{"id":227,"date":"2022-08-26T02:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T02:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/26\/story-sneak-peek-batters-up\/"},"modified":"2022-08-26T02:56:00","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T02:56:00","slug":"story-sneak-peek-batters-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/26\/story-sneak-peek-batters-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Story Sneak Peek : Batters Up!"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t a time in my life that I can remember where I
\nwasn\u2019t playing a sport. From the time I was little, my dad and I would go into
\nthe backyard and either throw a football or a baseball back and forth.
\nSometimes we would kick a soccer ball. It was a lot of fun and as I grew older,
\nI got to play things like kickball in gym class. If it involved a ball, I
\nwanted to play. That hasn\u2019t changed, even though I\u2019m an adult now.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I played football and baseball when I was in high school. I
\nwas pretty good at both of them. During the summer, I played soccer with my
\nfriends. It seemed like if I wasn\u2019t doing homework or in school, I was on a
\nfield somewhere. I loved it. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Then, I went to college and had to decide which sport I
\nwanted to play. I couldn\u2019t play football, baseball, and soccer anymore. There
\njust wasn\u2019t enough time with classes, homework, and hanging out with my
\nfriends. In the end, I decided that I wanted to play baseball. It was my dad\u2019s
\nfavorite sport and one that I had always loved. I wanted to make sure that he
\nwas proud of me.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I did pretty good in college. So good, that after I
\ngraduated, a professional baseball team wanted me to come and play for them! I
\ncouldn\u2019t believe it. Instead of managing teams, I was going to get to keep
\nplaying for one! <\/o:p><\/p>\n

I remember my very first game. My family and friends were in
\nthe crowd, and I was really nervous. What if I struck out? What if I hit the
\nball, but tripped and fell while I was running? Before I knew it, it was my
\nturn at bat. I\u2019d been so worried about what might happen that I didn\u2019t even
\nnotice that the batters in front of me had all gotten onto base and it was now
\nbases loaded.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I swallowed hard and made my way to the batter\u2019s box. I
\ncould hear my family cheering me on. I closed my eyes for a second and then stepped
\nforward to show that I was ready. I took another deep breath and waited for the
\nfirst pitch. When it came, I swung at it, but missed. The same thing happened
\nwith the second pitch. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

I stepped back for a moment and adjusted my hat. The crowd
\nhad gotten really quiet. I glanced up and saw my dad sitting in the stands. He
\nnodded at me, and it reminded me of all the times we had played catch in the
\nbackyard. I smiled and stepped back up to the plate. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

This time, when the ball came, I was ready for it. I took a
\ndeep breath, swung my bat, and heard the crack of the ball as it hit it. I
\nwatched as it went soaring and my teammates started running. I started running
\ntoo and before I had made it to first base, I heard the announcer yell, \u201cHome
\nrun! Salem has hit a grand slam at his first time at bat!\u201d <\/o:p><\/p>\n

As I rounded third base, I looked up into the stands and
\nthere stood my father, yelling and cheering with the rest of the fans in the
\ncrowd. His eyes met mine and he smiled. He was proud of me, and you know what?
\nI was proud of me too. I had done something that some players only dream about
\nand even if it never happens again, it happened to me that time. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
———-<\/div>\n
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There isn\u2019t a time in my life that I can remember where I wasn\u2019t playing a sport. From the time I was little, my dad and I would go into…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}