My Baseball Experiences

It was my first time playing baseball; I hadn’t even tried this sport outside of teams at school. Astonishingly, never had I watched someone play nor had I even touched a baseball before. Everything was new to me. It was very frustrating. Here and there, I heard people shouting at each other about something I did not get and they kept demanding that I do this and that… It wasn’t a pleasant sport, from my perspective. It is not a great sport to start with, especially when you don’t know anything about it, aside from the fact that there is a base and a ball. My first baseball game happened around two years ago when I couldn’t speak English at all. I knew “yes” and “no”, but that was about as far as I could go; beyond those two words, BAM! I got lost and my head blanked out. This was a rough year. Not only was English a problem through school, but this baseball season in addition just blew me away. Everything came to be a struggle in every way.

The very first game I ever played is something that I wish I could erase from my memories. It started off as a beautiful day with extraordinary weather. I looked in the mirror once, then twice. I chowed down on my sandwich with my mind filled with the most wonderful thoughts on the first baseball game that I was going to have in an hour. No, it was going to be bad and when I mean bad, I mean really bad.  Of utmost importance, I skipped most of the practices so I don’t really know what is going on around my team. I had other things to do better than swinging bats all day; it’s just a complete waste of time. I was forced to do this baseball camp. No opinions were taken from me. I arrived to the field and everyone was gathered around a sheet of paper. I joined them with curiosity, only to find myself the twelfth on the page. It was the batting list. There were only twelve players, which left me as the last batter and this really hurt me because this meant that I was the worst on the team. I knew I was new to Canada, but I thought I would at least outrank a few careless people. After a glimpse at the batting order, I strolled near the paper that listed everyone’s positions. The coach was assigning the positions, and he was on the last role. As he was looking at the leftover players, I prayed he wouldn’t pick me to embarrass myself out on the baseball field. Happily, things went the way I wanted them to.

I ended up as the “bench warmer” as everyone calls it. My job was to sit there and warm the bench for my teammates, while cheering each one of them up. After a period of time that felt like an eternity, I was up to bat. My mom was out on the far side, shouting out my name repeatedly as I came closer to the home plate. Honestly, it was very embarrassing, hearing my mom scream with glee while everyone else was dead silent. I could even hear the background noise of laughter that came from my teammates and as I was thinking about this and that, the umpire hollered, “STRIKE ONE!” What? I wasn’t even ready. I could hear my coach yelling at me to look straight at the ball and concentrate. “Man, when will he ever stop telling me the stuff I already know?” Then again, the ball swished over the plate and the umpire shouted, “STRIKE TWO!” I saw my coach with his old hands over his face, frustrated from my lack of attention. At last, he looked at me in the eyes and stammered to just hit the ball, with a forced smile. I didn’t care less. He was always this way; mean and cheap.

Anyhow, I couldn’t get struck out this time, because my mom was there always cheering me up and whenever I was up to bat, all she ever saw was either a strike out or a hit directly in my face by a baseball. I got out of my Simon Says mode and focused on the ball. I glared at the pitcher and grabbed my grip tight. I saw the pitcher let go of the ball and without much thought, I swung the bat as hard as I could, with my eyes completely shut. I was expecting something to hit my bat and it did! I was ever so thrilled, until I noticed that it wasn’t the ball I hit, but the catcher’s glove. The catcher was shrieking with pain and I got down on my knees to try to help him out, but the coach told me to go back in the dugout. I tossed the bat into the air, indicating my disappointment, and trampled back. How did the bat ever hit him? It just seemed impossible from my point of view.  A while later, when everything was settled a bit, I was back in the role of warming the bench, watching my teammates play.

            First experiences weren’t so friendly in most of my childhood. Baseball was a huge challenge that gave me a harsh time, but now, I can live with it; I can throw, I can bat, and I can catch, which really are the only main skills one must master in baseball.