What Was Your Best Day in Baseball?

Way too many to list as a parent, so I'll mention a couple from my playing days:

- Threw a 7-inning no-hitter when I was 14 and struck out 19 in the process.  Not sure how many I walked though, I seem to have forgotten that figure.  Crazy how many pitches I must have thrown that day.

- Got to play against the 1984 U.S. Olympic baseball team when they made their tour of the country that summer.  Grounded out to 2B off of Don August (swung at a 3-0 pitch, wasn't going to walk), who pitched for a number of years in the bigs.  We lost 4-0 by pitching one pitcher for each of the 9 innings.  Will Clark and Mark McGwire each hit 2-run HRs to account for the scoring.

- Doubled in my first at bat as a freshman in college.  That ended up being the highlight of my college career, however!

As a player I have 2 :                                                                                                                                               1) Getting the hit to start the game winning rally in the Texas HS State Championship game against a heavily favored opponent.  A photographer got a picture right after I made contact and from the angle the picture was taken it shows the opposing team in their dugout w/ David Clyde front & center. If Clyde would have pitched against us we would have had no chance. He struck out 19 in the semi-final game in one of the most dominant performances I have ever seen.  Clyde was the first player selected in the MLB draft a few days later.                                                                                              2) In college we went to Miami, Fla over spring break my senior year and played in 2 tournaments. I had been having a good year but got passed over game after game on this road trip.  The night before our last game our Asst. Coach knocked on my hotel room door and asked to speak to me in the hallway. He said, "we are out of pitchers so you have the ball tomorrow if you think you can handle it."  The next day I pitched a complete game 5 hit shutout.  I still have the game ball.                 As a parent I have 2 :                                                                                                                                              1) Listening on the phone as my middle son threw a complete game 1 hit shutout in Lubbock during his senior year in HS.                                                                                                                                             2) Watching my youngest son hit a game winning 3 run double in Texas 6A HS playoffs off of a Texas A&M commit who is a certified dude.                                                                                                                 As a coach there are so many, but I had a very special day this fall.  The Texas JUCO where I help coach traveled to Oklahoma to play the JUCO where my youngest son plays.  I was in one dugout and my son was in the other one.  As I watched that game I saw him doing all the things that I had been preaching for years that I thought he wasn't listening to.  He played the way I have always known that he could and on a field loaded with talent he clearly stood out. Our Head Coach went out of his way to shake his hand after the game.  It was a very proud moment for me.  

As a player: soph year in college playing at an NAIA school, coached by a guy who was also the football coach and had not picked up a bat since he was 12 years old. We play Lewis-Clark St., then as now an NAIA powerhouse.  Our record that year was something like 5 -25.  We had some talent in the outfield but we were not a strong team.  Played L-C at home in a dbl header on an open weekend midway through our season.  Had a two run lead going into the top of the 7th in the first game.  Then they scored ten runs and the party was over.

I pitched the second game of the set and they scored 4 runs in the first two innings. Between innings Coach says I really don't have anyone else that can go more than an inning. Can you hang in there?  Sure, I say.  Somehow manage to hold them scoreless from that point, largely because they were hitting shots right at our defense.  We scratch back a run at a time and by the seventh we're tied up 4-4.  I'm still throwing though I have no idea how I've lasted so long, and no real hope of surviving what I was sure was gonna be another 7th inning onslaught.  First guy up hits a towering fly ball to left field that the our LF catches at the fence.  Next guy up crushes a  liner to the Right centerfield gap. I swear it never got more than ten feet off the ground and carried and carried.  Our CF, who could run like the proverbial deer, catches up to the ball at the fence and sticks his mitt out.  The fence is one of those old wire and balsa wood slat things that get rolled up when they're not needed, so it's very light weight and has a lot of vertical seams.  As it happens he hits one of the seams as he catches the ball and blasts through the fence at the same time, shattering it.  So now there's two outs and literally a hole in the fence. L-C State's version of Paul Bunyan comes up and smashes another ball in the same area of right/center and gets a ground rule double.  Coach waddles out and says, "you've about had it, haven't you?" I said to the catcher, "give me the ball. It's my game," all the while thinking "What am I doing out here?" But Coach let me keep the ball and we get the last guy on a routine grounder to second.  We ultimately win in the bottom of the seventh on a walk, a steal, a groundout to second that advances the runner and a sacrifice fly. L C State finished second in that year's NAIA world series and had a 48-11 record.  I don't even want to talk about how we finished.

As a dad: Having both older sons start a few games together in the outfield for their varsity team (soph and sr. yr. respectively).  Both are still playing CF, one a soph in college, and the other a senior in HS.

Watching the glee on my youngest son's face the first time he ever pitched in a live game. I think he was 9 years old. Now he's a freshman, likely to be on JV and still loves to pitch.

Hard to pick just these because the whole experience is just so much fun (most of the time!).

Player - very, very few.  

Fan - too many to mention ('98 NLCS SDvATL maybe?)

Parent - every damn day

None really for me, i was a basketball player. Here are some fond memories i have watching my son play the game over the years. 

son on new 12U team as role player suffered marginal success all season but went yard twice in Cooperstown in first two at bats  for 6 rbi's  & ended up with 6 dingers and we got 4th out of 106 teams.

Son started his first game at 11u and beat his former 10U team who would not pitch him

Son closed game over 4 innings in USSSA 11u Triple A state championship to win the game and tourney

son threw no hitter in HS junior year

son got offer and committed to clemson

Selected to play for Team USA in summer of 2017 and closed on July 4th vs Cuba.

He was all acc, all american and first clemson baseball player to be a NSCA all american last season and got drafted.

For me:  I did not play nor coach.  Besides watching a few games in high school because the boys were cute, Baseball came in to my life when I got married.   It got "real" real fast when I found this site.

For keewartson, a few moments stand out:

• Watching him sleep in his fresh new Little League uniform the first night he got it.  
• Playing on a high school team that at one point had (eventually) 7 D1 players and  2 D3 players, of which 3 are currently playing Milb and 2 more employed by MLB.  
• Son's first college at bat:  The very first game his Freshman year, batting first, at Ole Miss opener.  He looked as if he had "been there, done this before" on the jumbo-tron, but I think I saw his knees knocking from way down the first base side.
• Watching the replay and hearing the announcer say, "there will not be a repeat champion in Omaha this year!" when William and Mary beat the University of Virginia in the 2016 regionals to put them out of the tournament.  We couldn't hear the announcer in the stands where we were sitting  W&M wouldn't move out of the regionals either, but it was by far the biggest win in team's history, beating the reigning CWS champions.
• Draft Day. 

I so miss those days when son was under 14 playing.

Like Shoveit4ks I personally have a few "best days" watching son:

-  Signing NLI for D1 program

-  Several All American accolades

-  Team USA CNT selection

-  Led nation D1 in 2 offensive categories and top 15 in many others.

-  MLB Draft Day

-  Still waiting for the icing on the cake to happen...…

In a 24 month period, I was fortunate to hit 2 HR for Michigan State to win the Big 10 and enter the College World Series. Six months later, as a member of the US Army Team, I hit a HR off Connie Johnson of the Willie Mays "All Stars".

Later, I hit a HR off Bob Gibson in the South Dakota Basin League.

Unfortunately, I could not run and was timed with an "hour glass".

Bob

gee whiz, Bob.  That's awesome stuff.  The closest I got to Bob Gibson was cheering for Denny McLain to beat him in the '68 World Series.  I couldn't even get that right.  Thank God Mayo Smith went with Mickey Lolich in Game 7.

Bob Gibson, talk about downward plane.