Friday, December 26, 2008

Will's Top Plays: Honorable Mentions

I’ve never recorded a listing of Will’s most spectacular baseball plays, and all I have to go by are memories. Fielding plays are more memorable to me, though Will has certainly had his share of big hits. First here's some honorable mentions…

Honorable Mention
15. His home runs…two each in Roswell and at Shaw Park, and one in Cooperstown, Huntsville, and Panama City.

14. In the Father’s Day 2008 tourney championship in Kennesaw, the other team dads were talking about Will’s clutch diving stop of a grounder up the middle. He got up and threw out the batter at first, to end a potential rally.

13. This past spring in the big rivalry game against Crown, freshman Will made a diving catch of a grounder up the middle, playing second base for his NCA Lions high school. He flipped to SS Josiah for the force at second, and they almost turned the double play.

12. Will has made many unassisted double-plays. One nice one was made this summer at Sandy Plains, against a John Smoltz-sponsored team from Michigan. He made a diving catch of a line drive on the edge of the outfield grass behind second-base, and then had plenty of time to peel his dirty body off the ground and tag the base, doubling off the runner to end the inning.

11. As an eight-year old on Donnie Eglehoff’s Shetland Cardinals team, Will fielded a one out bases-loaded grounder, and confusion ensued. Runners didn’t know what to do, so Will promptly took off with the ball, tagging out runners. He tagged out one runner between home and third, then circled the bases backwards, tagging out the next runner before he got back to second, to end the inning. In the confusion and screaming, play continued. By this time Will had a huge smile on his face, and he ran toward for first and tagged the remaining runner. It took a while for order to be restored, and for everyone to figure out what happened.

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