This day would go down as one of my son’s best sports days ever. It all started with his 2nd track meet; his first event was the 4×400 relay. Last week, they finished in 2nd place. The race began, and our team was in 2nd place; a very solid opening leg by our kid. The 2nd leg was more of the same; we were still in 2nd place. The 3rd leg, we started to make our move; by the time the baton was handed over to the anchor of the team, my son, we only trailed by a few steps. As the 4th leg began, the other kid shot out in front of my son, opening up a pretty big lead; I wasn’t worried. No, I thought… if he keeps him in striking distance, he’ll catch him at the end. Do I know my son or do I know my son? At about the 200M mark, the other kid started slowing down; at the 300M mark, he was absolutely gassed. And here came my son around the corner with a full head of steam, passing him, and never looking back; first place here we come! They won the heat, and overall 1st place for the event; nice start!
His 2nd event was the 800M individual. Last week, he finished in 6th place. As the race began, it was the usual suspects at the front. The 1st place kid in Cross Country and every long distance run that we’ve attended, cruised out to a big lead, and put it in cruise control. The 2nd place kid, was my son’s teammate, the same one who finished 2nd behind this kid multiple times before; that would be the same result in this one. Next up, was the pack. Last week, my son fell to the back of the pack, and was able to recover only enough to snatch 6th. This time, with my wife’s advice… don’t wait too long to turn it on… he stayed more towards the front of the pack, but he was still back a few. As the final turn came, here he went again… passing up everybody, finishing in 3rd place; boo ya!
He did the javelin, and certainly improved on his last week’s results, but had to skip his last event in order for us to make his baseball game on time; he was the starting pitcher! Yeah, after all this running, he took the ball for his first appearance of the year; he, was, on, point. He mowed the other team down, pitching 3 shutout innings, picking up 6 strikeouts in the process. I took him out after that; he said… how can you take me out when I’m throwing a shutout? Haha… I could have let him go one more, per the league rules, but early in the season, no need to push it, yet. At the dish, he got his first two hits of the year; he was very happy. His first, a ball that fell in between the shortstop and left fielder; his second, a slow roller to SS, that was bobbled… he would have beat it anyways IMO. His last AB was a strike out, but wait… we’re not done yet. Not to go into every little detail, the game ended up coming down to the final inning. We were up 4-3, the bases were loaded, there were 2 outs. Kid hits a ground ball down the 1st baseline, that looked like it was going foul, but it had that weird spin to it… it stayed fair. As it rolled down the line, my son slid over; the ball deflected slightly off the base. He knocked it down, picked it up, and raced to the bag for the final out of the game. Have yourself a day boy!
As we drove home, I started thinking how proud I was of him; as he looked at me, I had tears running down my face. He said, why the heck are you crying? Because I wanted to share this with my Mom… no worries though; she saw it all. I told her… you see this Ma? You see how good he did today? He did good, really good. It was one heck of a day. What’s next?
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