The big game
...ery other game we have won. You’re all winners, win or lose, so lets go have some FUN.” We all got up and yelled, “YEAH.” And as we all got louder, more pumped up, more intense coach said, “Bring it in, win on three. One, two, three” and we all yelled together “WIN WIN WIN.” That was what I respected most about Coach, he knew how important winning was to us, but at the end of the day the fact that we had fun was always more important than the outcome of the game. As I ran on to that field that Saturday, I remembered all the practicing I had done, and I knew I owed most of it to my father. He started me playing when I was about five years old. As my skills grew more and more I wanted to practice all the time. And even if my father was tired or in the middle of a good TV show, he would practice with me. My father was a pitcher in his day, and had a fastball that I couldn’t make contact with until I was about thirteen. It was a regular occurrence for him to knock the lenses clear out of my glasses just during a game of catch. Joe was pitching a like a major leaguer and I was playing well too; the score kept going back and forth. There were a lot of errors because the field was all dirt and felt like concrete, the ball was taking bounces I had never seen before. The final inning came around and we were down by 1 run with 2 outs when I came to bat. There was on one on base, if I got out, we lost the game, plain and simple. My heart pounded as the pitcher pitched the first pitch, it was a fastball ball right down the middle of the plate. I made solid contact and hit a hard grounder into the left center gap for a double. The horrible playing surface that had haunted me all night had finally worked to my advantage. Then Joe came up and got behind 0-2 in the count. I could see the anxiety on his face from my position on second. The next pitch came, I took off for third, Joe swung hard and blasted a home run for us to take the lead by 1. The next batter grounded out to end the inning, but the damage had already been done. We took the field and Joe was still pitching. The ...