Originally Posted by
Thunder
Wow, it's amazing that we're now on to the last series of the regular season. I remember Opening Day like it was yesterday. I was back in high school, and our team was having our first outdoor practice of the season, after a late March snowstorm postponed the start of the season. We had to take a bus to the field, because the field at our school was still unplayable. It was a nice warm spring day, and it just felt right that baseball should begin again, for me, of course, the last time it would begin. It was the first day of the last season of my playing career, a season in which I would learn so much, and make relationships that I know I will cherish forever. It was the worst team performance wise and record wise that I've ever been a part of, but we played with heart and passion, and we all became the best of friends. We had each other's backs all day long. I will take my three best memories from that season, hell, my three best memories ever playing the game, with me for the rest of my life. There was the game in Hartford, at the home of the Hartford Yard Goats, where everything just seemed like it belonged. The game had been rescheduled from a rain out the week before, but this time around, it was a perfect night, and getting off the bus and walking into the stadium the way the pros do made me feel like a pro myself. There was the game, three days before that game in Hartford, as a matter of fact, where I played the game of my life on defense, diving to make a catch with the bases loaded and two outs in the 1st, saving three runs (as it would've gotten by me), and who knows how many more if the inning had continued. Then, later in the game down big, there was the running over the shoulder catch I made, where everything was just a blur, which is how it should be. My feet and my instincts took over, and before I knew what happened, the ball was in my glove just feet away from the wall. Finally, in the last inning, down 15-0 or some similar score, the guys we were playing had a base hit into the gap in right center with a man on first. Our 1st baseman took the throw, playing for the play at the plate, and he threw it home anyway, even though the runner at third (who had been on first) held up. It was one of the worst throws I've ever seen, 20 feet wide, up the third base line, and off the netting in front of our dugout, this from the best player on the team. It showed me that our team had just quit, but yet I found myself running in from LF to back up that throw, and saving that runner from scoring, even though it meant absolutely nothing as we were going to lose anyway. At that moment, all I could hear was my coach screaming praises at me from right behind me, as it was our dugout. After the game, he called me out in front of the team, emphasizing how I was the only player who showed fight and grit after we had fallen behind by a huge margin early in that game, and how everybody else just flat out quit. Then, finally, there was Senior Day, a cold rainy afternoon against that very same team, but in our house this time, the same stomping grounds AJ Pollock called home for 2 years (the current field opened in his junior year). I was the first to be honored, since we went in alphabetical order. My coach said all my basic information, like where I was heading to college, and then as he did with everybody, his own special touch, mine being how I was the smartest player (academically speaking) he had seen in a long time, and how he knew I had a big future in front of me, and how he loved the passion and joy I had playing the game, even though I was only a periodic starter all season long. Just hearing my college announced made me proud and emotional, so hearing that put me over the top. Then the game started, and it was closer this time. Then came my last at bat, with the bases loaded and 1 out (I think). How fitting. Of course, I worked the count full after being down 0-2, fouling off 3 or 4 pitches, in between taking a couple of balls. On 3-2, I was seeing dead red, because it's high school, and nobody ever throws anything but a fastball on 3-2. I turned on one, and hit an absolute bullet, just like I had done in our last practice. I knew I smoked it, and it felt good, but it was right to the left fielder. Like, he didn't have to move at all. He stood where he was and caught it. Now, I got a run home on a sac fly, and got a big hand upon returning to the dugout, but that right there, the final at bat of my life, perfectly highlighted the game of baseball. Then, it all ended on Awards Night, when I got the Coaches' Award from the man I'd always held with the utmost respect, and know will continue to do as a proud student at his alma mater. He reflected back on some of those very same moments, and how I was the perfect teammate, being everybody's cheerleader even as I sat on the bench at times, never losing a positive attitude. He gave me a backpack, with my name on it, in perfect UConn colors (intentional), and it's the same one I carry with me to class every day.
The point I'm trying to make here is that I really hope the Red Sox go far in the playoffs, this season has featured the best moments of my life, on and off the field, and when it ends, I know I'm going to cry a little bit. If I could go back to Opening Day, and play out my life the exact same way throughout all 180 days of the season, I would do it over and over again, for eternity, without changing a thing. But, if the Sox don't end up winning it all, that's okay too, because as I learned playing baseball this past season, for the last time, sports isn't about winning. It's about the lessons you take away with you for life, and the relationships and lifelong bonds that you form. I'll do anything to get one of those long bus rides home from a road game back.