I remember when I was about 11 years old not batting well in a little league game. Afterward my Mom and my two sisters and brother and I went to the practice field. My Dad had a meeting that night so he couldn’t be around. I was lacking confidence at the plate due to a cocksucker coach that constantly put me down. I knew enough then to know he was a loser but being a kid there was nothing I could do. My anxiety grew and my self-confidence was almost non-existent.

So we gathered up ten baseballs or so and my Mom took the pitchers mound. I doubt she had thrown a ball in years—not since she played softball in high school--but she threw many that night. At first I bailed out of the batters box, afraid of the ball but still she threw as hard as she could. “Don’t move away from the ball,” she said. My brother and sisters fetched the balls and with each pitch my confidence began little by little to return. Soon I was hitting the ball out of the park again and still she threw and threw. She threw to me until her arm would barely move and it was so dark she was afraid we’d lose my siblings.

The next day when I went down to breakfast my Mom tried to pick up a frying pan of eggs from the stove but she dropped it. Her arm was too sore to lift it. I realized then that she must have been in pain while throwing to me the night before but she hadn’t said a word. And it was then that I decided that no one else would decide my fate that I wouldn’t quit on myself because she would never quit on me.

In the next game I went 3-4. My only out coming when I hit a ball deep into the woods but the left fielder was playing way back. He blindly stuck his glove in the air and caught the ball. The fans from the other team stood and cheered. I later learned that it was the only ball the kid had ever caught.