Personal Narrative: My High School Baseball Team

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run”(Babe Ruth). I was wondering how much baseball really affected my life and the choices I make. The answer is a lot, and it still continues to leave a mark on this life I love. Over the many years of my involvement in the game I have learned that life is full of ups and downs. Baseball teaches people to bounce back from negatives, this I believe.

Every year I play for a baseball team but for some reason this season was more special than all the other years that I have played. My team was full of all different kinds of people like kids who took the game to serious, kids who were really funny, kids who were really shy, and many other people, also there was my coach, he was a good guy but he really serious about the game and if you did something bad he would get really heated. My team was really good that we made the state tournament with other really good teams. We played really hard and the tournament was two game elimination, and we only lost one game. After working really hard we made the championship game.

I step up to the plate. The hot lights of the Mets stadium hit my face. Clayton Kershaw was pitching. He is the best pitcher in the MLB. The pitch comes. It was a slow hanging curveball right over the middle. I swing will all my might. I hear the crack of the bat and I see the ball fly over the fence. I trot around the bases and I am approaching home plate. I step on home then I wake up.

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.

That morning I woke up on the second week of summer, ready for my championship baseball game against Portsmouth. Our U11 all star team sat in second place in the tournament going into the championship against the number one seed Portsmouth Eagles. The whole day leading to the game, all I could think about was the game, not even the amazing apple pie my mom made because my sister begged for it.

I’m sure you’ve been told persistence is key, and believe that you can do something, not that you can’t. Well I’m not going to show it to you, or tell you, I’m going to prove it to you. The summer after 4th grade year, our baseball team had the greatest summer ever. At the beginning of the season since their was so many kids at our age group that wanted to play, the adults in charge had to split it up into 3 teams. All 3 teams had fair or average seasons. My team had the best of the 3, but it wasn’t quite good enough. We had had, just enough success, not as much as we would have liked. We found ourselves barely sneaking into the tournament as the worst out of 8 seeded teams. We had to play against the undefeated Watertown team in the first round. We were told we had no chance to win, and we believed that too. The most I’ve ever been wrong in my life was saying, “we have no chance to beat them.”

As my Varsity baseball team suits up for practice we whip out our “Easton Mako Bats” and our “Evo-Shield arm sleeves.” Everyone prepares for the season as we break in our new 200-dollar gloves. As I Un-zip my “Demarani Bat Bag” I search for the stick of eye black that seems to add spice to my game as I smother it under my eye, to “reflect the sun” of course. Our accessories become a part of our game, and we begin to value them more than the game itself.

All the emotions started sinking in as we started to cry with joy. After all the crying, we went to say “good game” for sportsmanship and returned to the mound to complete a bet. We bet Coach Cadena that if we went undefeated for the whole season, the team got to dogpile on him. And we did. All of us returned to the dugout with all of our families and the baseball team congratulating us. Seeing my fathers’ face with a huge smile made me feel so great he got to see me play with four single hits and no outs. I made a contribution to the game that I was awarded second region team. During the end of the awards ceremony, when we hold the championship plaque, all of us had the biggest smiles on our faces and returned home with

So what made baseball be the event that made me who I am today. Well I’m about to tell you. First it was the very first baseball game I played, then it was the first game I won, after that it was the first tournament I won, last it was the first World Series I won.

As the crowd boos, you hear the New York Yankee commentator say “coming up to bat after a long year of suspension it’s the third basemen for the New York Yankees, Alex Rodriguez”. I grew up in awe watching great Yankee third basemen Alex Rodriguez. I remember playing baseball and trying to do everything he did, like how he chewed his gum, and how he wore his baseball socks. I would also imitate his batting stance as played. But all of a sudden the player I once looked up to tested positive for steroids.

“Heyboer, you’re at first. Head on out there.” As my coach said that, my nerves started rushing up my back. I was at Bicentennial park with my dad and my softball team for our last softball game of the summer. I was so nervous. Tension grew and my heart was about to burst out of my chest.

My two closest friends in the baseball community have known about a struggle I've had for some time now. I've been wondering for sometime now, what would life be like without baseball. So, baseball and I are ending our 25 year relationship so I can spend more time with my daughter and traveling a lot more. I was blessed to coach Chris Tomkins, Mitchell David Crimmins, Brady Breitbach, John Thill, Jeremy Vaassen, Brett Bortscheller, Dan Millius, and Nickolas Kutsch for their entire high school career and wanted to go along an incredible ride with them. When they were sophomores we set a goal to make it to the state tournament when they played varsity. Not only did we make it to state, but we started off the season 19-0, ranked number 1 the

A young kid growing up with a burning desire to be a great ball player. My greatest love of things has always been baseball. Baseball taught me determination. Baseball taught me the greatness of having a hard work ethic. Discipline, manners, and staying positive all shaped from baseball. It is greater than just a game. Without baseball I don't believe I would be who I am today.

The smell of fresh cut grass and sunflower seed it was the smell of the best baseball season. I am going to Des Moines for the state tournament and you had to play for two days and we got a hotel and everything.We woke up at 6 because ower game started at 8:00 and we need to warm up to so we went to Des Moines and there were a lot of people and a lot of teams that I had to play them, they were huge and tall and i'm just normal.

Baseball has always been a passion of mine. I remember when I was younger I would eat, sleep, and breathe baseball. I enjoyed the lifestyle that I adapted as a ballplayer. As a shortstop, I was the captian of the infield. The field and the infielders were my responsibility, and I had to make sure everything was in line. Whether it was calling off a pop fly in the infield, reading the runnners to determine if they were going to steal, or calling for a pickoff move, it was always my responsibility to make the right decisions. However, the coaches always made an effort to show that what what you do off the field is what truly matters. They taught me that being a good person and helping others is more important than turning a double play for the