Austen’s Big League Dream

I was a 12 year old seventh grader playing my last year for little league in 2007. I remember making an 8 year old all-star team when I was 7 years old. I also remember my 10 year old all-star team making it to 4th place in state, and my 11 year old all-star team getting 5th place in district. Our 11 year old year all-star was a disappointment because we had high expectations for ourselves and didn’t come close to meeting them. Our expectations were to blaze through districts, make it to state, and win state. However, due to immaturity and being over confident, we placed 5th place in Districts. This meant to us, that as a team we didn’t play as good as we did the year before.
After our 11 year old all-star team season ended, we had a party at the Pasco warehouse where all the Pasco baseball banners from Pasco Little League all-star teams hung. I remember seeing pictures and banners from previous all-star teams. As I was going through all the pictures, there was one all-star team that caught my attention more than the others and that were the 94’ twelve year old all-stars. This team instantly caught my attention because it was the team that Jeremy Bonderman played on. Jeremy Bonderman is a professional Major League Baseball pitcher that plays for the Detroit Tigers. However, their 12 year old all-star team did not win state, but they were the team that came closest to winning state by placing fourth.
Being inspired by Jeremy Bonderman made me strive for greatness. After our 11 year old all-star team party, every day after school, I would run home as fast as I could. Go to my garage and grab all the baseballs I could find and go to my back yard and pitch to my three foot tall fence. When I would practice throwing my fastball, I would dig into my glove and grab the grip of the ball. When digging in your glove, it’s common for the batter to think that I was getting my grip to throw a curve ball. After getting my grip, I would go through my wined up slowly, then after lifting my left leg slowly, I would accelerate as quickly as I could. I would mix up my timing speed every pitch so that the batter wouldn’t be able to adjust to my pitching speed. When I would practice throwing my 12:6 curveball, I would start it at the top of the fence and the flick of my wrist so it would break down towards the bottom of the fence where the low strike zone would be. I remember I would set up targets to hit and keep the ball low so it wouldn’t go over the fence and I’d have to go get it. Practicing my pitching on my 3 foot fence benefited me on the diamond because I learned how to keep all my pitches low and in the strike zone.
My last year of little league I pitched three no hitters, one in the state quarterfinals, one in the District championship game, and one in the Memorial Day championship games. When I pitched a no hitter in state, I remember both my coach and I got interviewed after the game. This was really cool and I had never been interviewed for anything before so this was my first time. One of the questions the reporter asked me was, “Was there a reason I pitched a tremendous game?” and I answered “Yes. This was the first state game my mom attended and I was excited to pitch in front of her and my brother.”