Senior Year
We had runners on 2nd and 3rd nobody out in the top of extras and he suicide squeezed with our 4th hitter who cannot bunt.  The other team knew it was coming because our coach thought small ball worked in high school, which it didn't.  They had Mr. Baseball on the mound and a 1st team catcher at the dish.  So he just spiked one that the catcher played perfectly.  Runner on 3rd is out at the plate, and the hitter strikes out after getting bitched out in front of 500 people after blowing the squeeze.  Next guy pops out and the inning is over.  Bottom of the next inning our sophomore pitcher gave up a run for us to lose.  I will never forget being on second base and seeing that sign given and just being so mad because it was an insanely stupid call.  It was the same team that beat us my junior year, we should have won both games.

Junior Year
My coach decides to bench our ace in the playoffs because he missed a NC game to play in the ABCD bball showcase in Vegas.  It ended up getting the guy a D1 scholy to play basketball.  We ended up losing by 1, 8-7.

So frustrating.  The coach quit in the offseason like a month before the next season, just a total piece of crap coach who enjoyed belittling his players to no end.  

She said the typical mom stuff, like, "don't be silly" and "just try your best," but I was finally able to convince her to take off to watch me do my impression of Babe Ruth.

While leading off and playing center I smacked a home run to start the game.

My mom was ecstatic and it was great to see her so happy with all the hard work she was doing to raise my sister and me by herself.  When I got back into the dugout, she told me how proud she was and for some reason (and I still don't really know why), I told her and everyone on my team, that in my next at bat, I would do it again.

Now I was by no means one of these totally dominant kids in LL who hits like .780 with 20 homers, but when I got up again in the third inning, I cracked a home run so far that Roy Hobbs would've stood up and said wow.

My mom was jumping up and down and my whole team greeted me at the plate.  I hit two home runs for my mom on her birthday and I called them both...and no, I did not make a proclamation for a third homer.

Outside of my two children being born and my wedding day, that was the happiest day of my life.

One time in little league I caught a line drive will playing second base, and I was so excited that I jumped up and down and ran over to my buddy the center fielder to give him a hug...

But the moment I will never forget as long as I live was the home run that was stolen from me.  As mentioned above, I was a terrible player, and days where I got a hit were quite the fluke.  But one time, the blind squirrel found the nut, and I crushed a ball to straight-away center, well over the outfielders head.  I sprinted around the bases, and for whatever reason, the secondbaseman for the other team didn't get out of the way, so I bowled him over with my shoulder, and finished my spring around the bases for my first (and only) home run in baseball

BUT WAIT!  The umpire called me out (not sure on what grounds / rule) cuz I knocked the second baseman out, and so my only moment of glory was forever erased.  

Now highschool was a different story, and I was a very good football player, swimmmer, and track.... athlete?  But man, I was a wreck at baseball...

Boom, 4 outs. All the adults were looking around like - What Happened? Is that allowed? I'm just disappointed that I didn't think to tag the runner from first base and get all of them unassisted.

It all started in fall ball, during a flag football game, I blitz and get knocked on my ass.  I go to get up and the guy takes a swing at me for kicks. I grab him and break my pitching hand on his nose.  Go to practice, tell coach I slipped in the shower, we're hoping I can atleast hit by the end of the fall.  Prick senior CF tells him the next day I got in a fight.  Got suspended for the rest of the fall.  I took great pleasure in drilling our CF the rest of the year in live BP.

Fast forward to spring ball, we make our annual trip to Jacksonville/Daytona.  I make my first career start against West Virginia Wesleyen.  I am so amped they have me at 90 consistently (I was 83-85 as a freshman).  First pitch, drill the backstop.  Second pitch, drill the backstop.  Senior catcher comes out and reads me the riot act.  Third pitch, he actually gets a glove on.  Coach comes out, gives me the riot act.  Next 3 pitches, gas down the pipe, strikeout.  I proceed to walk the bases loaded and strike out the side in the first, not a single ball hit fair.  I exit in the 4th after 100 pitches, 5 BB, 5 K, 2 hits.

We head to Daytona on Wednesday of that week, supposed to make my second start on Thursday.  As we are getting off the bus, coaches are telling us to be back by 4.  The seniors are all like yeah right, I'll be late.  Me being a freshman thinks, I'll be late too.  800 beers and a bikini contest viewing later me and a buddy show up LAST to the bus at 4:30.  I get suspended for the rest of the trip.

