Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Each softball I hurled at the wall slapped the ‘X’ that I had carefully drawn in chalk. It wasn’t ideal, but official practice had ended a while ago--all the other players long gone, and the gate to the field locked. I needed all the extra practice I could get. Testing was in only a month. The last couple of years, I had made starting pitcher pretty easily, even beating out some of the older kids. But this year…
“HEY!”
I jumped and spun around, the ball I was about to throw dropping to the ground. Standing behind me was Zoe, number 4, catcher, and best friend in the world--except when she seemed annoyed. Like now.
“Why are you still here?” I cowered and tried to get away, but she grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged
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“Even if you really want the position, overworking yourself is going to get you nowhere. It’s been more than two hours since practice ended. Go home.” With that, Zoe turned on her heel and strode out.
Me, I just watched her, dumbfounded. Then I looked between my bag, the softball on the ground, and the white ‘X’ on the wall, until I finally picked up the softball and started throwing it again.
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Five hours later, at home, I still couldn’t get the innocent smile and light voice that belonged to Rachel Green out of my head. She was the one person who could jeopardize all the work I had put into softball the last half-decade.
Ten years old (three years younger than me), brand-new to the league, and considered a softball genius--the most important detail about Rachel was that she was also a contender for starting pitcher. I hated it--I had worked relentlessly for every scrap of talent I could get, and here was someone who had it naturally. But I had discovered, if you really want something, you just have to work harder than everyone else to get it.
After walking onto the field at seven years old, I found my passion, my strength, and my world. Softball has been in my life for the past ten years, and I intend to play in college if I’m given the opportunity, nevertheless, I am going to fight to play. Playing softball has changed my life; I do not know where I would be without it. It has given me the best experiences in life, and I have made long term friends while playing. I hit my first homerun at 12 years old, and have been a power hitter ever since.
Imagine standing on a softball field expected to perform at the age of 5. Even though the butterflies in my stomach were starting a war, nothing was going to stop me from stepping on that field to play my first tee ball game as a Little Tiger. Fans cheered, but what I noticed most was a little boy in the outfield picking his nose. Standing in the box, I was terrified; the field looked huge. I had never seen anything like this before, but I knew that the little boy was the person I needed to hit the ball to, so I hit the ball as hard as I could. The ball went soaring through the air like a bird on fire. Dropping from the air, it rolled to the fence. At that time, I knew I had fallen in love with the game of softball. I was smiling from ear to ear, I couldn’t believe I had hit the ball that far! Both sides screamed, yelled, and shouted with excitement. Was all this commotion for me? I rounded first, but I couldn’t go to second because my teammate, Kylie Leach, didn’t run. I didn’t know what she was doing. Sadly, the batter after me hit a ground ball to the pitcher, and the other team threw him out at first.
Mattie is on the 9th grade softball team. She plays very well as an out-fielder and a sub for any position, but pitcher and catcher of course. Mattie knows all the positions and how they work, so that’s why she has the skills to play all of the positions. She kindly volunteers to pinch run for the catcher and pitchers quite often. Mattie runs as fast as she possibly can for the pitcher and catcher, because she knows how hard they’ve worked the entire game
The coaches on the other team and all the parents and teams were watching and I got that girl out before she even got to first base and we won the game! I got two outs and the crowd cheered then we got a medal and it said for the best 6th and 5th grade softball players throughout Wisconsin #1 place, but the sad thing was we weren’t going to have the same players on the team next year and it was the last game we would ever played with each other.
When I was playing travel softball for Angels Fastpitch in my second year of ten and under softball, this memoir began. My coach would not play me much because he said I was not good enough, he said I could not catch. He said many other things all were horrible. The emotions that came
Next year I will be attending Eastern Illinois to play softball and have to fight for a spot on the field since I will only going to be a freshman. Harper drove himself to be better and he did not stop until he reached his goal of playing in the MLB. Much like him, I am also going to have to work incredibly hard to be able to get onto the field. I have found such a deep passion for this game and when Harper said, “Love the things you are good at,” it hit home for me. I have been playing softball since I was about five or six and have also put in my fair share of time into this game.
Soon, her parents decided that it was time to join a competitive team. She was invited to join a powerhouse, but it was not the right fit for her. Jennie states, “Eventually, I joined a powerhouse travel ball team called the Firecrackers, but every time my turn would come up to pitch in a tournament championship game. The coach always found an excuse not to pitch me. Over and over again, he’d pitch his daughter or some other girl, but never me” ( Finch 3).
