Baseball Season!

I stand on the on-deck circle, stretching and swinging my bat, as my eyes focus on the pitcher. He leans back, kicks his front leg high, and fires the ball at home plate. My eyes track his every movement, as I try to find something useful. This is preparation. My teammate, who was at-bat, hit a single, so I take a deep breath and get into the batter’s box. The pitcher pulls back, and fires. “It’s low,” I tell myself: ball one. Another ball comes: ball two. This is patience. The third pitch comes, and again, I think, “It doesn’t look good.” I was wrong: strike one. I step out of the batter’s box, and when I step in again, I have a new image of the strike zone in my mind. This is adjusting. The fourth pitch comes in almost exactly where the third one did, so I swing at it… “Crack!” my bat thunders as the ball goes flying off it. This is learning from your mistakes. I drop my bat and sprint towards first base, round it, and continue towards second base. I spot the ball in the center fielder’s hands, and I sprint even harder. At the last moment, I slide into second base, a fraction of a second before the shortstop tagged me. This is grit. I stand up, and take a lead, daring the pitcher to try to pick me off. He stares at me hard for a second, and then turns around. This is a willingness to take risks. The batter strikes out a few pitches later. “There are now two people on base with one out,” I think to myself. “I don’t have to run on the next hit.” This is being alert. My teammate taps a slow ground ball to the shortstop. I slowly jog to third base, hoping the shortstop would throw there instead of home plate. The shortstop does just that, and as they chase me between second and third base, my teammate easily scores. I get tagged out, but the run scored. This is sacrifice. I smile to myself, thinking, “This is why I love baseball.” Even with such a normal game, I can learn so much, about life as well as baseball.  Through the sport, I have experienced the significance of life: sacrifice, adversity, failure, success, and much more, because baseball is more than a game: it’s life.