Do you ever wonder what it’s like to win a long baseball game? The crowd of people watching cheer you on (or boo you off) after you win? That’s the glory a young man and his best friend had sought after during their varsity years in high school.

The young man’s name is Howard Miller, and he strived to be the best outfielder he could be. He was a schoolboy at heart as he would spend all his time on his schoolwork in attempt to get a head start on everything to have all the time in the world to do what he pleases after. He was a man with discipline on the mind to do whatever it took to handle priorities.

At this point in time, it’s after school hours when the normal school days been done. Howard decided to use the time before baseball practice to catch up on some homework. His best friend decided to tag along and keep the guy some company before practice began.

His best friend goes by the name of Charles Harris. Charles had met Howard back in the 7th grade. The brotherly bond happened over games of baseball in the season of that time. Baseball had been the game they started together, and it’s the game they’ll always play once more.

They were sitting in a classroom with their math teacher in case they needed some help with their geometry homework. Both of them had switched their regular uniforms into wearing their gym uniforms in preparation for later. Charles had already made the decision to do the homework another time. He had looked over the assignment and put his stuff away to make sure he knows what to expect later. He had looked at Howard, and gave him the look to get him to hurry up. Howard would just laugh at his impatience.

“Look man, we have another 20 minutes before we gotta go to practice so I’m going to help myself a bit by getting something done.”

Charles would just shrug his shoulders as he fiddled with a baseball in his baseball glove. About 10 minutes later, some of the other players came barging into the room.

One of the players asked, “Y’all coming to practice? Practice is starting up a bit earlier since it’s going to rain soon.”

They looked a bit tense from the drills that the coach had them doing already.

Everyone already knew the coach and his ways. The practice was going to run through the rain if it wasn’t heavy enough, so they already prepared themselves for that mentally. Howard and Charles acknowledged what they said, and shook their heads up and down to let them know they’ll be going. They had only come into the classroom since the coach had seen them earlier, and was wondering if they were skipping practice. The players had left the room in a hurry to report back to the coach and get back to practice.

Even Howard couldn’t hold himself from putting the time into the game as all he’s ever gotten from the sport were good memories. He enjoyed baseball as much as Charles did. It was one of the few ways he was able to keep his mind off things, but he has a tendency to think of what needs to be done. In this case, his best friend had to get him going to go. He was noticing how stressed Howard was just trying to finish up the assignment he’s working on before practice. He’ll remind him of practice, and that’ll usually open up his eyes instead of living in his head.

Charles would just say, “You know we have practice today right?”

“I know I know… I just need to figure this-“

“You can handle it later, for now it’s practice. Tomorrow’s game day, and you gotta step your game up if you wanna be my right hand man.”

Charles had to get the competitiveness of Howard out of him in order to get him going. At that point, Howard knew the man was right. The next day was the first bracket of knockouts to get to the finals in the school league. Howard put all his work into his backpack while thanking the teacher for taking the time to be in the classroom. Charles was already at the door of the room holding the door open as Howard was grabbing his duffel bag with his equipment to get out. When Howard stood up, he looked where he was sitting to make sure he didn’t leave anything behind and managed to get on a move. They left the room, and went downstairs to head outside for practice.