#12 Freewrite

 

We grow up loving the game. Some of us aspire to be like our father, our uncle, brother, cousin, neighbor, friend, or even the man on the TV at night. Whoever it may be, someone starts a fire in us before we even set foot on an actual diamond. A fire that can’t be tamed. We do everything we can to feed that fire, to make it grow. When we’re young, our parents help feed that fire. By junior year it is decided by the spirit within us that we either keep feeding this fire, now more than ever before, or we let it die out, and walk away. For us that continue to feed that fire we play. We play with passion, with pride, and grit. By our varsity years we are engulfed by this fire within, allowing very little to stand in our way of playing this game. In our minds our dreams from when we picked up the plastic bat and ran around the bases in our yards, smiling and being cheered on by the noises of the so called crowd of your dad, pushing air through the back of his throat to mimic those sounds. And being announced and praised by the commentator which was also your dad, or maybe your uncle as you hit the high fly over the left field fence. Those dreams have now become a reality in your eyes. For those of us that continue to feed the fire, the love of the game we put every ounce of effort into every practice, every game, every off season workout, in hopes of continuing to put the cleats on after high school. The sad reality of it is this: whether we are 45 or 18, there will come a day where you will have to hang up your cleats. You won’t have the opportunity to step on a diamond again. You won’t hear the crowd cheer for you on the field. You won’t be under those lights in the