Since I was 8 years old and living in the Dominican Republic, I always enjoyed playing sports, especially baseball. Since I can remember, my dream has always been to be a professional baseball player and follow my dad’s dream of being a pitcher, but for my dad his mom wanted him to study and become a doctor. In  DR, practicing baseball with a professional team was hard, because although my dad always sent me all the equipment  that I needed, the park was too far from my house. But that never stopped me and my friends from walking  for an hour and a half to get to the field, and then, when we got to the field, we needed to run around the field for thirty minutes. Now that I look back at it, it looks like we were going too much, but we didn’t see that because we had a dream and were having fun. When I got the news that I was going to come and live in the United States, I was happy because I was thinking about all the opportunities to play baseball that I was going to have and I would have my dad to support me with his advice.

At first, it was hard to play baseball because I didn’t know English and I was scared of going out to the park without my dad. At the time, it was hard for me to play because, at the time, basketball was my brother’s favorite sport. I went to the park once a week with my dad. The good thing was that I made friends with other kids  of my age that liked to play baseball just like me. In my first year in the U.S, it was almost the same thing every day going to school, coming home, doing homework, and going to the park on the weekend. The transition from middle school to high school was not easy for me because I didn’t know English that much but with time I got used to it and I also made friends that were just like that were from DR. In my freshman year I made the baseball team and did well for a freshman. My sophomore year I was ready to play baseball but it got canceled because of the pandemic. In my junior, we play baseball but it was not a long season we play like 8 games because there were not a lot of teams. But my senior year was when I put everything together as a player and had my best season by far. The team was doing good and we made the playoffs, there’s where my story begins.

It was a normal day of school,  it was a  good sunny day to play baseball, the only thing was that the school baseball team had a semi-final game and I was going to pitch that game. That day for my first class I did nothing but think about plans for the game and talk to my teammates about the game. We were talking in Spanish because we were all Dominican and we were saying things like “Ahy que estar listo con tiempo pa’ la recta”(We need to be ready on time for the fastball) and one of my friends named Jhon told me “Tu tienes ue tirar much strikes”(You need to throw a lot of strikes). The baseball team was doing good because we knew how to play smart and we knew what to do at the right time. That day all it was in my head it was the catcher’s glove because as a pitcher you want to throw the ball where the catcher puts his glove most of the time is In the strike zone. At 1:30 pm it was time to meet up in front of the school so we can all as a team take the L train to the 14av stop and then take the 5 walks like 3 minutes and get to the field.

When we got there the field was locked so our coach needed to call the owner  of the league so he can come and open the field. I wasn’t nervous because I have faced that team two times before that game and I pitch well but that don’t take away that it was going to be an intense game because both teams were going to have their best pitcher pitching. We were the away team with meant that we hit first,  the first batter for us got a hit but was cut out stealing and the next two batters got out, so it was my time to pitch, that game was the best game I ever pitch because I pitch the full game with was seven innings and strike out 11 batters. We won that game with a score of 7 to  3 and I got the MVP of the game. When we went to the final although we didn’t play badly we lost because we were not able to put everything together. Losing the final was hard for me because that was my last baseball game with my high school team we were like brothers and the coach was like my dad in baseball and we were always talking about how we can improve and always talking about the MLB and the teams. When I got home I was proud of myself and also my coach was proud of me because of all the work that I have put in since I was a freshman and how much I have improved.

This changed my view on education because when I had the change from middle school to high school I was scared that I was going to struggle and that I will have to take classes after my graduation year. Baseball motivated me to do good in school and push myself to go to OH because if you didn’t have good grades couldn’t play for the school team.

In conclusion what I want the reader to take out of my writing is that you need to trust yourself and believe that good things are going to come. Also that you should never doubt yourself don’t matter the situation, trusting yourself is something that is hard for a lot of people especially if they have gone throw bad things.