Randy's Most Memorable Sports Moments: #2
I was always a little afraid of the baseball, but I was also a big kid and typically known as a slugger. In tee ball and coach pitch I was a solid batter and had a lot of great hits, but when I turned 10 I stepped into a new league...Southern Little League.
Southern is the 10-12 year old kid pitch league and there were majors and minors. Typically a kid would play in the minors when he was 10 and then the slower developing 11-year-olds would also play in the minors. Once in awhile a 10 year old would play in the majors. When I was 10 the coach of one team had been my coach before and decided to draft me on potential to play in the majors as a 10 year old. I was definitely out of my league and struggled my first year. On average our team was quite young and we finished last in our division.
As an 11 year old I had a decent season but still didn't start a lot of the games and didn't really feel comfortable out there. Our team continued to improve and we finished 3rd of 6 teams in our division. Finally when I was 12 I pulled it together and so did my team. I believe I batted around .325 for the year and our team won the division, which leads me to my 2nd most memorable sports moment ever.
The way the playoffs worked was the 1st place team in one league would play the 1st place teams of other little leagues around West Michigan. So our first playoff game came around and I was really excited to play and I remember having a real good feeling about the game. In the first inning I made 2 solids plays in the infield and as I ran back to the dugout I remember my coach saying something like "you're going to have a big game if you keep playing like that." In the bottom of the first I stepped up to the plate but was too aggressive and hit a weak grounder.
Our team struggled for a little while and we were down 5-2 when I got up again in the bottom of the 3rd. By this time, though, we had a little rally going and the bases were juiced. I stared off a couple of pitches and then I got the pitch I'd been looking for and CRUSHED it. It went way way up and kept going further back toward the fence. The outfielder slowly backed all the way to the fence and all I saw was him reach over and then all my teammates started celebrating...GRAND SLAM! We went up 6-5 on my hit! Other than that I had never even come close to hitting it out of the park in little league.
My strong play continued and I had 2 more singles with runners in scoring position later in the game. At the end of the day I was 3-4 with 7 RBI's and our team won 15-5. My only disappointment was that my dad couldn't see the hit. He basically came to every game and practice on all the teams I played on but happened to have his own softball game that night. It didn't take long for news to reach him, though, because my grandpa drove over to tell him as soon as my game was done. I didn't have another home run until this past summer on my church softball team, 12 years later.
Southern is the 10-12 year old kid pitch league and there were majors and minors. Typically a kid would play in the minors when he was 10 and then the slower developing 11-year-olds would also play in the minors. Once in awhile a 10 year old would play in the majors. When I was 10 the coach of one team had been my coach before and decided to draft me on potential to play in the majors as a 10 year old. I was definitely out of my league and struggled my first year. On average our team was quite young and we finished last in our division.
As an 11 year old I had a decent season but still didn't start a lot of the games and didn't really feel comfortable out there. Our team continued to improve and we finished 3rd of 6 teams in our division. Finally when I was 12 I pulled it together and so did my team. I believe I batted around .325 for the year and our team won the division, which leads me to my 2nd most memorable sports moment ever.
The way the playoffs worked was the 1st place team in one league would play the 1st place teams of other little leagues around West Michigan. So our first playoff game came around and I was really excited to play and I remember having a real good feeling about the game. In the first inning I made 2 solids plays in the infield and as I ran back to the dugout I remember my coach saying something like "you're going to have a big game if you keep playing like that." In the bottom of the first I stepped up to the plate but was too aggressive and hit a weak grounder.
Our team struggled for a little while and we were down 5-2 when I got up again in the bottom of the 3rd. By this time, though, we had a little rally going and the bases were juiced. I stared off a couple of pitches and then I got the pitch I'd been looking for and CRUSHED it. It went way way up and kept going further back toward the fence. The outfielder slowly backed all the way to the fence and all I saw was him reach over and then all my teammates started celebrating...GRAND SLAM! We went up 6-5 on my hit! Other than that I had never even come close to hitting it out of the park in little league.
My strong play continued and I had 2 more singles with runners in scoring position later in the game. At the end of the day I was 3-4 with 7 RBI's and our team won 15-5. My only disappointment was that my dad couldn't see the hit. He basically came to every game and practice on all the teams I played on but happened to have his own softball game that night. It didn't take long for news to reach him, though, because my grandpa drove over to tell him as soon as my game was done. I didn't have another home run until this past summer on my church softball team, 12 years later.
posted by Randy and Erin at Friday, November 10, 2006
1 Comments:
what was the name of that one church, sunshine or sun something or other, that we went to a few times back at Calvin? Had the semi-circle ampi-theater type seating did communion every week up with people up front in a big circle. You had a family memember going there and we went and had dinner at thier house afterwards.
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