Thing to Do #55: Make the Winning Try

 (I’m second from the left on the back row) 

 Its hard to imagine now because I’ve lived almost eight years without it, but there was a time in my life where all I cared about in the world was playing softball.  I started when I was eight years old and by the time I was twelve, I was playing it 10 months out of the year – from mid-February to mid-December.  I played into college until I was 21.  I don’t play anymore because all that is available to me now is co-ed and it REALLY just isn’t the same.  Boys assume you can’t play and stick you in right field, or try to be overly macho and try to knock you down while running the bases.

You see, where I grew up, there wasn’t much else to do and EVERY girl in my community played.  And although I loved it and even later won All-Conference in High School, I was only a mid-level player.  There were plenty of other girls that I played with that were “star players,” the play makers, the ones you counted on for a clutch play. 

I played first base, which meant I didn’t have much of an arm, and usually batted lead off or second in the rotation…at least when I played slow pitch.  Fast pitch came along when I was 12 and didn’t infiltrate school sports until I was 16.  When I played slow pitch, I averaged a couple of hits a game.  In fast pitch (combined with the “Foul Ball Rule”) I had far more strike outs.

There were several times in my 13 year career that I made a great play.  A couple of times I succeeded in single-handedly making double plays by catching line drives and tagging the base runner, catching her off the base.  Once during my senior year, I found myself in that pivotal moment, bottom of the seventh (the last inning in softball), two outs, I’m up to bat.  We’re four runs down (no runners on base).  I managed to crush one up the middle, at least keeping us going and starting a bit of rally where we were able to come back and win.

However, the one I count was during Fall Rec Ball in Eighth Grade.  Again, it was the bottom of the seventh.  This time there was only one out and there were runners on second and third.  I got the sign to bunt and I laid down a beautiful bunt that flirted with third base line all the way down.  As I sprinted for first, the third base runner made it home, scoring the winning run.  The coach said to me after the game (and to the reporter of the local paper later) that I had laid down a perfect bunt and that I had won the game for the team (which isn’t true because no ONE play wins the game; its the series of plays that make up a game that wins or loses). 

It may not be a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth when you’re down 3 runs, but it was enough for that day and enough to consider this Thing to Do COMPLETED!

Have you ever made the winning goal, hit, shot, etc?