Unforgettable Consequences

Mistakes. They happen, everyone is human, and everyone makes them. Not one person is perfect, making a mistake can be second nature to humans, and everyone can attest to that. I could guarantee that everyone you ask, has the greatest mistake of their life, and could tell you the exact details. That’s because mistakes and faults shape who we are. You can’t learn or thrive in life if you don’t learn. You can’t learn if you don’t try new things, make mistakes, or do something wrong. That’s how Humans become themselves. In this blog post, I won’t be writing about my biggest mistake, but one that changed my perspective.

Earlier this year for high school baseball, our 4th game of the year. We had to play away against Spruce Mountain. For background, we had just lost our 3 first games against the toughest teams in the region all by 3 runs or less. We needed revenge. We should be 3-0, maybe 2-1. Instead, we were 0-3. We knew we were better. We were very cocky going into this game, we knew this team wasn’t very good, we mercy-ruled them last year. The weather was nice, a little warm, but nice. Our spirits were high. We were ready. The game started off slow, first 2 innings we couldn’t put together any hits, I remember in the top of the second inning I got on base with 1, out, but that quickly turned into 3 before I could reach home. My team knew that we needed to pick it up, we were a better team, and we should be up by 2 runs at least. We got a talk from our coach, then took the field, ready to play another good 3 outs of defense. We had 2 outs, we were ready to get out of the inning, and the batter had 2 strikes on him. On the third pitch of the at-bat, he hit a groundball to my shortstop, we threw it a little off, my first baseball was able to slow it down but he couldn’t get the out, because I am the catcher, one of my responsibilities is to back-up the throw to first when no runners are on. So when I hustled down the first base line, I collected the ball as it slowly dribbled past the first baseman, the base runner didn’t realize this so he ran to second, I had him out by a mile with my arm, and I threw a laser, it looked perfect. But It went right over my shortstop’s head. the runner got to second base on a routine ground ball, a tough error. The very next batter hits a double and gets the runner to home to make the score 1-0. We ended up losing that game by one run.

In the end, I was bothered by my error. I was making excuses, trying to cover things up. My coach walked up to me and said “Grayson, you did something wrong, so what, move on, you will only get better from this”. By the end, I realized my mistake, my error. But I also realized that the next time that scenario comes up, ill be prepared, ill know what to do, and I won’t make that mistake again. Just because you did something wrong, doesn’t mean it can’t be turned into something good.

“Frustrated” by cellar_door_films is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.