Well, that would be a new concept. Losing is fun? I don’t think so… well, normally it isn’t. Yet, after a close loss on Sunday night in our baseball game, I sort of felt that way. Winning is better, for sure, but… we can still have fun even though we lost, right? OK, so the process is fun, not necessarily the end result. Does that still make losing fun?
We dug ourselves a 4-0 hole in the first inning; we’ve been in a bad habit of falling behind early in games. Sometimes we’re able to recover and win; sometimes we’re not. It was 4-0 until the 3rd inning when we cut the lead in half. We had 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs, looking for more, with my son at the plate; he was in the middle of a good AB, when our kid got picked off 3rd base… damn. In the 5th inning, we scratched across another run, cutting the deficit to 1; yes, the other team hadn’t scored another run yet. In the 6th inning, we finally caught and passed them. The kid who got the big hit had only 2 hits all season before this one; he had struck out 6 of his previous 7 ABs. Yeah, it was pretty cool; this IS fun. This kid was the same kid on the mound the last 3 innings, shutting them down. He doesn’t throw fast, and not necessarily all strikes, but… the kids were swinging and we were fielding; sometimes it’s that easy. Anyways, before his big hit, I called him over. I told him… this is your game… you’ve been on fire… now it’s time for a big hit. First pitch, bam! We were up 5-4.
Now the question: do I send him out there for another inning? We had thrown 3 shutout innings… he was pumped up… the kids were pumped up… I sent him back out. He gave up 2 runs. Wrong decision? Well… I had another kid ready to go; he was next up in the rotation, not necessarily a great pitcher either. I had 2 of my 3 best pitchers at my disposal; if it were a playoff game, one of them was coming in. Still… we had a chance in the last inning, the top of the 7th. We leadoff with a strikeout. The next kid, our best hitter, slammed one in the gap… he was flying around the bases, and ended up on 3rd base; yeah! Next kid up is our 2nd best hitter; he struck out looking… that hurt. He had a rough day at the plate. This brought up my son with 2 outs; pressure was on. He had another great AB, ending with a smash… the SS made a nice play and fired it over… getting my son, who was busting it down the line, by a step. Some say the kid’s foot had slipped off first base… My son was called out, and the game was over. He was not happy. Losing ISN’T fun…
He’ll be fine; we’ll be fine. It was a hell of a game, and in my 30 second postgame speech, I told them this: Thank you! Thank you for playing your butts off. I believe every game we play, we can win; that’s no cap (kid talk for lie). They all looked at me. I meant it. We lost this one, but we were right there… again. Outside of 1 game this year, we could have won every other one. We sit at 6-4-1 with one regular season game remaining. Losing isn’t fun, but this game still was. Next.
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