Mattball: A Short Story

I have loved baseball for years, but by the time I was a freshman at Laurel High School, I had precious little experience. The chances of me playing baseball in most high schools were slim, but this was Laurel. America’s favorite pastime was treated there as a vestige of years long forgotten. The athletic director ignored us, the students didn’t support us, and the school funded us just enough to say that they had a baseball program. Tucked away in a forgotten corner of the campus in the gloomy shadows of the tower from which football games were announced, the baseball diamond was the school’s disgrace. The dugouts were dismal cinder block bunkers with peeling paint and a propensity to flood. Grass was scarce where it was supposed to be and

I grew up in a family of baseball players. My grandpa was the first to really get into then it passed on from my dad to me. Growing up I was always practicing or playing baseball. My father and grandfather taught me the basics and it was almost a new way of socialization. Having to learn baseball was like learning a new language. Playing baseball when I was young started as just fun. Starting at the age of 5 I never did much playing. I more so stood in the field and kicked dirt around.

Gary Soto is a very shrewd American poet, novelist, and memoirist. Being a Mexican-American, Soto emphasizes latino culture in his writings. He also uses his experiences from living in the barrios of central California to create conflicts and characters.

It was a nice and sunny day, with birds chirping and the smell of freshly cut grass. I felt the leather on my baseball glove and the delicious taste of cereal. I’m ready to play some baseball.

The development of baseball solidified the significance of organized team sport in American culture beginning in 1845. While baseball was originally played solely by amateurs, on oddly shaped fields, and with not an incredible amount of action outside of the infield, baseball encompassed the reasons behind the importance of organized team sport. Not only do team sports encourage self-government, they also unite the community through

Many people don't understand the point in playing baseball. Why would someone swing a stick, hit a ball, and try to get back to where they started before the ball returns? What pleasure is there in that? Why not participate in a sport like wrestling or track where there is an obvious level of individual improvement and therefore pleasure. Well, I play baseball because of the love I have for the sport, and because of the feeling that overwhelms me every time I walk onto a baseball field. When I walk onto a field I am given the desire to better myself not only as an athlete, but also as a person. The thoughts and feelings I get drive me to work hard towards my goals and to be a better person. The most relevant

I am reading ,The end of Baseball by, Peter Schilling Jr. The book is about what would people do with out baseball.

Lights blaring into my eyes, the crack of the bat, the shouting of the overly-devoted parents, the salty aroma arising off of the freshly roasted peanuts, all came together to create the overwhelming presence of a little league baseball game. This was a place where I spent most of my time on week day afternoons, in the spring, watching my brother succeed at America’s pastime. He was really quite good at this sport called baseball; he had just been granted the position of starting pitcher for the team. Sometimes things that have occurred in my life, and stuff I have received, that I may not have necessarily deserve, can be taken for granted. However, after what was about to take place my eyes are given a new perspective.

During my grade first year in high school I was quite shy and only had friends that I had known from elementary school and through baseball academy. The year was going decent until just after my birthday in the spring, when I started to get random stomach pains. They started off as just an aching pain but slowly with time became more serious and painful, almost as if you were getting stabbed with a knife. As the pains got worse I started missing school in order to try and recover from what I thought at the time was just a stomach flu. After my first couple weeks off school my parents had a suspicion that maybe this was something worse than a stomach flu so they took me to go see a general practitioner. After the GP did some tests, she wasn’t quite sure what was wrong so she referred me to a local Pediatrician. Again, after seeing the pediatrician and having some tests done there was still no diagnosis for what could be causing the pain. The most plausible explanation was that I must have had bacteria in my intestines that isn’t usually supposed to be there, and because

I am currently a senior at Weslaco East High School I was a third grader when baseball had caught my interest, baseball will always have a gigantic impact on my life, because I have met most of my friends through the game ,and I consider them family and my friends fathers, including mine all use to play when they were our age so it basically brought us closer, because we all had something in common. I was originally born in Orlando, Florida, but both my parents decided to come to a very small city called Weslaco, which is in the Rio Grande Valley which can be located in Texas. Weslaco isn’t the biggest City in the world, but this city has made me who I am today and because of this city I have met so many of my friends and family. I have made powerful memories here with the

I heard the Mavericks ball kid team is the best in the NBA, and I would like to be apart of that team. Being a ball kid would be amazing, incredible, and a fascinating person to be! Especially since we get to serve the fans and assist the Mavericks staff! There are many reasons why I would like to become a ball kid and qualities I possess that would make me a good one!

On that first Saturday in June 2012, my teammates and I fulfilled our life-long goals of winning a state championship together and proving to the people that did not believe in us that we could do it. On that day, those fifteen guys I had grown up through grade school with were no longer just teammates and friends, they became brothers to me. Another reason Huntington Park is so special to me is because I was the final pitcher in both championships, meaning I had the ball in my hand when the game was on the line. Standing on the mound in front of ten thousand people with all eyes looking at you is a nerve racking feeling but there was no better feeling then being the guy that our coach trusted to bring home the trophy for our team. Lastly, this baseball stadium known as Huntington Park is so special to me because after receiving that trophy and medal for winning the championship I also received my high school diploma at home plate because our team missed the graduation ceremony. There are not many people in the world that can say they received their high school diploma on the same field they won a state championship. Huntington Park may not be a special place for anyone else but it will always be a special place for my teammates and myself. Those two days our dreams became realities and that is something we will all look back and cherish forever. Whether it’s passing by the stadium in my car or attending a Columbus Clippers game during the summer time, any time I find myself back at Huntington Park I still get the chills from knowing I played on that

“Not everyone is going to see or accept you for who you are, and you have to accept that.” I was told this quote everyday by my mother. Today was no different, walking up to the raked field, quote on my mind , eyes on the fresh red clay, and the sound of my metal cleats against the concrete. I was ready for this day. After months of hard work from November to February , the tryouts for Central softball team were over. Over the span of four months, I pushed myself harder than I ever thought I could, but what I did never seemed to be enough for the team.

It had been an unbelievable season so far, we were going into the championship game of junior league with only two losses. Of course, the only other team with a better record than us was the black team. We gave them their only loss on the second game of the regular season. Now, after defeating the better of the Mosinee teams in the semi finals, my dad, who was also the coach of our blue team, had stopped to watch the rest of the game between black and red.

Generations and generations of this game I so dearly love, practicing day and night to better myself and my ability. Watching hours and hours of games with my father, memories I will hold very dear to myself. Watching his favorite game that dates back to 1988 when his team won it all. Back to me, playing with my brothers of blood and other on many different of these ball parks; fields in the country feeling of Ontario, or the green desert of Banning, the beautiful city of Palm Springs, the high desert of Yucca Valley and more. The most important is our home diamond, Desert Hot Springs.