Today I watched Chicago's Jackie Robinson West team win the Little League National Championship. Not only was I extremely proud of my hometown, but I was also brought back to my own childhood. I grew up playing softball and it was something I really, really loved.
When I started out, I was a pretty mediocre player on a pretty bad team. Then I turned into a pretty good player on a pretty bad team. I know I played pretty much every position over the course of my 5 or so seasons. Shortstop was totally my favorite because there was always something to do. I was always right in the action. Right field was the worst. Nothing ever happened. Right field is where the coaches stuck the kids that were useless everywhere else. I still have no idea how I ended up there a few times. It's complete blasphemy, I tell you. I even pitched for awhile, although I wasn't very good. I struck people out because I pitched SLOW. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. I was definitely not Mo'Ne Davis.
As I got older, I moved to better teams and then I was the bad player on a really good team and eventually I got to be a decent player on a really good team. One of the strangest things about girls softball back then was that the players would stand on the fence and yell these ridiculous cheers. There was a cheer for every single situation you could think of. "3 and 1 let's have some fun, walk her, walk her" "3 and 2 whatcha gonna do, walk her, walk her" "there she goes justa walkin down to first singin do i didee didee dum didee do". Okay, I'm going to stop now. I'm not making this up either. The cheering was just absolutely absurd, but my God was it fun. I couldn't tell you if we ever won championships or how many games we won or any of that stuff, but it was such a great time. I honestly wasn't that great of a player. Granted I was better at softball than I was at volleyball or basketball but that isn't saying a whole lot. The point here is that I was never a star player. I could always hold my own but it was mostly just about having fun for me. That's why I decided not to play in high school. I am so excited to start college at DU and have the opportunity to join an intramural softball team and get back into the swing of things! Pun intended.
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