Well, we played our last official game as the UIS-SC High School fast pitch softball team. The first Saturday of the season we played the “older men” of the community as a scrimmage, and beat them rather soundly. The next week we played teams from Aiyura, a National high school, and from Numinoi, the New Tribes’ centre (which is about three hours from here). The Numinoi team kicked our tails, 23-3, but we managed a win against Aiyura. For the next three weeks we have played the adults, and beaten them consecutively and quite badly. Although they have been getting better, we were smoking them today, score going into the last inning was 14-7. Due to tired pitchers and a few errors, they got within two, but died with back-to-back outs. I played the season at third base, and played with heart and sadness. This would appear to be my last game, and season, of organized ball. From a little boy I have loved baseball, and begged to stay up late to watch the All-Star game, the Playoffs, and the World Series. I have watched great players such as the Cardinal’s Ozzie Smith (one of the best shortstops to play the game), Kirby Puckitt, a Hall of Famer from the Twins, Cal Ripken, the Iron Man, and many others. As a kid, Nate and I would play ball in the backyard, drawing up rosters of our favorite players and organizing seasons, even though the only players we had were he and I. We played with a baseball, until we broke a window, then the game got interesting as we played with tennis balls. In the spring and fall we would rush to finish school and get outside. The summers were three months of uninterrupted ball. Eventually we played on real teams on a city league for three years, and lastly (for me) I played last year on the church team in Fla, and here at Ukarumpa International School. Baseball remains the love of my heart, and September and October will always come with magic.
Brian Souers, Akron Aeros batboy – “Baseball is a dance of the heart and spirit. The best players have that dance inside of them.”
I was telling Alex, second of the three best players on our team (Clint, he, and I being those three, in that order) that guys like us will play ball however we can. I intend to do just that. Baseball runs too deep in my blood.
Next batter, number 13, Philip “the StormRider” Martin…
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