Team Player

When I was a little kid I would say 4th or 5th grade best I can remember. I would play baseball all summer.That was my thing baseball I loved it and I was pretty good at it. Little League was a big thing to me. Then in the spring of the year our school would put a little team together and we would play all he other schools around our part of the city. Now by this time I had been playing ball for 4 or 5 years and I knew the game and was good at it. Yes I was a prima dona I was the best I knew it all and no one could tell me anything. Now we are playing a school I use to go to my first 3 years of school and I knew most if not all the players at that school and I wanted to win bad. Because it would not be long till the Little League Season would start and I would see all these kids over there and I wanted bragging rights. Well it wasn't going good our pitcher was terrible he could not get the ball over the plate and when he did they hit it out of the park I was getting frustrated mad. I am thinking what is this coach doing keeping this kid in as pitcher he sucks. Myself I always played catcher on every team I played on. so I am behind the plate. So I started throwing the ball over the pitchers head then I would throw it to him in the dirt. That's when the coach called time out and took me out of the game and I said why are you taking me out he is the one who sucks. Then they started the game back. The coach sit there and told me he is our best pitcher he just gets to nervous in the games and can't perform. We have to put him in there long enough to settle down and relax and get some confidence he needs our help. He needs your help then I started feeling bad that I acted so selfish All I could think about was winning. I wasn't thinking about the game or the players or the coaches the fans all I was thinking about was my self and winning. That is when I first learned about being a team player. And we came back and won that game. But it did not matter because from then on I was a team player. And thinking about the game trying to make the right decisions thinking about he players on both sides the fans the coaches that's being a team player. A real player. You know looking back that is the only game I remember from those days and It is not because we won it's because I learned a life lesson that day. The name of the coach the players I can;t remember any of them. But it was a day that changed my life and that is the beauty of sports. And I was lucky to have a coach who could see past winning. And show me all the other aspects of the game Thanks....... That is why I like to coach a little kids team now. To show them there is no black and white just different shades of gray. Try to look at the whole picture.....