Change My Life

 

It was Sunday, July 26th, 2015. I was playing in the most nerve-racking, intense, emotional, rollercoaster of a baseball game in my entire life: The championship game in the legion section tournament. It was the 11th inning and the game was tied at sixes. With two outs, runners on first and second, myself on first and Lucas on second, I began my lead. Here came the pitch, swung on and hit! A line drive into shallow left center field. I took off for second and had no intention of stopping until I dove into third base. It would be a close play, but I could make it because the hit was slow; it would take a while for the centerfielder to get to it. I knew our third base coach would send the Lucas to the plate to score the winning seventh run. As I took my final strides and looked up, I saw Lucas standing on third and a furious Paul Wippler, my coach. He did not send him. Lucas stepped off the base and towards home in an attempt to do something but it was far too late and there was far too much confusion. He was easily tagged out and the inning ended. The Sartell crowd went wild, knowing that a miracle had just happened on the baseball diamond before them. They dodged a bullet. In all the years of his aggressive baseball game style and scoring, my coach was not aggressive in that moment. That potentially lost us the game. Sartell ended up hitting a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 13th inning with two outs. I threw the ball on a line to home plate but it wasn't enough. The runner scored. Sartell had won. Sauk Rapids Legion Post 254 was not going to the state tournament. 

Had that one play where I screwed up on the basepaths not happened, we might have gone to the state tournament. But who knows. That is something I regret and think about quite often. I cannot change it, but if I could, I would be standing on second, waiting for Mat Meyer to drive us in to win that game.