Junior Year Box Set

He threw a face. I understood that M.E. wasn’t attractive, but she was a sweet girl and just weird enough that I liked hanging out with her. I guess I felt she was like an abused puppy that needed some attention. It wasn’t that I felt sorry for her, it was more that I could see someone who needed a friend.

We were eating our lunch in the Hampton Inn breakfast room when we spotted some of the guys from our team in North Carolina. Trent and Mitch pulled up chairs.

“Did you see who else was on our team?” Trent asked.

“No, why?” I asked.

“We got the young kids.”

Of the 40 players taken, all would be seniors or entering college except for three players. One was a sophomore, and there were two juniors. For now, they divided us into two teams of 20—the Stars and the Stripes. Only 20 of us would make the final cut to represent the USA in Monterrey.

“That must mean they’re good,” I said. “Leave it to Coach Kingwood to find us the best players for our team.”

We finished our sandwiches and found the conference room where our team, the Stars, was meeting. Coach Kingwood made us all give up our cell phones so there would be no distractions. We each received a binder that we would use while we were here.

The room was set up with classroom-like seating. Allard and I picked seats next to some of our old teammates on Pride. Coach Kingwood counted noses and started the meeting right on time. I smiled when he walked back and locked the door even though we were two players short. This reminded me of the Elite 11 football camp.

“There are a few items I want to talk about before we head over to Minute Maid Park,” Coach Kingwood started. Then there was a rattling of the door as someone tried to enter.

One of the coaches left to deal with it.

“I shouldn’t need to say this, but I expect you to be on time. That’s my last warning about that, because from now on if you’re late, you don’t play. I think you can figure out that if you don’t play, you won’t be making the team,” he said, making his point.

“Let’s talk baseball. I want you to run to score. Sometimes you might not be aware of other play that’s occurring on the field,” he said as a video began on the screen behind him. “This clip shows you exactly what I’m talking about. I want to reinforce to you to pay attention to your coaches and trust them to get you in position to succeed. I want you aggressive on the basepaths and to put pressure on the defense.”

The video showed the batter hitting the ball to left field with runners on first and second. It was clear the left fielder would catch it on the hop. The lead runner made it home while the play at third was close. The third-base coach was frantically waving his arm to hustle and then slide.

“Did you see how close that play was? W. I. N., win. That’s something I talk about every day. Write that down,” he said.

We got our binders out and wrote out the letters down the page.

“What’s. Important. Now.—W. I. N. or win.”

We wrote the words out before he continued.

“The baserunner on first never looked to the field to see what the left fielder was doing. He was focused on his task in that moment. That task was to pick up as many bases as he could. If he’d done like so many base runners do and slowed down to make sure the ball hadn’t been caught on the fly, he would have been out. Instead, he focused on his third-base coach and trusted him to get him the most bases. He showed good hustle getting around the basepath. Team Pride heard this enough: attitude and effort. If you show those two qualities and play within the moment, we will have success.

“I want you to think about something. If we’re down by a large margin … where does our comeback start?” he asked and paused. “It starts right now. It starts with your head in the game. With each pitch you throw. With a quality at-bat. It starts with you making the proper play in the field or on the basepath. It is locked in the moment. This is how we will win. Attitude and effort, combined with W.I.N.

“This is not about us saying we’re going to score five or six runs to catch up. It’s now … plus the next now … plus the next now. It’s about keeping focused on the task at hand, and we will achieve the outcome we desire. That is about you setting goals. You know you’re at point A, and you want to get to point B. Now, how are you going to get there? What are the steps along the way? Now, what is that? That’s the process. That’s W.I.N., ‘What’s Important Now,’” Coach Kingwood explained.

He then familiarized us with international play. In high school, most games were seven innings. In international play, we would be playing a full nine. There would also be a designated hitter. This was how we played before in the first tryouts, so it wasn’t a surprise. He warned us that we were representing our country, and good sportsmanship was expected.