Baseball

By Molly

Dad loves baseball. On summer nights he would open all the doors on his truck and turn the radio on to the Twins game. He taught my brother Danny how to pitch. Danny would throw pitch after pitch at our barn. All the windows on the barn were broken at one time or another from Danny learning to pitch.

We used to all play baseball together. We used the shell of a snapping turtle as second base. Home base was a rock imbedded in the ground and if a ball flew over the pine trees it was a home run.

In grade school Mary was pitcher and Bridget was her catcher. This inspired me to go out for softball when I was in seventh grade. I had never played on a team other than the Donnelly team, but I knew the position I wanted to play, catcher. After trying to catch for my brother who through line drives at my head, I thought I would be good at it. I showed up to the first practice of the year and told the coach I was a catcher. I was new to the school so he believed me.

He took the catchers aside and said he was going to throw us some pitches. I was second up. He wound up, threw the pitch and hit me straight in the nose. My nose started to bleed all over. I spent the rest of the first practice sitting in the corner with ice on my face.

That year we had a girl who was a really good catcher playing on our team. She started every game, and I would warm up the other pitchers. It went really well until she hurt her knee. Then the coach made me play for three games. I would crouch into position and whisper, "Please hit the ball, please hit the ball." If it was hit, I didn't have to catch it. During one of these games, my chemistry teacher was the ump. He crouched behind me and called out strike or ball. At one point he heard me whispering and started to laugh. After about the 50th missed catch he started to help me out. He would stop the ball with his foot or slyly block the pitch himself. I was so grateful.