Midway through the season now, I'm still looking for W #1, heading down to St. Louis for the annual Greenville/McKendree trip.  The night before the whole team goes to a frat party.  Bus leaves at 4 am and nobody as slept.  I board the bus, doing my best to avoid coach in the front seat drinking his coffee.  Our senior starting pitcher for Game 1 gets on, out of his skull, and sits right behind coach.  He goes to put his feet up and kicks coach in the back on the head. LOL.  I'm sleeping in the aisle, too tanked to worry about it.  We get down there expecting coach to lay into us and he doesn't say a word.  Our catcher pulls the team aside and say something to the effect that we better win every game on this trip if we want a ride home.  I'm starting game two and now have a pounding headache.  Our no-hit RF proceeds to homer his first at-bat and hit 3 in the 4 games.  I throw a 5-hitter in game 2 and we go 4-0 on the trip.  Coach never said a word.

Way fast forward to my senior year.  After a junior year where I was getting a ton of looks by the Reds and Pirates, I was told I was too old heading into my senior year at 23.  So I'm going out in style, partying all the time, night before games, etc.  I get off to a hot start with 35 K in my first 3 starts and I'm 3-0 heading into a Friday-Saturday 3 game set with St. Francis, defending conference champs and the team our school hadn't beaten in like 15 years.  I decide, I'm going to get some good sleep the night before, no partying.  I get to the park and head down to the bullpen, pumped up.  YEAH, I proceed to launch balls all over that bullpen, even bounced a couple off the dugout 150 feet away.  I'm walking in from the pen thinking I'm going to get my tits ripped off and then it hits.....a torrential freakin downpour.  Hallelujah!  I head home and start pounding beers, and I mean pounding.  I show up the next day for the games amped on 4 advil and a great "Carbo load" workout.  I threw 170 pitches in a complete game 10-K, 6 hitter, 9-4 win.

Last story, I'm now 6-0 my senior year, starting on 3 days rest for the 5th straight time on Senior Day with a shot at the school record for wins if I can win this one and then a playoff game.  We're playing Concordia (IL), a poor team, but I'm also gassed at this point.  Everyone's parents are there, my grandparents even made the trip and I'm laboring and letting everyone know it.  Long about the 6th we're up and I'm just looking to finish up this 7 inning game (DH's are 7 innings in college for those who don't know), some dude hits a line drive right back at me, right off my inner thigh.  NOT a glancing blow, thing fell right at my feet.  I yell "MOTHERF_ER!!!" and the throw the guy out.  Yeah, Grandma didn't talk to me at dinner that night.

LOL, good times.  Great thread Lefty.

The first game I played in rec ball, I stroked an opposite field single to drive in a run and then broke up a double play (spiked the 2nd baseman right in the shins).  I batted 8th that day and my coach liked what I was doing so he put me in the 7 hole.  Next day, a couple more hits starting in centerfield.  Next game, coach moves me up to the 6th hole.  Then my dad showed up.  Now, this was the ONLY game he ever attended that I played in.  He starts talking to my coach and, for some reason, decides to tell him that I'm a total rookie at organized ball.

Next game I'm batting ninth in rightfield and never bat higher than 8th again.  He gives me a talk about how to put plastic wrap in the backyard to practice sliding.

I just looked at him and thought:  "You don't seem to remember me sliding into 2nd to break up that DP, do you?  Or the fact I'm something like 10-10 in stolen base attempts?  Oh, and the fact that your son ran into an out because he is COMPLETELY TOO AFRAID TO SLIDE."

Turns out my coach was Willie Randolph.

...

Anyway, I did start playing ball again recently, 13 years after my last real game.  If anyone has the yen to play again, I sincerely recommend joining the NABA.  Teams everywhere, different playing levels, wooden bats.  I only batted something like .187 in 20 at bats last season but it was worth it.

My favorite memory was a game saving dive to my left to catch a line drive. I was a 3B at the time. A couple runners would have scored if it got through and we would have lost the game.

I stopped being able to throw straight and got moved to 1B. My bat did fine there, but you just can't hide not being able to throw. I can't tell you how much I hated throwing the ball back to the pitcher after a throw to first.

Sophomore year high school, struggling with a good team, then one day after stretching and throwing, a group of us start playing pepper with some rules we had made up in practice. We would hide the ball, and then have three or four guys make throwing motions and only one would actually have the ball, or we would stagger the fake throws, and we would flip it up or down the line, and if you let it drop, then you had to move down to the end of the line.  

  If a batted ball was caught in the air, then the batter and the guy who caught the ball swapped places.  
  If the batter missed the pitch, then the next guy in line got to bat.  Throw it slow, throw it fast, throw it from strange angles, and even bouncing it were acceptable throws.  And all of this was done at like 10-12 feet range.  

 We were cutting up and laughing and just having a roaring good time.  Our coach was livid, the other team was just staring at us in shock.  We won that game handily and then the next twelve while being allowed to play our style of pepper.  
 We always played so loose after this that, we were allowed to continue for the next two years after that, and you couldn't imagine the looks we got from other teams and their fans.  They were blown away by this team who were acting like idiots that would go on to beat them.