit pain).

But this wasn't the first time I have heard someone tell me that because of my size, that something shouldn't hurt as much. It used to happen to me in school a lot. As far as I know, there is no link between height and pain tolerance. Breaking a bone is breaking a bone regardless of how big and tall you are.

Has anyone else encountered this?