When I was in the 4th grade, we played baseball during lunchtime recess. There was a big field out back, and kids would put down backpacks and dirty jackets around the field and these were the bases. Home was the sidewalk.
It was always the 4th graders vs. the 5th graders—3rd graders weren’t allowed to play. Some kids brought bats and mitts, and we couldn’t play with real baseballs because that would probably not end well, so we played with tennis balls. The field was deep, so deep that no one had ever hit a home run, into the parking lot, hundreds of feet away. Everyone thought it would be a 5th grader. They were bigger, faster, and they thought they were smarter.
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Then I stepped up to the plate.
For most of my childhood, I was terrible at baseball. Just terrible. I was a moderately athletic kid and certainly had the capability to succeed, but it hadn’t clicked until I took a few batting lessons the previous spring. Now the 5th graders knew who I was.
When I stepped up to home on that late winter day, skies cloudless and my nose red and runny, I was confident. The 5th graders didn’t let me use their nice bats so I had to use a rusty old tee ball bat we pulled from the PE storage room. The grip was flaking and there was a noticeable dent in the aluminum, but that didn’t matter. I was confident.
They didn’t take me seriously. The pitcher smirked as he wound up and hurled; it was low and inside. Ball. The catcher tossed it back and my fingers curled around the grip and I felt my palms chafing. I wanted a piece of this ball.
He pitched again. It dipped low and away—my favorite. I extended and reached, knees buckling, and I smacked that sucker into the parking lot. I knew it was gone the second it left the bat. The 4th graders erupted in cheer; the 5th graders stared in disbelief as the ball sailed over their heads. I admired the blast, gazing at its towering parabola as I circled the bases. The tennis ball ricocheted off the pavement and bounced into the bushes, gone forever. We didn’t have another ball. For all intents and purposes, I had a just hit a walk-off home run.
Lunch ended and we went back inside. Word spread of the homer. The next day, the principal saw me and somehow knew of the shot. He congratulated me and patted me on the back and we laughed. For that entire week, I was the king of elementary school, presiding even over the 5th graders.
More homers were hit, none by me. But that was irrelevant. I only needed to hit one to cement my legacy, and with a single swing of the bat on a good pitch that should’ve been a ball, I changed lunchtime baseball forever. I was not the best player on the field by any means. There were stronger kids who could hit better than me, slimmer kids who could run faster than me, lankier kids who could throw farther than me. But I was presented with an opportunity, so I swung. I hit it. And it was gone.
