Austin+Debban

__Step Up__ I timidly step up to the position My life bounded me to fill The goal of defeating the opposition Looking into the crowd everyone sits still Knowing what I must do To achieve my goal Leading my team helping them to know what to do Pouring everything I have into this including my soul Defeat in this battle is the end Even the weakest players push themselves on top They also see the achievement of the goal Playing the game in our zone as time ticks down Strong emotion is bound I look into the crowd and see my dad Proud of my performance in leading my team Even though we were struck with a loss __Wishing__ wishing you were there for all my childhood games wishing you could have heard all the times they said my name. wishing you were there when i needed your support. wishing our time together didn't come up so short. wishing i could have showed how much you mean to me. wishing you could have seen what i've grown to be. wishing you could have seen me complete a pass wishing you could see me walk with my class. wishing you could see me marry the one i love. wishing you weren't just looking down from above. wising you could see me make lifes climb. wishing i could see you one last time. __Respect__ why must people compare? why must you be stereotyped why can't people get to know who you are? if everyone would just look at someone as an individual. like reading a boook because of the interest and not because of the genre. everyone sees the same light of day. everyone sees life in a different way. not everyone makes life worth the while. not everyone goes through life with a smile. next time you see someone you will ask why. that person looks that way into the sky. so take a moment. and think of what is right.

__Life of Baseball __ Hi,

My name is Dawson. I am a sixteen year old boy who loves baseball, and this is my story. I was born in St. George, Utah on May 17, 1994. My family at the time, consisted of my parents, sister and myself.

Learning came quickly to me as a child. My mom would teach me many things, in which I’d pick up within a few days. This is where baseball comes in. 1997, the first year I played T-ball. For those who are unaware of what T-ball is, it is the beginning stages of baseball for younger children. The ball rests on a rubber stand, on which the umpire places the ball to be hit by the batter.

My best friend was a team mate of mine on the green team. Every time he went up to bat, He would step up to the tee and announce to the field, “ Here goes a whole lot of homerun”, and he’d hit the ball as hard as he could. Growing up, he was always the hard hitter no matter the sport or team we were on, and I was always the faster runner.

My second year of baseball, I played in a league called coach pitch. The rules are similar to baseball rules except your coach pitches to you instead of another player. That year of coach pitch was pretty fun but easy because my friend and I played together, hitting in park homeruns like back in T-ball.

My third year playing baseball was in a league called Pee-wees. This time, other players were able to pitch to you. The only thing that brought the game down was the fact that we’d be walked by the pitcher nearly everytime. Once in a while we’d be able to take advantage of one good pitch and send it flying. Hitting a baseball as hard as you can is one of the greatest feelings to incounter. You feel the ball jump from the bat, and all you can hear is the “Ting” sound coming from the ball popping off the aluminum barrel of the bat and there is no sound like it that you will ever hear.

There’s this situation in baseball called the “Pickle”. It’s where a runner gets trapt in between two bases by the other team and the runner has to run back and forth until he either reached his base or was tagged out. Getting in pickles was my favorite thing to do as a kid. Everytime I got on base, I’d immediately try to get into a pickle. I did this because I was so fast and I was merely messing around with the other players for a little while and run to the next base. I did this repeatedly for my own amusement. Oddly enough, I’d always reach the next base with out being tagged out. My fourth and fifth year playing baseball, I was playing for the pittsburg pirates in minor league. I was the youngest player on the team and also the smallest by far. Aside from my height and age, I was one of the best pitchers on the team. I played many postions including: pitcher, catcher, and shortstop. My second year I played for the anehiem angels. I was nominated best pitcher in the league. My best friend and I were chosen out of twelve people to play on the all-star team. The All-star team consisted of the best kids out of every city, together in their own league. Playing to make it to state, and then on to regionals. Once past the regionals, we’d be givin the honor to verse teams from around the world.

For the next two years I was in the major leagues. The first year of majors, I was on the cardinals and my dad was the coach. That year we had the only girl in the league on our team. Her name was maddie and I had the biggest crush on her. One game she was pitching and I was catching but I forgot my cup at home. I didn’t want to tell my dad because he wouldn’t let me catch with out it. As I went to get one of her pitches, it was too low and I missed it with my glove, It bounced off the home plate and knocked me in a pretty sensitive area. No girl in the world will ever understand the pain cause by that sort of thing. There are definitely worse pains out there that girls will experience but all in all, the pain is almost unbarable.

At the end of that year, I made all-stars with my best friend zach and maddie. My second year of majors, I was on the cubs and my dad was the coach again. One of my other friends named tyler, was on my team this year and he was the hardest hitter I’ve ever known. Almost every time he went up to bat, it was a home run or a double. Also during this season, I was on a team called the nighthawks. It was a super league team that my friend Zach and I played on. The thing I like about super league teams is that we travel everywhere. We played games in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, St. George, and Nebraska. Our biggest tournament of the year was in Nebraska and the whole team stayed in the same hotel. We would wake up every morning and play four to five games a day for five days. We ended up taking fourth in that tournament but the trip was worth it. While we were down there, we went to the college world series and watched Oregon State Vs. Rice game. Oregon state ended up winning that game but rice won the whole world series. We also went to the Nebraska Zoo. That zoo is known to be one of the best zoo’s in the nation. They have a huge dome and upstairs is the desert exhibit. Down stairs is the wet lands exhibit, which had a fifteen foot albino crocodile that was massive.

After your second year of majors, you have to move up to babe ruth leagues. They are played on the high school baseball fields. Yet again, my dad was the coach of my team and we took first out of our league that year and I made all-stars for the last time. In all stars we took second in state, and took third in regions so we weren’t able to go to the little league world series.

All my life up to my high school years was all about baseball but as soon as I got into high school, I started falling behind in school because of baseball. So I was forced to stop playing and pick it up in college. So there you have it, “Dawsons’s Life of Baseball!”