‘There's no crying in baseball'

For the last month the Franklin County AA All Star team has been practicing four nights a week to prepare for the District 4 AA Tournament. We headed to Callaway Saturday, June 6 to represent Franklin County for better or worse.

Well, we won the Saturday game over Bayou George, the Sunday game over Callaway, and then lost our first game Monday against Port St. Joe. With one loss we found ourselves in the losers' bracket and having to face Callaway again. With a victory over Callaway we will have a state bid! 

Tuesday came and we headed back to Callaway for the fourth straight day (by the way we are the only team that has not had a bye). The boys came out in the first inning and scored eight runs and Callaway answered with runs of their own. The game went back and forth, up and down. We hit and they hit. We made big plays and they made big plays...

In the top of the sixth inning we found ourselves down by about six runs and we needed a big rally. The boys manned up and came ahead by one run, 19-18. The defense took the field with one mission: Three up three down. Callaway got a couple of good hits and drove a run in for the tie. The defense answered with a couple of "big play" outs.

Callaway got a runner over to third with two outs. The next batter hit a dribble shot down third. The third baseman fielded the ball and made a good throw to home. The catcher gloved the ball, brought the tag down, and... a second is just a fraction in time but in a situation like this it can be a lifetime. Safe! Game over. Franklin lost: Fell short by a split second!

Now to the point of the letter... Not to mention that it was the best appearance Franklin AA has had in about five or six years. Our boys came together in our little huddle after the hand shakes with Callaway. Having prepared myself to give them the good game speech from Coach O, I took a knee, then told them to lift their heads up and look at me.

At that moment when I saw all those watered eyes, the tears, and the looks on their little faces (some dirty and some clean), I had the biggest frog jump in my throat. I mean to tell you I had to swallow hard! Coach Hard Heart about lost his composure! All month long I've been telling these kids that there was no crying in baseball. If they got hurt, I would say suck it up, be tough, or you want me to kiss it for you... which is the one that usually dried the eyes up the quickest. Crying because they struck out is the one that would really burn me up. I had numerous warnings from Coach Greg, "Yo, Cuz be careful... them moms are gonna get on your head ‘bout them babies."

As I sat there looking at these 7-8 year old faces from all corners of the county, that had played their hearts out to the end and just came up short, a split second short! I wanted to just hug and cry with each and every one of them. The pain of no matter how hard you tried...you just didn't quite make it (one of life's hardest lessons).

Then another emotion kicked in: PRIDE! Words cannot explain how proud I am of those boys. When we came off the field, there were people from all over Bay and Gulf counties coming up and saying things that just made me even more proud of our boys. Not only did our little men win the respect of everyone there, they won a whole bunch of hearts too. Let's just say there were plenty of tears in the crowd too!

These little men (they will never be just little boys to me again) will forever have a special place in my heart. They may not have made it all the way but they "left everything they had on the field" What more could a coach ask for? What better ambassadors can a community ask for?

To the parents of these little heroes - Ethan Riley, Lucas Sasnett, Micah McLeod, Christopher "Noodle" Newell, Tyrell "Ty" Green, Jacob "Bug" Pendleton, Bryce Kent, Tonner Segree, Christian "Hoot" Amison, Ethan "E" Moses, Mathew Gay, and Elan Blitch - THANK YOU! Your child will always hold a special place in my heart... I will forever remember when those 12 faces took one of their many steps toward manhood - through all the practices, the bangs, the bruises, and especially in a huddle on a field - one Tuesday night!

One of five proud coaches,

Ottice Amison

P.S. At the time of this letter it is about 1 a.m. in the morning. We lost this game about six hours ago and I can't sleep. When I close my eyes I see those 12 faces. I'm man enough to tell you, there are tears running down my cheeks as I type.