A long, not so long time ago my parents decided that they were going to sign me up to play baseball. Their reasoning was, as my mom said, “I just didn’t want to have to watch soccer.” I doubt they knew what they were getting themselves into by signing that 4-year-old kid up for baseball. 10 years later the energy that 4-year-old had is still there every time that he touches that field. How, with most other things that I had found joy in more or less gone, how has baseball stuck?
As far back as I can remember I always wanted to or was playing sports. Unlike a lot of kids though I didn’t try many. Oftentimes kids will start off trying a lot of sports, I only tried 2. Basketball and Baseball. I started both around the age of 3 with my dad, playing baseball in the backyard and basketball in the driveway. I had a lot of fun every day with my dad playing sports. Which led to me wanting to play them competitively.
Once I started elementary school I realized how “cool” sports were. I would always see the bigger kids playing some type of sport whether it be kickball, football, basketball, or any other sort of sport. As the school year went on and we got closer to basketball and baseball season there was no doubt that I was going to play basketball and later on baseball. I was a tall kid and that meant unfortunately for me even though I was young for my grade I had to play up with the first and second graders. That season unfortunately wasn’t the best for me but my love for basketball didn’t waiver then. Baseball season came around and it was all smiles for me. It was about as good of a season as a 5-year-old could have playing t-ball.
For the next couple of years 1st through 3rd grade, I played basketball and baseball every year and even made the Little League all-star team in my 3rd grade season. 4th grade was the first year that I played a sport for more than just the Grandville programs. I joined the travel basketball team Grand Rapids Phoenix. I had a lot of fun with that team and I was getting a lot better at the sport. Unfortunately, I got very sick and wasn’t able to keep playing with that team. I got a disease called Kawasaki’s disease. It messed up my liver and weirdly made my skin shed. It was a very rough time for me and in my mind it was even worse not being able to play sports.
As I began to make a recovery I was told I would not be able to play sports or run for another 2 months. This was because I could not risk my heart rate rising too high without it being fully stable, which it was not yet. Having heart surgery earlier in my life could have also been more of a reason that they had to limit me for what felt like such a long time.
Once I could play sports again my parents were still quite cautious when it came to how intense my physical activity was. Luckily baseball season was right around the corner and in Little League there wasn’t much that would make your heart rate spike. Unfortunately, my limit of playing basketball meant that I began to fall out of love with basketball and instead started to fall in love with baseball. Even with the problems I faced before the season, I made the Little League all-star team once again. That season of all-stars was the best one I had throughout Little League and from that I was invited to a private travel team tryout. Going into the tryout I thought that I would make the team and luckily I was right. I didn’t know then but that travel team would be one of the most important things that would happen to my baseball career.
My first year of travel was in 2020. As everyone knows 2020 was most definitely not a normal year. However, my travel season began quite regularly. My season started fall of 2019 and we began practices and working as a team. Eventually, January came and we had an indoor tournament. We had 3 games and we won each. Every one by mercy, winning the championship 30-3. That was just the beginning of our season and we were looking like quite a good team. The season stopped all of a sudden 2 months later, Along with the rest of the world.
With quarantine beginning there wasn’t much to do besides find stuff to occupy time with. The main thing that I found to do was to practice baseball. I began practicing every day and got better and better. Then in late April, our team decided to start practicing again. This was the first time for most of us that we had done something with others in a while so we were all excited to start playing again and were generally just excited because we all were friends. We began to play games and tournaments and we began to win game after game after game. That season we won 27 games straight and won 6 tournaments. That much success began to make me really begin to love baseball. That season was just the beginning of my travel baseball career and there were many more better years to come.
My 11u year was the first year I ever began to struggle. I didn’t bat well and I didn’t pitch that well but overall my team still was winning that season going 23-5-1. My 12u season was where I began to play good baseball. I batted over .500 that year and pitched very well. My team also had a very good season that year playing in much harder tournaments and that competition helped us become much better. The consistent success of winning I think built my love for baseball but by 13u I think it was more just about playing the game and the winning was just a bonus.
After basketball season in 8th grade, I decided I was going to put in a ton of work in the off-season heading into baseball season. Every day after school I would go and hit off a machine or tee or anything that I could swing on. I also began pitching every 2 days with some fielding mixed in. I didn’t see the progress while I was putting in the time but I knew that it was going to show eventually.
At the start of the 13u season, we were hoping for another big winning season. It eventually did come but the first tournament did not go as we planned. The first game started great. I hit a home run on the first pitch I saw and we mercied the other team. We won every game by a mercy heading into bracket play. We were going in as the 1 seed to play the 8 seed. We played terribly. We lost by 2 and were out of a tournament we thought there was no way we could lose. Luckily for us that was not the end of our season. We played great the rest of the season winning 3 tournaments and going into 5 finals in 8 tournaments. We ended our season on a high then a low winning on a walk-off double but then taking a loss in the finals. Overall that season very much changed me as a player.
Still with all of the events that led me to the player I am now, why really, do I still love baseball? Everything that has happened to me playing baseball, I believe, has played a role in my continuous love of baseball. The foundation that was set, the beginning of my baseball career in my backyard, my many, many years of Little League and the fun I had, the Little League all-star teams I played on, the people I have met along the way through every level of baseball I’ve played on, the daily grind earlier and now trying to get better every day, my travel team and how great every single season has been and the teammates that now are much more than just my teammates instead, some of my best friends. The thrill of winning or the pain of losing, the strategy of the game, and the big-time moments. All of this is what I believe has kept my love for baseball alive throughout my life.