My Life

To be given the chance to play little league was one of the greatest times of

my life. I played little league for four years, and every year I made the all-star

team. My best friend and I played on every regular season team and every

all-star team together. The final game of our career was unforgettable.

It had been 4 years of great enjoyment with my best friend, Cody Smith. We

always clowned around in practice, but when the game would start we had a

high intensity. Cody would pitch, and I would play second base. When he

wasn't pitching, I would, and he would play third base. We were the top

players in little league, or so we thought.

Our all-star team had made it to the championship of our state tournament.

Before our team took the field our coach John Zamouski gave us a talk. He

said, "Well men, we've came a long way. Today's the day we've all

practiced so hard for, but I want to have fun with it. Lets treat this like every

other game we have won. You're all winners, win or lose. I want you all to

know that I feel privileged to have coached such a fine bunch of men. So lets

go out and play this game as hard as you can. What do you say, lets go have

FUN." We all got up and yelled, "YEA." "Let's play hard." "Yea" As we all

got more pumped up. "Who are we?" "N.I." As we got more loud and more

intense. Coach said, "Bring it in. Win on 3. One, two, three" as we all yelled

together "WIN."

As I ran on to that field I recalled all the practicing I had done, and I knew I

owed most of it to my father. He started me throwing and hitting when I was

about four-years-old. As my passion grew more and more I wanted to go

practice all the time. So I would ask my father to practice with me. Even

though my father was tired or in the middle of a good TV show he would

practice with me. I remembered my father sitting on an old milk crate while I

pitched to him. This made me chuckle a little because I would throw a low

wild pitch on accident that would hit him in the legs, but he kept positive.

Cody was pitching a 3 hitter 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 no one on base and