“You find out that life is just a game of inches, so is football. Because, in either game, life or football?the margin for error is so small. I mean?one half step too late or to early?you don't quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast?and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us.” A quote from Al Pacino in “Any Given Sunday”. Baseball is the same, one half step to early or too late you can’t catch it; one half second too slow or too fast you don’t hit the ball. I often can’t get the timing right to them, and my love for baseball is a lot and something special happened.
My love for baseball started when I was growing up. I lived in Alaska, then at the age of seven I moved to Minnesota, thus the introduction to playing baseball. Once I learned the trick of the trade, to catch and hit, I trained… everyday. I got down the timing and my eyes tracked the ball by instinct. So now that the hard part was done, I just loved it. I also love announcing so I would go to my yard and be like “It’s the bottom of the ninth, two outs, the power hitter up, everything’s on the line with this pitch as a three two count. The pitcher is in his windup, and the pitch… the batter hits it, it’s a long fly ball.” all while acting it out. Then make a diving catch play for the out. One problem for me was compared to others, I wasn’t as strong as everyone else I’m still not. I couldn’t throw as hard or hit as far.
The time came when I had to make the decision, whether to keep trying to stay with my grade or not. The time that it just clicked that I’m just wasting my time was when I was in fifth grade a game during the summer I was hitting against a friend of mine. I remember one at-bat I struck out another I hung on for like ten pitches and my last one I hit it, it was a solid hit but it was a grounder to shortstop where I got thrown out. Since then whenever I bat and actually hit it I know that it’s a grounder to the right side so as I’m running to first I’m thinking, “Please please make a error” or “please don’t catch the ball.” Now my fielding is fine besides my throwing and my batting contact is fine, it’s just just I’m not strong enough. Now my decision was that I would quit baseball, now I also decided to talk to the varsity head coach to see if I can be a manager or something like that for the team. It was good timing because his son’s were just getting into the grades where they play during the season so he would lose his managers. We talked about it and went back and forth then he said that I could be the manager when I couldn’t play summer baseball, which was two years until that happened. Now I was just overjoyed that I could still be a part of school baseball.
Now I know everyone in the school… literally my sister doesn’t like walking though the school with me because she doesn’t know most of the people. I’ve been manager for three years now, I’m in ninth grade and I started in seventh grade. I’m also a regular part of the team now. By manager I mean I go to games and all of the practices exactly like I was a player. I think that I inspire the baseball players with my enthusiasm, constant chatter, and positive spirit. When I say constant chatter I mean in the dugout with positive comments for my teammates.
Throughout my life I have expressed my love for baseball in different ways being playing or managing. When I throw it’s just a second or a tenth to late, just like Al Pacino said. With batting though it’s not like that, it’s that I’m just not strong enough. You never now what will happen next but sometimes you can’t let destiny chose. You have to take the driving wheel with your hand and not have the car on autopilot. I say that you need to get out there and do it.