How I fell in love with softball and being a catcher
From the moment I picked up softball, I knew I had found my passion. The sound of the bat hitting the ball, the feeling of the ball hitting my glove when I'm back there catching, the feeling of running the bases, and the bond that is built as a team completely caught my attention. Softball became more than just a sport to me, it became my passion, life, and goal. Now let me tell you how being a catcher and softball stole my heart.
When I was just 4 years old, I would always beg my parents to sign me up for baseball at the park that was just across the street from my house. Every night before bed I would continuously ask for them to sign me up. When they would drop me off at school all I would say was “mama papa, por favor quiero jugar baseball en el parque”. It was not until I got out of school that day.
We were walking home when suddenly we stopped at the park. I already knew what was coming and I was beyond ready. I got home, dropped all of my school things and ran to the car. We were going to buy a glove, bat, and all of the things I needed. I was going wild in the store. I wanted to buy every single thing, but my mom yelled at me and told me to calm down. The first practice came and I was so hyped and excited. Yay right I finally get to play baseball, yeah no. when I got there it was nothing like I expected. After the first practice I went home crying because I had gotten hit with the ball, yeah it hurt but I wasn’t going to let no little boo-boo mess with me.
Whenever my dad got the chance, he practiced catching with me and batting. As I started to play more and more (when I say more, mean more) I mean months and years. My coaches told me about softball, they told me it was just like baseball but with a bigger ball, with all girls, and different pitching. By the time I was 10 I joined a rec-ball softball team and gave up baseball because I wanted to give softball a try. First rec-ball game for softball came and they put me as catcher. Now I had zero experience with catching, I always thought it was scary because the ball is coming at you so fast, and in my little head I was thinking “what if the ball hits my arm, what if I get hurt really bad”. Obviously I was being dramatic because when I got back there I was fearless, but it was something completely different from baseball. It was a bit confusing at first but the more I played the more I started to adjust to it.
I fell in love with being a catcher. I played softball for the park for 2 years then after that I joined a travel ball team and tried out for batbusters. Now this was nothing like rec-ball, let me tell you that. There were so many girls with so much talent and I knew I had no chance against them, and mind you I had been catching for a while now so I had more experience with it. I tried out for my position as catcher. I made the team. Yeah ik I’m just as shocked as you are. After the tryouts the coach came and talked to me about the days we have practice and the games and tournaments we have coming up.
It’s been 3 months that I’ve been playing with batbusters. By this time I’m taking catching lessons from my coach. All catchers, and all pitchers would go in their groups and work on the position they play. The coaches would always compliment my arm. By what I mean by arm is, I had an arm, I really had a powerful arm, and if I just kept working hard I knew I would get 10x better than I already am. I was also their starting catcher for every game, and I was so proud of myself because I came from knowing so little to knowing so much , and that’s one thing I will always remind myself of, how far and how much I’ve done to get where I am. All my spare time,
Holidays, blood, sweat, and tears that I gave to this sport. All my dedication and commitment.
It’s been 4 years and I’m still playing. Same position, and same mindset. I might not play for the batbusters anymore, but I thank them so so much for putting all their time into making me the player I am today. I will always keep them in my heart. Because of them I love the sport and what I do. Yeah there’s time where I feel like giving up, and think that it's not worth it, but to be honest, it is worth it, everything I did for this sport, to be on the field, was 100% worth it.
I’m now in high school and I can’t wait to show off my talent, and love for softball here at sacred heart.