It was a mid to late afternoon in August of 2012. The sky was an orangey red color and the clouds were black or dark grey. I was spending this beautiful afternoon on the baseball field playing my last game of the tournament we had entered two days ago. We were in the championship against another very good team. We wanted to win against this team too because they had knocked us out of the championship of the last tournament we were in. I bet if you were there, you would agree, we were a bunch of teenagers pumped up and excited as if it were the world series of the MLB. I was playing center field and batting second. My two favorite places to be in the whole entire world.

When the coach said it was time to take field, we all rounded up in a little circle and did our call.
“Rebels on 3!” Yelled our star player, Chappy.
“1, 2, 3 Rebels!” We all yelled! We all took off to our positions and waited for our turn to get a ball hit to us. Me being an outfielder I got 2 hits, a grounder, and a pop fly. The grounder was a slow, short jumper which I caught very easily. The pop fly looked as if was going to go over the fence but it was just a few inches short and it was easy to see because of the color of the sky. I caught it and threw it in. Now the other team knew, I wasn’t going to let anything by me. I hoped they were scared.

We were the home team so we had to field first but this didn’t get the team down because we knew, if we needed it, we got the last at bat. In the first inning the team gave up one hit but he didn’t score so it was ok. Then it was our turn to hit. Payton was up first. The pitcher looked pretty good but I didn’t let him get into my head because, from what I had heard, he had only 2 innings left to pitch. Payton struck out so now the pressure was on me to get a hit. The pitcher threw the first pitch to me, it looked low so I didn’t swing. “Strike One!” Yelled the umpire. The next pitch was right down the middle so I swung at it. I drove the ball into the gap of left field and center field. I took off towards first base and the coach was yelling at me to keep going so I rounded the base and went to second. Once I reached second I looked over at the third base coach. He was yelling at me to come to him so I sprinted as fast as I could over to him. When I was about five feet away he told me the ball was coming in so I slid and was called safe by the umpire. At about this time my teammates were going crazy! “Nice hit kid!” they yelled. I was pumped up. That was how to start a game. Next up was Chappy. He hit the ball right past the shortstop letting me score the first run of the game. We had an early lead going.

After three more innings, we reached the fourth inning of the game. The score was still 1-0. Then the other team just went on a hitting rampage. It was just hit after hit after hit. Nobody on our team could catch or stop a ball. At the end of their streak the score was 6-1. We hustled back into the dugout and grabbed our bats. Now it was our turn. First up was our catcher, Nick. He swung and missed, striking out. After him was Brody. He hit one right to the second basemen who threw it to first and got him out. Out next batter was Wyatt. He hit a pop fly right to the center fielder, which he caught, ending the inning. This streak continued for two more innings and we started getting down on ourselves. Some of our players even started fighting. If we wanted to come back and win this game, we couldn’t keep doing this.

(Just an F.Y.I. in little league we only play seven innings.) At the beginning of the seventh inning the score was 6-3. We were still losing. The other team came up to bat and hit a pop fly right to me. I ran in and stuck my mitt out. The ball bounced off the end of it and fell to the ground. I was so upset tears filled my eyes. I just picked up the ball and threw it in to second base. The kid didn’t score that inning but it was just upsetting to know I had missed such an easy catch. When I ran back to the dugout my dad called the team out. He wasn’t the coach but our coach wasn’t saying anything to us so he just gave us some advice.
“Keep your heads in the game.” He said. “That catch you missed didn’t cost your team anything.” He told me. “All you guys need are 4 runs and you win this thing!” About that time everyone went back in the dugout and got ready to hit. I was up third. When it was my turn to hit there was no outs and runners on first and second. I hit a ball right into the gap of second and first going right into right field. We all advanced one base. Bases loaded! Chappy came up to the plate and was a nervous wreck! You could see his legs shaking. The first pitch thrown to him was at his eyes but Chappy swung at it anyway. The next pitch was low so he watched it. The next pitch thrown to Chappy must’ve been exactly where he liked them because he swung and drove it over the right field fence. A GRAND SLAM! We had won the championship! We were so excited! Chappy rounded third and threw his helmet into the air. We were all waiting for him at home plate. We grabbed him and hugged him and patted him on the back, all while screaming like maniacs. We got our big trophy, that the coach got to keep, and we got our picture taken for the newspaper. That my fellow reader is how I and my whole baseball team became champions.