How Baseball Changed My Life

Misfortune Junior Year

Baseball was my first ever high school tryout mainly because it was the only sport I played. Sure I was nervous, but all my hard work and dedication playing travel baseball helped those nerves. I still remember tryouts very vividly. I felt like I was smooth as could be in the field and hit fairly well at the plate. Then, tryout results were posted and my speed walk to the list after school begun. I saw my name on the list along with a lot of my other baseball buddies. I was incredibly ecstatic but kept my cool because we had practice that same day. I was on junior varsity, but I didn’t care, I was on the team.

Freshman year flew by and held my own when it came to the season. I felt good about sophomore season basically

I figured I would get more playing time, at the varsity level, and improve my game dramatically. Little did I know my first varsity season my junior year would completely change my life. My first varsity game I was feeling all kinds of emotions. Nervous was the biggest and most common emotion that day. Coach was reading off the lineup and sure enough I made it in as the fifth batter. We were the home team so we took the field first. During the National Anthem, I was a nervous wreck. As the half inning changed, we were up to bat. As my at bat was approaching, my emotions stayed the same. I dug into the batter's box and was ready to kick things off on the long season. I swung too hard on my first swing and tore my labrum. The labrum is a ring of fibrocartilage that runs around the cavity of the scapula. The labrum is in the shoulder even though I felt like I broke my entire arm.The feeling I had was unexplainable. I was actually more in shock than anything. Clutching to my shoulder, I had no idea at this point what I did to it. I thought for sure I tore or broke something. The athletic trainer wrapped it up with ice and I was officially done for the game. There were also two other injuries that game from our team. Nate Moonen, our unspoken captain, and Kole Barkhaus went down with game ending