I struck out on Tuesday night for the first time in my life. Like, ever. To be fair, I never played actual competitive baseball or softball growing up - just tee ball as a kid, rec-league machine pitch as a youth and Mormon stake softball as a "Young Single Adult." Nothing too serious. But I enjoy playing ball when I get a chance and I guess I subconsciously always took a sense of pride in never having struck out. To be honest, I'm not sure it crossed my mind very often; striking out was just something I had never done and never intended to do. Of course, I'm no Babe Ruth. It's not like I hit a home run every time I stepped to the plate, but, all things considered, I've been a relatively decent ball player for the past couple decades.
Let me give you some context of what happened to me the other night:
Per the rules and guidelines of singles wards in the LDS Church, I am to be exiled from, flunked out of and kindly asked to leave the singles ward if I am not married by the time I turn 31 in November. These congregations are intended for unmarried members of the Church from the ages of 18 through 30. As of right now, it seems very likely that I will still be single, come Thanksgiving. Thus, I have been preparing all softball season to say goodbye to YSA sports for good. Flag football will probably start up sometime in the fall, but I'll have one foot out the door at that point and I do not intend to play. This was it - my final hoorah - and I wanted to make the best of it.
This season, I was playing with the Union YSA Ward in Midvale as an alternating middle infielder/right fielder. My team got second place in our stake after a nice regular season, which earned us a spot in the regional tournament. This was a first for me, and was kind of a big deal. I had played 18 years of church sports and had never advanced to the postseason. I also got second place twice in men's volleyball and co-ed flag football during my time at Snow College (the prestigious "Intramural Champion" t-shirt always eluded me), but this was my first time ever participating in a regional tournament, so I was pretty happy about it.
The regional tournament, held at Salt Lake City's famous Larry H. Miller Softball Complex, was double-elimination, so we were scheduled to play Tuesday and Wednesday night, one way or the other. We lost our game on Tuesday night, which was too bad because I think we could have (and probably should have) beaten that team. Overall, we just didn't play well. We made a lot of mistakes and had trouble putting runners on base. I admittedly take a portion of the blame for that loss. Although I wouldn't say that I was a primary reason that my team didn't win, I certainly didn't help out very much. I consider Tuesday night to be the worst softball game I can ever remember playing, personally. Despite knocking in a run on a ground-out in my first at-bat, I flew out in my second at-bat and had a throwing error in one of the middle innings. On top of that, at one point, I was attempting to throw the ball from third base to first base and the ball pretty much only made it about to the pitcher's mound. My nerves must have gotten to me and I accidentally threw the ball about 10 feet short of its intended destination. Furthermore, the last of my three at-bats was something that I am not proud of.
Let me first say that the opposing pitcher was probably the best kind of pitcher you could ask for in this type of amateur setting - one that isn't particularly good, but throws the ball close enough to the plate that the ump could pretty much call balls or strikes either way. In stake softball, for some unknown reason, you only get 3 balls and 2 strikes before you walk or strike out, which makes things a little exciting if you get behind in the count. I grabbed a bat, took a couple mini practice swings, and stepped into the batter's box.
I took the first pitch, which landed several inches short of home plate. With the YSA ball/strike rules in mind, we'll call this "Ball Two." The second pitch was a relatively good "hitting height" for me, so I was looking to swing. To my surprise, I swung and whiffed, completely missing the ball. We'll call this "Strike Two." In retrospect, I think the pitch would have been a ball - I even asked the umpire whether the pitch was outside of the strike zone. (He didn't give me a definitive answer.) In came the third pitch, which I was resolved to hit. Disbelief set in as I swung and completely missed the pitch again. Strike Three. Down on strikes for the first time in my life. It wasn't the end of the world - and I'm not even sure that I was the first guy on the team to strike out in that game - but I was pretty embarrassed as I made the walk of shame back to the dugout.We ended up losing the game by four runs, I think, and were relegated to the "Losers Bracket" for Wednesday night's game. I was sure we'd bounce back after Tuesday night's underwhelming showing in our next game, but I went home frustrated, disappointed and mad at myself. I had let my team down and, more importantly, I had let myself down. I knew I was capable of doing better, and I embarrassed myself in front of everybody. I even started thinking about that strikeout as being some morbid kind of analogy for my experience in singles wards - a valiant effort overall, but, in the end, a swing and a miss. (Too harsh? Yeah. Probably a little too harsh, but hey - that's how I was feeling at the time.)
