The Poetry Marathon 2021<\/p>\n
June 26, 2021<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Finally<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n All I do is drive<\/p>\n Searching for diamonds<\/p>\n Filled with dreams<\/p>\n Of my youth<\/p>\n Wishing that my son<\/p>\n Gets the same experience<\/p>\n As I did so long ago.<\/p>\n The pop of the glove,<\/p>\n The crack of the bat,<\/p>\n The spitting of sunflower seeds<\/p>\n Fill the air.<\/p>\n Baseball: Where diamonds are gold<\/p>\n And dreams of glory resonate.<\/p>\n Jack has played rec ball for four years<\/p>\n And suddenly announced,<\/p>\n \u201cI want to play travel ball.\u201d<\/p>\n So, I search the net,<\/p>\n Mark the tryout dates on the calendar,<\/p>\n Fuel up the car,<\/p>\n And soon I drive\u2026<\/p>\n To Warrenton,<\/p>\n To Mount Vernon,<\/p>\n To Gainesville,<\/p>\n Back to Mount Vernon,<\/p>\n Back to Warrenton,<\/p>\n Anywhere that a team has a 13U tryout.<\/p>\n He just wants a chance to play.<\/p>\n Jack is a 12-year-old<\/p>\n Trapped in a D1 body.<\/p>\n He is six-feet tall<\/p>\n Weighing 197 pounds\u2026<\/p>\n And he is still growing.<\/p>\n He has the power,<\/p>\n But he needs fine tuning.<\/p>\n He just needs to learn to let go<\/p>\n And use all of his physical gifts.<\/p>\n I just hope one coach sees<\/p>\n His raw potential and thinks,<\/p>\n \u201cI can take him to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n However, most just want the best player<\/p>\n Who gets them closer to the league championship.<\/p>\n With each rejection,<\/p>\n Jack states,<\/p>\n \u201cI want to pay against that team.\u201d<\/p>\n This attitude will keep him motivated<\/p>\n Not only in sports but in life.<\/p>\n At each tryout,<\/p>\n I sit in the car with<\/p>\n Neal Schusterman, James Dickey, and<\/p>\n Dan Carlin who entertains me with stories.<\/p>\n Every now and again,<\/p>\n I get out and watch.<\/p>\n I still love the sounds of the game.<\/p>\n When this last tryout ends,<\/p>\n Jack gets in the car,<\/p>\n \u201cDad, Coach said he wants to talk to you,<\/p>\n So don\u2019t leave.\u201d<\/p>\n I get out and I wait<\/p>\n While trying not to get my hopes up.<\/p>\n I step away from the car.<\/p>\n Jack doesn\u2019t need to hear any more bad news.<\/p>\n Coach and I make some small talk until he states,<\/p>\n \u201cWe want him. We have a spot on our B team.\u201d<\/p>\n I smile, shake the coach\u2019s hand,<\/p>\n And return to the car.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want you. You made the team.\u201d<\/p>\n He exhales and his stress melts away.<\/p>\n His smile is the size of a slice of watermelon,<\/p>\n And he says,<\/p>\n \u201cFinally, somebody gave me a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes,<\/p>\n Finally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Poetry Marathon 2021 June 26, 2021 Finally All I do is drive Searching for diamonds Filled with dreams Of my youth Wishing that my son Gets the same experience As I did so long ago. The pop of the glove, The crack of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1448,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88627,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88578\/revisions\/88627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}