Maya Angelou's "champion of the World"

Maya Angelou's "Champion of the World"

My Big Game

It was pre-game warm-ups and everyone on my team was excited and ready to play our long time rivals the Everett Crimson Tide. It was great day to play baseball, sunny and hardly any wind. There were already tons of eager and excited fans sitting in the stands waiting for the game to begin. As game time approached all us athletes started to become impatient, it seemed like time was taking forever to hit 3:30, the time at which the game would begin.

At about 3:10 the coach read off the starting lineup and told me that I was on the mound today. When those words came out of his mouth, I was stunned. It made me feel really good about myself; knowing that the coach had enough faith in me to pitch against one of the best teams in our division. Right after he told me I ran to the bullpen faster than ever before and stood there till the catcher put his equipment on and was ready to warm me up. Holding that ball in my hand had never felt so good. It made me feel as if I were the king of the world and nobody was greater.

After warming up I ran to the mound to get the game going. As I reached the mound I was greeted by all of the infielders on my team. They all wished me good luck and reassured me that they would do everything in their power to limit the amount of errors in the field and provide me with a decent amount of run support . At the same time the fielders ran back to their positions the home plate umpire screamed out, "let's play ball". The fans rooting for us were going wild, all you can hear were chants of "lets go Somerville" and "strike him out, he got nothing". Staring at home plate, my catcher threw down the signal for a fastball. I nodded my head yes to indicate that a fastball was what I was going to throw. The first pitch I threw was a beauty, right down the middle for a called strike. It felt great, knowing that every pitch I threw no matter if it was a ball or a strike, I would always get cheered and rooted for. The first inning was great for me, striking out the first batter, getting the second one to hit a high pop fly to the second basemen, and then striking out the third batter of the inning. When we came running in from the field I was met by the coach at the top of the dugout stairs with open arms and tons of good things said about my pitching performance so far.

Now it was our turn to get up. I went over and looked at the batting order and there I was batting fourth, the clean up hitter. At the same time I was both happy and scared of batting fourth in the lineup. I was happy because I knew my coach had faith that I could come through with a clutch hit when needed, but also afraid because again all the pressure was put on me. The first inning for us was as boring as the first inning for opponent, it was a 1,2,3 inning. The whole game was going to be a pitchers duel. Both the pitcher for the Crimson Tide and I pitched a tremendous game only allowing a combined total of eight hits.

The score was held steady at zero the entire game until we got up in the bottom of the sixth inning in which our first and second batters battled to each get back to back singles. But the next two batters got out which left us with men on first and second with two outs and me at the plate. I felt extremely nervous, so nervous that I could not hold the bat in my hands because I was shaking and sweating so much. When I stepped up to the plate my heart