Five Innings and Eleven Runs Later

During difficult time true character tends to come to light. After all that we had to deal with today, the boy had to play a baseball game. A game in which his father asked him to pitch.

I have come to know that the boy, has mental toughness and when it comes to game time he's serious, almost too serious. He pitched well, 5 innings, 3 runs and 7 seven strikeouts.

During the 4th inning he hit a rough patch, errors and walks led to a run or two. I took my slow walk to the mound.

"Dad, I want to keep pitching."

"What's bothering you?"

"The ump is calling low strikes."

"Shake it off, you have one more batter."

The boy hunkered down and struck out the last two hitters. Game Over and our record is now 7-3.

During our post game debriefing, we praised the team for finally putting the game away in the top of the 6th inning by scoring 7 runs and ending it by slaughter rule. The great aspect of the that inning was that the bottom of the order got three hits in row. The boy was awarded the game ball for his pitching performance and he promptly asked:

"Can I give the game ball away?"

"Sure, you can"

"Then I give it to TC", and flipped him the ball. TC is the last place batter and he got a hit that drove in a run.

"On Three... One... Two ... Three... GATORS!"