Bottom of the six. Two outs. Man on first. This is the biggest game of the year. This is the championship game. I was standing at second base the sweat was pouring down my face. The weekend was hot, as in I would have rather be on fire than be on the diamond. But I couldn’t come out of the game though. Not in this situation. We needed our gold glove second baseman. I was the man with the nasty good glove. I never made a fielding error.

The heat at this point in the game was incredible. The umpires almost didn’t let us play with the heat being so high. The heat waves were so large that from across the diamond you could see them doing their hot dance. Yet, there we all were, out on the diamond playing a sport we all loved.
So there I was at second, happy as can be. Their biggest and best hitter came to the plate. He watched a fastball on the outer black. Strike one. Our team was getting excited. We were two strikes away from the championship! Then our pitcher threw two straight balls, one was low in the dirt, and the other one was a little too high. Now it was a hitter’s count. I saw our catcher call for a fastball. This is probably what the hitter was looking for, so I got extra prepared for the pitch. I took my pre pitch step and got my feet ready to dart at an instant in any direction and PING! I saw the ball get hit hard on the ground right in-between the first baseman and I. I sprinted back to my left a sixty five degree angle and made a full scale lay out. I was as far stretched as I could. I felt the ball tug on the pocket of my glove and I knew I caught it. Only problem was getting the ball into my throwing hand and making a good throw. So all of a sudden out of total instinct I flipped the ball into my throwing hand, I gripped the laces and felt the ball leave my hand and the laces rubbed on my calluses. My elbow smacked the ground hard because I was restricted by the ground, I was on my stomach and I couldn’t have my natural throwing motion, and I saw the ball float right to our first baseman’s chest and POP! He caught it. All of a sudden my pitcher was on top of me. He was screaming “WE WON! WE WON! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST MADE THAT PLAY!” Then my whole team mobbed me and we were going nuts. WE HAD JUST WON THE TITLE! All because I just made the sweetest play I most likely will ever make.
The feeling of that play and the timing of it I think will make it the most memorable. If it were just in the middle of a routine game it would be sweet, but not as emphatic or memorable. So I will always remember that hot July day when I got my uni dirty.