Picture it! A Baseball Diamond. You Were 10.

Picture it! Sicily. 1922. 

Okay. Maybe not. 

But really, picture it. Rhode Island. Late 1900s. A youthful looking tomboy stands at shortstop for her AAA Little League team. All of a sudden a male of indiscernible age, but most likely 40s, steps out of the dugout. Her dugout. He heads towards the pitcher’s mound and waves that little girl over from her very comfortable and nicely tended to position. The coach takes the baseball out of the hands of the young boy on the mound and hands it to her. She stares at the ball now in her glove. She thinks to herself, “But I don’t pitch.” She looks back up at the man and eventually says, “Okay.” 

That little girl is you. Really, it's me, but for the purpose of this story and to have more of an emotional impact, it's you. 

You throw you’re allotted warm up pitches and the umpire calls for play to resume. You walk back to the rubber where you perch yourself slightly higher than everyone else on the diamond, which is hard because you're really, really tiny. Then it hits you, “The bases are loaded. And there are no outs. And it's the 6th inning.” As quickly as those thoughts come you just as quickly brush them aside: you’ve got a job to do. 

None of that matters at this moment. It doesn’t matter that you are down by a lot of runs because it's the last inning and the game’s pretty much over anyway. It doesn't matter that you know your team most likely won't be able to come back to win in the bottom of the inning. You don’t quit. You try your hardest. Because that’s who you are. So you start pitching. You get strikes called. You get balls called. Then you… actually... strike someone… out? Cool. One out. Bases still loaded. No runs in. 

You pitch to the next batter and… he hits… a dinky pop up… right in front of the pitcher’s mound? …all right. You easily catch the pop fly. Two outs. Bases still loaded. No runs in. 

Then you pitch to the next batter. 

And the next and the next and the next because your unbelievable lucky streak was really what you expected, a fluke. You’re there for what seems like hours in a never-ending inning that doesn’t matter anyway and never really did. You were just filler. A girl. An inconsequential girl who wasn’t believed in and wasn’t expected to come through in any way so why worry about it?

OR. 

You pitch to the next batter who barely makes contact and hits a slow roller up the third base line. Being the amazing and quick infielder you really are you scoot over to the ball, field it cleanly and easily tag the runner heading towards home from third base. After the runner is called out you turn around, toss the ball back towards the mound in a never-before-seen mic drop as you turn back around and trot across the baseline into your dugout. Three outs. Bases were loaded. No runs in. You think to yourself, "It's alright fellas, I got this." 

It’s not until much later you think, “Did the coach really even care? Was I just a position player being thrown in to save the arms of the real pitchers? Did he really expect anything from me?” Doesn't matter. Because you came to play. And when you play, you fucking play hard. 

Do you recall a “mic drop” moment when you were a complete badass on the field? Share in the comments below.