On June 19th the public schools near Lake Sammamish had their last day of school. For many eleven to thirteen year-olds, it’s a relief that is nearly indescribable. It’s time to forget about the responsibilities of homework and class and it’s time to go to the beach, ride your bike and chase the ice cream truck. For a select few kids however, it’s little league baseball’s all-star season. On June 19th the kids of the Eastlake All-Star team were enjoying the last day of school, by practicing baseball. They had less than two weeks to prepare for their first game of the district tournament.
All-star baseball in the district tournament is the highlight of most little leaguers’ summer. Every all-star wants that awesome district t-shirt with their name on the back with a star printed next to it with all their friends and the other teams. At the time, Eastlake was just another team on the back of that shirt.
It started in their own district tournament and they never looked back. After winning district nine, Eastlake then played through the entire elimination bracket in state enduring seven games in one week including a double-header in the championship. That’s when they hit their stride, sweeping through regionals averaging almost nine runs a game. Now, only Williamsport awaited them and the Little League World Series.
At Williamsport, they would be starting their fourth tournament in less than two months. To get to Williamsport, these boys and their families would travel over 4,000 miles up and down the west coast and across the nation. A bit unconventional for a summer road trip, but I’m sure these ball players didn’t mind one bit. In what I can imagine felt like a whirlwind, they only had 17 days off the whole summer from tournaments. To put that in a perspective, the Seattle Mariners had 8 days off including the All-Star Break in that same stretch of time.
An exhausting, borderline professional schedule that these boys endured was made worth it by their time spent in Williamsport. An experience such as the Little League World Series is timeless. Sixteen elite teams from around the world being put on a pedestal to show off their talents on the biggest stage some of them may ever have. Bottom-line, it’s pretty damn special just to be there. For Eastlake however, it was business as usual.
If you caught only one game the entire World Series, I hope it was Washington’s final game. It was an elimination game against the New England Regional representative and the winner would go to the US Final. It was touted by analysts and baseball fans alike as an instant classic that will be replayed for years to come. The courageous Eastlake squad fell behind early but roared back from a 2-5 deficit with a 10-run fourth inning. Just six outs away from the United States Final. But this fairytale was too good to be true. Westport, Connecticut made a comeback of their own and won 13-12 in extra innings. It was a barn burner that sent Eastlake packing. The ride was over.
Now take a breath. Whoa.
I could try and go through the plays and the short hops of how close they were to making it to the US Final of the Little League World Series but for this group of kids, it won’t be the heart breaking loss at the end of the rainbow they will remember when they are older, it will be the journey. All those district games, the marathon through state and the blistering assault on regionals built a strong family on a common dream that culminated in a trip to Williamsport. Eastlake Sammamish played 24 games in four tournaments over the course of 56 days. That giant family of players, parents and brothers and sisters, sacrificed their summer spending countless nights in hotels and numerous hours on the road building friendships and creating priceless memories that will stick with them forever, no matter the outcome.
But now what? The tournaments are over. The summer is over.
Seriously, you go through such a unique adventure and then they expect you to return home at the end of August and just go back to school? That would be awful, not awful as in bad, but awful as in sobering beyond belief. How could you go back to writing papers, learning algebra and sitting in a crowded classroom when just weeks before you were being watched by millions the world over just for playing a sport you love? Most kids are not looking forward to going back to school just because summer is over but if you had a summer like that? How do you go back to living a normal teenage life, or even go back to little league baseball?
It doesn’t matter if some of those kids rarely play much baseball after this or if some go on to play it professionally, they all experienced something rare together that will unite them for as long as they live. It will be interesting to see where they all end up and how easily those happy memories will come flooding back to them when they re-unite down the road.
But for now, they are still just kids rounding the bases of life. Not knowing which way the ball will bounce. I’m sure at practice those two weeks at the end of the school year, before district play started, they probably never expected bouncing into Williamsport.
It seems as if all life changing moments really do occur when you least expect it.
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