This was it. The Aviano Softball team of 2015 has worked so hard during the season and were on their way to the championship game. I along was part of the team for the past three years, and I’ve seen how we have grown from underdogs to the next powerhouse of Division II. During the first day, we mercy ruled AFNORTH and Ansbach. The second day arrived to determine where we would be in the semifinals, and we won against Hohenfels. The next morning was competitive; the final game was nerve wracking but it was all worth it in the end.
Foremost, being a pitcher made me realize how important it is to have a short-term memory. When I was on the mound, I knew that the result of the previous batter had no bearing on what the next batter would do. For example, when I gave up a big hit, before the next batter came to the plate, I had to forget about what just happened. In softball, it is important to not dwell on the negatives, but learn from them. Because of pitching, I know yesterday’s failures can turn into tomorrow’s successes. I plan to have the same attitude in the legal field when obstacles come my way.
Hard work never goes un-noticed, and although I did improve, I had acquired the label of ‘outfielder’. The position that wasn’t home to me, but I was forced to recognize as my spot on the field. My first year of Varsity softball arrived and I made it clear infield is where I wanted to be, but my coach’s confidence in me continued to lack to match the level of mine, along with the fact the returning third basemen was a veteran. And the outfield is where I was sent, yet again.
She is the player who shows up early to practice and stays late to put in some extra batting practice. These actions have encouraged me as well as other teammates to work harder and had made us realize that one of the ways to make the team better is to individually make yourself better. Lastly, I have never met anyone who honors the game of softball more than Lauryn Banks. This year was my final season of softball. Our last game was a heartbreaking loss third round of playoffs. After the game, I was overwhelmed with emotions. The rest of my team was consumed with themselves, but not Lauryn. Lauryn came to me and embraced me while I cried. In this moment, I realized that Lauryn embodies what it means to be a teammate. She cares about her teammates more than for their batting average or how many errors they have made. She cares about them for them and the actual person they are. I feel this is a quality that will carry Lauryn far in her life. There is no better way of honoring the game than taking the lessons learned and applying them to their future
I was so focused on making the catch that I never said anything to the other girl racing to the ball, and as I leapt forward to catch the ball before it hit the ground, my face crashed right into the other girl's shoulder smashing my nose in the process. This was the most painful injury I ever sustained in softball, but it taught me that communication is a key skill to all aspects of
My breakfast started to creep back up my throat as game time got closer and closer. I walked across the patch of grass behind home plate and was towered over by the 30 foot backstop with a huge net suspended from it. My bulging bag of equipment was beginning to make my shoulder hang. I walked down the steps into the cement dugout and placed my bag under the bench that spanned the entire length of the dugout. I sat down, laced up my cleats, and put my warm-up jacket on in preparation for batting practice. I stepped onto the grass surrounding the dugout to get the feeling of how wet the grass was. I dug my cleats into the grass and began my usual routine of taking certain practice swings as I gazed upon the press box in the wake of the backstop. Preceding the burn in my forearms, caused from the practice swings, I marched behind the dugout to the rows of batting cages to wait my turn in line. Pacing back and forth I knew I had to keep my nervousness to a minimum. I popped in a wad of Big League Chew and continued to
Softball isn’t all smiles and winning. Sometimes things could almost get sweet. For instance, we were the first team to ever beat Gladstone. I remember it was the second game of the season and we were playing at the dome. I remember Zeke punching the air, “Hell yeah! That’s what I want to see!” and telling us we didn’t have to clean up the equipment because we had won. We went home on a high, so incredibly proud to be on that team.
Softball is a sport that is known throughout the United States and the world. Softball originated on Thanksgiving Day in Chicago in 1887. The game was actually said to have begun as an indoor game. Softball was started by a group of men who had gathered at a club to watch the Harvard vs. Yale football game. When the news came that Yale had defeated Harvard, 17-8, one Yale supporter, overcome with enthusiasm, picked up an old boxing glove and threw it at a nearby Harvard alumni, who promptly tried to hit it back with a stick. This gave George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, an idea. He suggested a game of indoor baseball. Naturally, Hancock's friends thought he was talking about playing a game outdoors, not indoors.