Dear Baseball Mitt,

The batter steps in the batters box and holds up his hand to the umpire to ask for time. The umpire grants the batter time as he digs in and gets into his stance. The pitcher then winds up and fires the ball toward home. The batter swings and hits a sharp ground ball right at me as I stand at shortstop. I calmly bend at the knees and scoop the ball from the dirt, and make a nice, easy throw over to first for the out. It was at that point that I realized that my hard work had paid off.

I pick up my mitt on a frosty Saturday morning. I take the field with the rest of my teammates on this cool spring morning. I know that it is not the season yet, but I know that all of the practice I put into the preseason practices, the more I will get out of myself in the games.

I needed motivation, and he was the person to give it to me. He said what was on his mind, and that gave me motivation. He called me terrible, but I am the kind of person that is determined to get better. I wanted to get better. I needed to get better. So I did get better.

I get to the ballpark and join my teammates in the dugout. It smells like sunflower seeds and dirt. I think to myself that this is the game I love, this is why I put in hard work. The grass is freshly mowed, the dirt is freshly dragged, and the lines are freshly painted. This is why I take extra ground balls at practice.

Before I knew it, I was back on the field making plays like it was a second nature. I had gotten better just like I had strived to. That one person, that I had hated so much for calling me bad, had turned out to be my savior. I couldn’t have done it without him, and my mitt.

Sincerely, Kyle