A split second can change everything in a person’s life. Just ask Tony Conigliaro.
Signed by the Boston Red Sox at the age of 17, he was called up from the minors at the age of 19, and made his MLB debut on April 16, 1964. A right fielder, he quickly made his mark in baseball at the plate. His first at-bat in his first home game resulted in a home run. His rookie year ended with a batting average of .290 with 24 home runs and 52 RBI in 111 games.
“Conigliaro continued to prove his worth over his first few seasons; although his batting average was never higher than .290, which he hit in his rookie season, the tall, lanky outfielder stroked 24 home runs in his first season and 84 through his first three seasons, winning the home run crown in 1965 with 32 long balls.
“When he became the youngest player to reach 100 home runs in 1967, fans thought Conigliaro would be the catalyst to lead the club to a pennant.”1 This 1967 All Star Game player was headed for MLB greatness. Everything changed for the Conigliaro, though, on August 18, 1967.
Fenway Park was filled with 31,027 fans who had come to watch the California Angels and Boston Red Sox duke it out in a pennant race. It was the bottom of fourth with two outs. Conigliaro was facing Angels’ pitcher Jack Hamilton. “The ball came sailing right toward my chin,” said Conigliaro. “Normally a hitter can jerk his head back a fraction and the ball will buzz by. But this pitch seemed to follow me in. I know I didn’t freeze. I definitely made a move to get out of the way of the ball.”
“To no avail. The ball smashed into Conigliaro’s left cheekbone, dislocating his jaw and damaging the retina in his left eye.
“When the ball was about four feet from my head I knew it would get me. And I knew it would hurt because Hamilton was such a hard thrower,” Conigliaro said. “I was frightened. I threw my hands up in front of my face and saw the ball follow me back and hit me square in the left side of the head. As soon as it crushed into me, it felt as if the ball would go in one side of my head and come out the other; my legs gave way and I went down like a sack of potatoes. Just before everything went dark I saw the ball bounce straight down on home plate. It was the last thing I saw for several days.”
“If it had been two inches higher, he would have been dead,” said the Red Sox team physician, Thomas Tierney…
“I was never knocked out but I wish I had been,” said Conigliaro. “I rolled on the
ground trying to stop the pain in my head with my hands. The impact of the ball made both my eyes slam shut and I felt a tremendous swelling in my mouth. I couldn’t see. I remember thinking, ‘I’m blind, I can’t see.’
“The swelling was so bad inside my mouth that I was worried about breathing,” Conigliaro recalled. “My mouth was filling up fast with fluid—I thought it was blood but it wasn’t. I had only a small opening that I could breathe through, and then the thought started running through my mind: Suppose this thing closes up? I won’t be able to breathe.”2
Conigliaro would return to baseball a year and a half later. He would still hit home runs but he was not the same. By 1971, his eyesight was growing worse, and the Red Sox traded him to the Angels. Mid-season, he retires at the age of 26. In 1975, he tried to make a comeback and was put on the Red Sox roster as a DH. His eyesight was so poor at this point that he only lasted 74 games and finally retired June 12, 1975.
Career plans are shattered. Dreams are crushed. Ambitions are unachievable. Through no fault of his own, things will never be the same. One split second changed it all.
Moses had several of those moments. One second, he is floating in a basket; the next, he is the prince of Egypt.
One second, he is the prince of Egypt; the next, he is a fugitive because he murdered an Egyptian and hid the body.
One second, he is taking care of his father-n-law’s sheep; the next, he is being commissioned by God at the burning bush.
One second, he is the leader of sheep; the next, he is leading over a million Jews as they escape from Egypt.
One second, he is a man looking forward to entering the Promised Land; the next, he finds out that he will not be entering. Numbers 20:7-12 tells the story.
“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, (8) Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. (9) And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him. (10) And Moses 
and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? (11) And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also. (12) And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.”
Imagine being denied entry after all those years! The opportunity is gone in a split second and unlike Conigliaro, this was Moses’ fault.
Every second counts and we must be careful how we spend them. One second is all it takes for everything to change. Is it any wonder Scripture tells us in Ephesians 5:16, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
1https://www.fenwayfanatics.com/player/tony-conigliaro/
2https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/august-18-1967-tony-conigliaros-career-and-life-threatened-by-beaning/
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