Imagine you're a boy or maybe you have a son who loves baseball. For a 3rd or 4th grader the baseball draft is filled with the greatest anticipation. It's a chance to show off your skills and be with your friends. Finding out which team you're on and who else is on your team is right up there too. As the season approaches you work hard to refine your game, attending practices and working out individually. Winning isn't the only thing but it's the goal you set for yourself and your team. As the season gets underway you learn to work together and support each other. You quickly learn that hard work and a little luck can really pay off. As the end of the season approaches you are once again filled with anticipation looking forward to the city tournament where 22 teams come together to duke it out -- only the best team left standing -- bragging rights to the winner as well the usual set of awards, among which is the coveted placement in the state tournament. You want to win it all but don't dare even to dream about it. Then you go to work. You look for small ways to make improvements. You fight for motivation against all odds -- then you play. Game by game you struggle, you fight, you give it your best, but more than anything else you never give up. Then the thing you hoped for, the unbelievable, happens. You knock off the best team in the tournament in the semi-finals and run away with the championship. Joy, elation, awe are just a few words to describe your feelings. You move from here to anticipation once again -- the state tournament. Surely your hard work and effort will be rewarded with the best seating of any of the city teams in the state tournament, that's only fair.
Now imagine if all your anticipation was in vain, your hopes dashed to pieces, the rug pulled out from under your feet because someone doing the scheduling didn't wait to reward the actual winners, they simply chose, before the city tournament was barely half over, who they thought would win, rewarding teams who ended up in 3rd and 7th places higher than teams who placed 1st and 2nd. Imagine how you would feel, or how you would feel telling your son that. A man of honor and integrity would stand by his words "It's all about the boys" and do what is right even if it's hard. But then I come back to reality and remember that, in the city where I live, the rec department gets the final say, no matter what. They're the ones who make all the rules but only enforce them when it's convenient or helps their own teams.
Way to go Giants, you did it, City League Tournament Champs! Who would have thought you could do it?
