My Most Meaningful Home Run

 Five years ago on the first day of April, I was on the beach in Florida with my high school baseball team for our spring break baseball trip. My first night down there I got the call from my mom that changed my life forever. It was a call that I had honestly expected, but it still hurt just the same. On that call she informed me and my brother that our dad had passed away. After that call, my head was spinning. I was confused, angry, sad, pretty much any emotion you could think of. Why had this happened to my family? Why did it have to be my Dad? I just couldn’t wrap my head around what had happened, and it all just didn’t feel real, I truly couldn’t believe it. 

As time went on, like anyone that goes through something traumatic does, you learn to accept that what had happened is reality. And through those tough times, you begin to really appreciate the good times you had with that person, and appreciate the fun memories you had with them. A lot of my memories with him were baseball related. He was a big reason I came to love the sport growing up. He was always practicing with me, or cheering me on in the stands, or more times than not coaching me on the field.

My favorite memory with him on the field was my first ever home run. He was coaching my team that year and we were playing the best team in our wreck ball age group that season. We were down 7-6 I believe (not completely sure because this was almost eight years ago), and as he was jogging to coach third base, he ran past me, who was leading off the inning, and told me to “hit a f*cking home run.” And on the third pitch of the at bat, I did just that. The look on his face when I rounded third is something I will never forget. The pure joy that was on his face still makes me smile to this day. 

Well fast forward to a couple weekends ago. Two days after the five year anniversary of my dads passing, I had a weekend series against a conference opponent of ours on the road. My entire goal that weekend was to play the best I could in honor of my dad. I had all the confidence in the world that I was going to get this done that weekend. The first day of the weekend we had a double header to open the series, and in game one I did the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. I went 0-5 with four strikeouts. Yes… four strikeouts. FOUR! I was so disappointed in myself because all I could think about was how I was dedicating this series to my dad and it had gotten off to the worst possible start. So, right before game two I decided to not even think about that. I was trying to reverse psychology the whole situation. It’s like when you try to hit a home run, you’re so focused on hitting the ball as hard as you can, that it just doesn’t happen. And I’m gonna brag a little, I was pretty smart for doing that. 

My first at bat of game two I popped out, but I had finally put the ball in play so I was encouraged going into my next at bat cause I felt like I had finally figured it out. Then my second at bat I hit a double down the left field line. My confidence rose even higher after that and I finally felt like I was completely dialed in. Then my third at bat rolled around. I got a first pitch fastball that missed on the outer half so I started the ab up 1-0. Then the next pitch I swung at a fastball right down the middle, I felt the contact of the ball on my bat, and I looked up and I watched it fly over the right-centerfield wall. While I was rounding the bases all I could think to myself was “wow I actually did it… this is awesome.” I finished rounding the bases, touched home plate, looked up and pointed into the sky and in my head said, “for you.”