Mental Ties

Here and there in baseball, anybody can come across a really good team. But this team we faced was really good and our team faced them every single year at least 3 times. No matter what we did or how good our team was we could never beat this team no matter how much we tried. So coming into the fresh new season and seeing their team name first on our game list I was devastated. Every person on our team had already lost and yet the game was still two days away.

Going into the top of the first inning against this team we don’t like to play, of course, the team was even better than when we last saw them. When they started hitting nukes to left field we barely survived the inning. No pitch could not be crushed and they had already scored 3 runs. we all thought why not let them get ten runs so they win? At this point, our pitcher resorted to throwing balls and yet they still hit them. Our team finally stopped the havoc of an inning for them. No one doubted this would happen.  they're up 6-0 and our team is down for the count. We were brutally beaten in the batter's box with two outs already. I thought this game would be over quickly and it was still the first inning.

 Now it's the third and nobody cares. We all have the same mindset of losing and our team could care less about the game. All they care about right now is what they are eating for dinner. As our team is up to bat and one of our two coaches yelled at us about how we don’t care and that we should feel ashamed and all that did was just put us down even more. All of our players struck out that inning. As we all look more down than a sad baby our second coach comes over to our dugout and talks to us. Our coach said, "Baseball is just a game more or less a mental game with many mental ties so don’t think about it, just play the game and we can win this” This speech made us smile. Our second coach always knew what to say in bad situations.

Going into the fourth with them winning 6-0 we were all in a better mood. Finally, we started to hit the ball and we got two guys on base. We all were shouting at the top of our lungs because we saw how fun this game could be. But shortly after the team stopped our run of the inning there. Now that they are batting it only got worse but it didn't hurt as bad when they got a run scored. Our team started doing better as a whole nobody was left out of this game. We got two outs but there are loaded bases and their worst batter is up to bat. We almost struck him out but we ended up walking him. They scored only two runs but that put them at 8-0.

Nobody thought we were going to make it to the sixth inning, not even myself. We got up to bat but this time was different. We cared and we just wanted to have fun and that’s what happened. We started off the inning with a double and after that a single advancing the runner to third. With two people on base, the pitcher was frustrated and balked and at that moment our team scored our first run. After that, the runs just kept coming. We almost tied them it was 8-6 but they made some plays and soon we were back in the field. We hammered on them and it seemed to be working. Our team ended up getting the three outs and our team was so happy about it.

Going into the seventh inning the team we don’t like was not doing super well and we’d started taking advantage of this, we started hitting the ball and even scored a run. I don’t know how but we managed to get loaded bases. That moment was the most tense ever. Everyone could feel the stress in the air. Game on the line we could tie it or win it it all came down to our next move. Our team's second coach called a bunt and our batter was going to execute it, after that moment when our batter stepped up to the plate everything slowed down for a few seconds and I saw him bunt the ball and our runner touch home we all freaked out and I think our team probably woke up the whole town. But on the next pitch, something big happened that caused their pitcher to throw a wild pitch and our other runner scored which made us win the game nobody thought we’d win. In the end, our coaches said we worked and told us how we earned it.

 That game our team never even wanted to play because we had bad previous experiences with that one team and how they beat us every time, but those are all mental ties and people need to let them go. Because of that game, I realized never to give up and don’t let past experiences hold you back, and how to let go of mental ties. Our team in the last few innings had the most determination I have ever seen, But there is never a reason for a bad attitude in any situation including baseball.