My son played this weekend with a 14U team that was short a few players due to the holiday. They scheduled and payed for it at the last moment and forgot to check with the parents. Oops!
We filled in along with a few of the teams 12U kids. After three games with only 11 kids, we came to our elimination game and we weren't doing too well. Didn't have the horses to compete. We were down 8-4 or so in the 6th inning and our smallest player, about 4'4", came up to bat. On a 60X90 field he had very little chance of getting the ball out of the infield. He hadn't even come close all tournament.
Time for a new strategy.
The older players told him to squat down real low and try to get a walk. This kid, who is braver than most, came up to bat and did his best Pete Rose imitation. When he got ready for his first pitch and squatted down, our dugout just busted out laughing. He got lower. Laughter was rolling out of the dugout and the coach finally figured out what was going on and he started laughing.
By the second pitch, I swear his elboes were touching his knees.
He ended up grounding out after the pitcher threw him 2 strikes(nice control by the way). After the game was over and we were out of the tournament, all the kids could talk about was his at bat. The kid was grinning ear to ear. You could tell he loved being accepted by the older and much larger kids and the bigger kids loved his desire to do whatever it took to give them a chance to win.
I guarantee you that nobody on that team will remember the scores, hits, runs etc.
But they will remember that little guy the rest of their lives.
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