I didn't want to stay in that foul mood, so - I kid you not - I went straight up to my room when I got home and spent the next 25 minutes pouting and looking up inspirational movie quotes.
Here's a good one:
After watching a few of these clips, I began to feel much better about things and I was determined to do better in our next game. (In my mind, it would be nearly impossible to do any worse!)
But then I started thinking: I went nearly 31 years without striking out a single time. I missed on a couple swings and caused, ultimately, an inconsequential out in one single game, and I there I was, feeling down about myself like I was some kind of poor excuse for a human being.
I was being absolutely unfair to myself by basically expecting to bat 1.000 with no fielding errors and zero losses in my whole career. That's ridiculous and unreasonable. Check this out: Right now, the player with the best batting average in all of Major League Baseball is Jose Altuve of the Houston Astros, who is currently batting with a .364 average. That means he only gets a hit 36% of the time. He has struck out 57 times in 427 at-bats so far this season (through 108 games), which means he - the best hitter in the whole league - strikes out 13% of the time. That's a little more than 1-in-10, meaning, in stake softball terms, that he'd strike out about once every five games. I struck out one time in my entire life and felt like a failure.
I think we are all occasionally guilty of expecting ourselves to bat 1.000 in life, as well. One thing goes wrong and, despite all of the success and progress do we have happening, we get depressed and feel like giving up because of a single mistake or a couple bumps in the road. Take it from one who knows - my life was never supposed to get to this point; I was supposed to get married when I was 23. That was the plan. Yet here I am, struggling to get girls to agree to second dates, most of the time. Sometimes it sucks. But I shouldn't let that a couple negative things overshadow all the other awesome stuff that I have going on.
I think I'm a good writer. I've done a lot of incredible things with journalism, including winning an award from the Utah Society of Professional Journalists for a piece I wrote for the Deseret News. I've had the opportunity to interview dozens of movie stars and celebrities through my ties with Salt Lake Comic Con. I think I'm a good entertainer and a unique teacher. I was recently hand-picked by my employer to travel to the corporate headquarters in Hoboken, New Jersey. I just got promoted, and even though this new position is much more difficult than my last job, I'm four weeks in and they've just started having me help train new hires. The ladies might not be crazy about A-Town, but I don't think I'm hideously ugly and my mom still loves me. I've had fun traveling to 10 Major League Baseball stadiums, with Number Eleven coming up in Oakland later this month. I get to wake up every morning and take a nice, warm shower. I have a wonderful family and some great friends. I have more fancy socks than anyone else I know (#sockswag, am I right??). There are lots of things that I like about myself. And I'm seriously going to let something like dating problems or Gordon Hayward going to Boston or one stupid strikeout get in my way?? If those are the three worst things I am dealing with, my batting average in life has got to be like .875. Take that, Jose Altuve!
***
I hit a bases-clearing triple off the fence in my first at-bat on Wednesday night and was responsible for four of our seven runs in the first inning. Despite going on to lose, 21-20, in extra innings and watching as my YSA sports career came to an end, nothing could have made me happier in that moment than knowing that I had confidence in myself to come back from the strikeout on Tuesday night and make a big contribution in my very next plate appearance. I think it was probably the best hit of my stake softball career. I really thought it had a chance to make it over the fence. It wasn't a grand slam, but you know what? I had a huge smile going from ear to ear when I stopped at third base.
***
In the proverbial softball game of our lives, remember that even Mighty Casey struck out once. And although there was no joy in Mudville that day, the clouds will eventually part for us when we are called to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. Keep your chins up, my friends. Keep swinging, and good things will happen.
"Happiness does not depend on what happens outside of you but on what happens inside of you; it is measured by the spirit with which you meet the problems of life." - Harold B. Lee
