“Hey, coach,” I said, to get his attention.

“Yes, Klink?” He asked.

“It’s hot.” I said to him, smirking. He laughed. 

After what felt like hours of waiting in the small circle outside of the dugout in the red hot sun and getting myself ready for my turn to get a possible hit, my other coach says, “Go get ‘em!” and I look at my dad in the crowd. He nodded. I look at my coach at third base. He, too, nodded. Walking up to the outside of the box, swinging my bat around like a sword, I took a step into the box, touched the bat to the plate, got down in my stance, ignoring the hot, humid weather that was making sweat drip down my forehead, and waited for the ball to come to me. I’m going to crush this ball. I saw it. The brand new, white leather. It was a slow moving ball, a little low, and outside, but it was still in the zone. My favorite pitch. Time seemed to slow down as I timed up the ball, and swung. *PING*. 

The ball

S o a r e d.

  The sound from the bat was ear-piercing, louder than all the commotion of the crowd. The ball soared high above all of the clouds and the outfielders heads as they watched in awe in what felt like slow motion.

Will 

it 

go? 

I was rounding first, head down, in a dead sprint to second. I rounded second, took a quick look back at the dugout seeing my whole team wearing their purple and gold shirts, dusted with dirt from them sliding into bases, celebrating and yelling. I didn’t know why everyone was freaking out so much, so I looked over back to left field, where I hit the ball, to see the outfielder with no ball in his glove! As I was rounding third base, being complimented by the other team, I just looked at my dugout again, to see my teammates contorting their bodies into strange positions to get out of the small area, smiling. Looking into the crowd, I saw my dad. “‘Atta boy!” I heard from his voice. He had with his hands in the air with the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen. I was so happy. I felt like I made a difference in the game that we played that day. I was so happy that I almost missed the plate on my way back to my team that was waiting for me outside the wire gate. 

Back in the rancid smelling dugout, I was still in awe. I can’t believe I had just hit a home run!