So finally I have something in common with New York Yankees future Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter, sad to say. When this morning's sports pages greeted me with photos of Jeter being helped off the field last night, his left leg dangling at a horrible angle thanks to a broken ankle, I instantly flashed back to the hideous sight of my own broken leg.

I was in Junior High School and I always knew phys ed would get me. It can't be good for your health to be dragged away from classes and books, forced to strip down to shorts, race around a chilly gym and contort oneself with unnatural exercises. Which is why I did everything in my power to be excused from gym class or miss the school day entirely. To show how really terrible phys ed was for my well being, just the prospect gave me stomach aches

But finally my efforts to preserve myself were foiled. I was forced to wrestle a classmate. Is there anything more distasteful than the so-called sport of wrestling? It makes a mockery of one's personal space. It has fancy names for various manoeuvres and holds which really amount to nothing more than rude groping. And why would I ever wrestle? I was so scrawny my weight class would have been Dwarf.

The instructor did have the common sense to pair me with a fellow almost as skinny as myself. We faced off and hesitantly grabbed each others arms, as instructed. Neither one of us, I reckon, was eager to go down to the mat to start rolling and grabbing. So we shuffled our feet, and pushed and pulled a bit.

Then the sole of my sneaker stuck firmly to the rubbery mat while my right leg kept turning, twisting the leg bones.

The bones snapped with the loud crack of a dead branch breaking. The tibia and fibula both broke completely right above the ankle. Luckily my leg went numb instantly. If pain registered for an instant I don't remember. What I remember is sitting on the mat and looking down to see my foot flopped over at right angles to the rest of the leg.

Then I had my fifteen minutes of fame waiting for the ambulance and being carted off on a stretcher while everyone gawked. I smiled and waved. They probably thought I was a Stoic, but of course I felt nothing. For a few months, I got to go around the school ostenatiously on crutches, which made me a very minor celebrity. On the whole, I'd rather have broken my leg playing a postseason baseball game.

Fifty years later I still have a spur on the bone where the break was, but aside from that it never gave me any problems. Bones heal easily and Derek Jeter will, luckily, be fine to play for the Yankees next season. Unfortunately, the team needs him now, trailing by a game, trying to reach the World Series.

I'm a Yankees fan. Derek's broken leg is hurting me right now more than my own did.