Baseball - The Game of Life

        My family and I moved to Homedale, ID right after my Mom remarried in 1978. I was 8 years old at the time. I caught the tail end of my 3rd grade year at Homedale Elementary School. I quickly made some friends at school and at church and was enjoying the small town country living. That summer I tried out for the little league team and, thanks to a life full of playing sports, had no troubles making it. It was kid pitch so I decided to see if I could become a pitcher. Normally I played anywhere they needed me. I was very fast and could catch anything thrown or hit my way so I was often at 3rd base, short stop or center field. At tryouts I learned that I didn't have the strongest arm, but I was by far the most accurate. That was enough to convince the coach that he needed me on the mound.

        Our baseball team that summer that was sponsored by John Deere, which allowed us to have uniforms; John Deere t-shirts and baseball caps.  I loved my John Deere baseball cap. It was dark green plastic mesh around the back of the head and a white pillow-like front with boldly printed John Deere in yellow letters. We provided our own pants, shoes and mitts.  We thought we looked pretty sharp and we thought we had a pretty good team too.
The first game would prove us wrong on both assumptions.  We played the team from Vallivue, which is over near Caldwell.  They came to town sporting uniforms that resembled the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball.  And in my opinion, they played like the Dodgers too.  That was disappointing because that was my favorite Major League team.
       



I was chosen as the starting pitcher and I was nervous and excited at the same time. My family was there to watch and many of my friends on the team were encouraging me on.

        I stepped upon the mound and threw a couple of warm-up pitches. I was feeling good. I think the adrenalin had me throwing a little harder than normal but my control was still good. I liked the sound of the baseball as it smacked into my catcher's mitt.
        I signaled to the umpire that I was good to go and he hollered out that great American phrase, "Play ball!".

        Vallivue sent their first batter to home plate. I eyed him closely and he met my stare hard. I was insanely jealous of how good this kid's uniform looked. I looked down at my worn out Levi's I wore that were slightly too short and exposed a healthy amount of my white tube socks. Beyond that I saw my worn out Pro-Keds that purchased used at a thrift store. I was looking real good. Not.
        I finally gathered myself and threw the first pitch as hard as I could. The sound of my catcher's mitt echoed across the field as the ball slammed into it's sweet spot. Strike one!
        The second pitch also found the sweet spot. Only this time it was the sweet spot of the bat. The ball shot off the bat like a bullet and came straight towards me. I tried to uncoil from my pitch so that I could attempt to catch the ball. It was much to fast however and the ball cracked me right on my left wrist. Pain seared up my left arm.
        I shook my arm and wrist and tried to bare down on the pain. The batter was easily safe at first base. I saw my coach hurry out onto the field towards me. "Are you OK, Horace"? I just shook my head, picked up the ball and handed it to the coach aggressively. He looked at me quizzically. "I don't want to pitch anymore! It's way too close to the batter!"
        He knew I was serious and so he called in the 3rd baseman to pitch and sent me to third.
After a long first half of that inning we finally got them all out.  I remember my first at bat and I swung the bat three times and sat down.  I don’t even know what I was swinging at.  The ball went from pitcher to catcher so fast that I could have closed my eyes while swinging and had just as good of chance to connect with the ball.  My embarrassment didn't last however because, luckily, my entire team had the same offensive prowess as I did and we lost the game 17 – 2.  Our two runs were gimmies in the final inning so I don’t really even count them.
We were pretty embarrassed at our appearance and our performance.  We knew that the uniforms were not going to change so we worked on our performance.  We practiced hard and we slowly got better.  Actually we weren't a bad team to begin with.  We were just way out of our league with Vallivue.  After that first game we went undefeated the rest of the season.
In the league championship game we met the that same Vallivue team again.  They were not only undefeated still but they had been completely unchallenged.  In fact their closest game was the blowout of Homedale in the first game of the season.
They were strutting around in their immaculate duds and as they took the field we noticed that the same dominant pitcher we had faced before was stepping on the mound.  He threw a few warm-up pitches and quickly nodded to the umpire that he was ready.

My friend Ted was our lead-off batter.  He slowly walked up to the plate and crouched down into his stance.  The pitch came like a bullet and Ted held his bat out across the plate and placed the most perfect bunt we had ever seen.  The combination of Ted’s great speed and the confusion and disbelief among our competition allowed him to reach first base easily.  It was all my team needed.
The second batter hit a bloop single that advanced Ted to third.  I batted third and hit a drive down the first base line for a triple.  The fourth batter doubled me home and we had a 3-0 lead with nobody out.  We continued the 1st inning batting through the order.  I hit a double on my second at bat with two out in the inning to give us an 8-0 lead.  It was unbelievable.
Ted and I both finished the game 5 for 5.  I had two triples, a double and two singles.  After laying a 22-1 whipping on Vallivue for the championship I was co-MVP trophy with my friend, Ted. I think Ted should've had it outright because I don’t think we would have done what we did had Ted not laid that bunt down early.

After the game we all headed to the Frosty Palace for burgers and Pink Ladies.  This was our favorite place after a win. We were celebrating not only the win but also for avenging the only loss of the season.  It was awesome and I will never forget my first championship of any activity that I had ever participated in.
         I often think of the life lessons I learned in that baseball season. I learned to never give up when it seems like everything and everyone is against you. Our team, though devastated at the way Vallivue had manhandled us, focused inwardly on ourselves and became even better than that team. I learned that it didn't matter what our team looked like on the outside, we could play like a team and that our skills had nothing to do with our clothes. I learned that winning is not everything. But everything that we did to win taught me all about hard work, setting goals, working with others and overcoming obstacles.
          I feel sorry for the youth of today.  Most of the obstacles are removed from the games that they play. Everyone is a winner. Everyone gets a trophy. Then they grow up and enter the real world and do not know how to cope with failure and struggles. I'm so thankful I had the chance to fail. Those failures have made all the victories that much more enjoyable and sought after.