I’m Proud

I grew up religious. My family and I went to church three to four times out of the week
and we were read bible stories every night. Being taught that being proud was a destructive sin.
Which in my head meant this: it’s against the rules to be proud. So being proud of this team is in
a way, breaking the rules. Which I feel fits this team.

The Merced High Varsity Baseball team of 2019 finished the season with nine wins and
18 losses. In league we had two wins and ten losses. This seems like a tough, disappointing
season to many. And many are correct. But if you told us to our face that we “sucked” or were a
“bad” team you would hear something back. We knew who we were and the work we put in. We
know the struggle and how many games we just didn’t win due to a bad call or a lucky bounce.
Losing by one hurts more than winning by ten feels good.

This team of young men grinded through many obstacles. The fight was there in us and
when it showed people knew our name and what we could do. But more importantly they knew
what we were. They knew what we consisted of. We are fighters who not only played the game
but had to battle our own personal obstacles. We may have lost on the field but by the end of
the season we grew more than any of us could have predicted. Seeing the change in the overall
spirit of this team was remarkable and I am honored to have been apart of this journey. I know
when all is said and done when you look bad at the team you won’t see “Most growth as a
team!”, you will see “nine and 18, two and ten in league.” But this team knows. This team knows
what was done. And what we did was more important than any competition. What we did was
legendary. What we did was go against the wave. We fought back with all we had because we
had hope. You couldn’t be more proud of a “bad” team who believes in every game, no matter
who is in the other dugout, we have a chance.