The brace on my left hand works OK, but the story that goes with it needs help.

A man will accept, even welcome, a mild to medium maiming as long as the attached tale is reasonably heroic. The prime example of this truth is that scene in "Jaws'' where Quint and Hooper, out in the shark boat, boozily pull back their shirts and pant legs to reveal scars left by fierce creatures of land and sea.

I'm the third man on that boat, Brody, standing sheepishly aside with nothing but a wimpy surgical scar.

I fractured a bone a week ago in a spirited game of kick-the-can.

Yeah, that's right, the game your little niece plays -- you got a problem with that?

My wife revived this advanced version of tag on our block, and we now have some of the finest kick-the-can players in the known world. Our two daughters and a couple of neighbor kids talked us into joining them after supper a week ago Friday. So I went out to "spend quality time,'' as so many books have conned modern dads to do.

The way this game works is someone puts a foot on a coffee can and counts to 30. Everyone else hides. At the count of 30, the can person begins hunting. If he or she spots someone and can get back to the can and shout the name before the other player kicks it, that player is out until another player kicks the can to free everyone.

We put the can in the parking lot of a small office building down the street. My wife was on the can. (That probably could be worded better, but I'm only typing with one good hand.) I'd found a great hiding spot behind a nearby bush. My wife finished counting and moved away from the can.

She was 10 feet away. Fifteen feet. Twenty feet. Thirty.

I seized the moment and bolted from my spot. But the bush was evidently an offshoot of one of those trees from "The Wizard of Oz.'' It reached up a root and tripped me. I went down like the Carolina Hurricanes.

I smashed my left hand beautifully. My wife, a doctor, did the only thing she could: She stepped on the can, putting me out of the game.

If there's a lesson to be learned from all this, kids, it's that the best pre-game meal for kick-the-can does not include the Friday night martini and two glasses of wine. Any dreams I had of going pro are now shot.

I walked back to our house, grabbed some ice cubes, wrapped them in a towel around my throbbing hand, flopped on the couch and flipped on the Pirates game so I'd have the company of other losers.

The next day my wife called a hand specialist. I asked her to tell him I'd punched a guy.

"The guy said Roger Clemens was a better pitcher than Sandy Koufax,'' I told the doctor when I got on the phone. "So I gave him a left."

He indicated that both my hand and my story needed work. He'd see me first thing Tuesday morning, after the long weekend.

I made it through the weekend, including a Memorial Day block party, with ice and Ibuprofin and no further injury. Tuesday morning, I walked down to Allegheny General Hospital. The young X-ray technicians were kind but had never heard of kick-the-can. (Should we blame their parents or the school system?) The X-rays revealed a fracture of my ring finger's metacarpal. I walked to another building and was promptly fitted for a brace.

It has slowed my typing but I'm trying to take it easy, using fewer adverbs.

This is my most embarrassing injury since my late 20s when, helping a roommate move 2,000 classical musical albums, I ruptured a disc in my Bach.

Yeah. I know. It wasn't all that funny in 1984 either.

I need a better story for this mishap. So does Scott Mervis, our pop music critic. He just cracked two ribs screwing in a light bulb, and has spent most of the time since trying to perfect a "How many rock critics does it take to screw in a light bulb?'' joke.

Won't you help? Anyone with a plausibly macho story either of us can use should e-mail me or write to Man Falls Down and Goes Boom, c/o Brian O'Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 34 Blvd. of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

I'm hoping the bone knits quickly. Duck, Duck, Goose season starts Labor Day.