It was a year ago, and my team was the Dodgers. It was a new season of little league baseball and I could already smell a losing season. My hopes for this season were already crushed since my coach’s philosophy was to have fun and everyone get their turn. Also he was my coach for basketball and we lost every game. Also, I like coaches that push people to get better and actually care if we win. My coach this year was the exact opposite because about halfway through the season I was convinced my coach actually wanted us to lose. Here’s why: the batting order was alphabetical, so the first kid up was slow as a mule and the last person was the best hitter on the team. Another rule was that everyone pitched (I mean everyone!) and half of the pitchers couldn’t reach the plate. Ten runs scored in an inning was considered a good job. Having no runs scored and all outs were strike-outs would get you a “slow done your speed” speech. Adding to the terrible pitching the players were bad offensive and defensive (the kids my age did pretty good though.) The only seventh grader talked to the umps when he was playing in the infield and a quarter of his pitches were behind the batter. I think the saddest thing was that I was the best leadoff hitter. Let’s just say that my season wasn’t that great (or as my coach would say “a one and ten record is great as long as you had fun.”)
The absolute worst baseball game that season was also my humiliating experience. It all started one warm sunny may afternoon. I was at the little league field complex around the time when coach told me to get there and my coach was nowhere to be found. He finally showed up around fifteen minutes before the game was supposed to start, which caused my team to spend about fifteen minutes warming up. When the game started we were up first. The first batter popped one over the first basemen into the outfield and got to first. The next three kids all struck-out. The first batter for the other team hit the ball to the outfield and reached second. My team’s pitcher walked the next three kids. The next batter hit a lazy fly ball to short-stop and the shortstop misses and throws to me, the first basemen and I miss the ball (it was a very bad throw). I ran to the ball and threw as hard as I could to second, and the second baseman misses. The ball ended up in the outfield so the center field threw it to third, but the runner was already running towards home. So the batter got a homerun. After that I don’t remember what happened because I lost complete hope and zoned out, but here’s a summary. Four out of six innings the other team batted around the order. The most batters we got up in an inning were five and my team a got a combined five hits and the other team got around twenty hits. My team scored their three runs during the same inning and the other team averaged about four runs an inning. This was so humiliating because no other team could possibly lose by twenty-one runs and I knew I could do better. This game was so bad, just saying I on was on the team was humiliating.