Baseball, its America’s pastime. Have you ever played baseball? Let me tell you something, it’s really fun. Baseball is played everywhere, like at parks when you have a picnic, or on a team playing for wins and losses. If you play on a team like I do, it’s a lot of fun, hard work, and sometimes stressful.

I have been playing baseball since the age of seven, I am 16 now. Every since I started baseball I fell in love with it. When I’m not playing I feel like I’m missing something, that’s how much I love it. What got me started was watching my cousin play. He wasn’t very good but he taught me a couple things and from then on it became the best game ever to me.

Although baseball is fun, it’s a hard game. I play first base, and to me it might be one of the toughest positions out there. The reason I say that is because you have to be able to field a groundball from 90 feet away sometimes closer and the ball comes off the bat usually 95 to 100 mph. It’s not always hit that fast but when the ball is hit well that’s what you can expect. When playing first base or any infield position you need to learn how to read the ball when it is hit. Sometimes you will have to move in, back, or side to side to get to a ball and there is very little room for mistake. You will take balls of the chest, legs, and even off the face but that’s all part of the game. Another big part of first base is what we call picking the ball. Picking the ball is when a bad throw is made to you and you have to scoop it out of the dirt. Keep in mind these balls are thrown about 70 to 80 mph. Well that’s all for fielding the ball, let’s talk about hitting it. As you get older hitting is a big part of the game and of course it is going to get harder and harder. As a varsity player, we have on average about .2 seconds to find the ball and decide if we want to swing or not. That’s a fastball; let’s not forget there are other pitches like a changeup and curveball. A change up is designed to take about 5-7 mph off of your fastball. What this does to the hitter is get them off balance, and it’s pretty hard to hit a baseball when you aren’t balanced. A curve ball is exactly what it sounds like, a ball that curves, like a changeup it is too fool the hitter and get them off balance. If you are saying to yourself, “That’s not hard at all” I want to see you go out and do it.

Hitting and fielding is the physical aspects of the game, but one of the most important things is being mentally strong. This game is stressful at times so you need to be able to have confidence in yourself. Baseball is a game where you have to fail to succeed so you will make errors and not hit good but that’s where being mentally strong comes in effect. If I make and error I will tell myself, “It’s ok your better than that you will get the next one” that saying will get you a lot further in this game rather than saying, “Dang it, I suck”.

After reading this I have a couple questions for you. Do you have what It takes to play this game? Do you want to play this game now? Will you love it as much as I do? The decision is up to you.