An Unforgettable Sports Meet

It was the swim season, but Elizabeth didn’t like swim meets. She got horribly nervous but not because she wanted to win. Her nerves came from the possibility that she would do something horribly wrong and let everyone down. The day of a meet, she would be scared all day.

Recently, Elizabeth’s team announced a special swim night: Members 11 and older would swim a timed 50 meters in all four strokes and then have pizza. It wasn’t exactly a meet, because it would involve only team members. Elizabeth countered that it absolutely was a meet because there would be races and timers and so on. But her mother really wanted her to go. She fought back furiously but finally agreed.

When the day of the special swim night arrived, Elizabeth was nervous. When she got to the pool with her parents, she became even more nervous.

Her first race was the 50-meter freestyle. She swam her backstroke and breaststroke without incident. It wasn’t fun for Elizabeth. Her butterflies just kept flapping.

Then it was time for the T-shirt relay, which works like this: One person from each relay team puts on a T-shirt, a pair of socks, and a swim cap; swims 50 meters; and gets out of the pool. She takes off the clothes and puts them on the next person, who then swims 50 meters. This continues until everyone on the team has completed a lap.

For some unknown reason, Elizabeth’s relay team chose her to swim the anchor leg（最后一棒）. The team dressed her in socks and a T-shirt. And then she was off. She seemed to swim faster in the T-shirt and socks than she did when she wasn’t wearing them.

Approaching the halfway mark, she was still in the lead. Then somebody noticed that one of Elizabeth’s socks had fallen off and was floating in the pool. “She has to get that sock on before the end of the race,” a swimming official told Elizabeth’s team, “or you will be disqualified.”

Everybody on her team started screaming, “Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Stop! Get the sock!”

By now; the girl in lane two was about to pass Elizabeth.

When I was four, my seven-year-old brother received a baseball mitt (手套) for his birth-day, which was also what I desperately wanted. But, back then, girls didn’t play sports; they played with dolls.

26 years later, I happened to see a notice in my local paper: “Women’s Slow-Pitch Soft-ball League opens soon. Anyone interested, sign up at the recreation center.” I cut it out and set it on the kitchen counter. Was it even possible to play baseball, a game I’d never actually played but had dreamed of playing in my entire life?

Looking at that notice on my counter, I thought of a thousand reasons I couldn’t play. But the idea of playing baseball stuck in my head and wouldn’t go away. Finally, I screwed up my courage and signed up. Days later, word came that I could begin practice in James Park on Monday night.

On Monday, heart pounding, I walked through the park filled with women of all high-school girls practicing at different diamonds. I waited a couple of minutes before approaching the coach, who seemed unhappy to see me. He had just put together top athletes for his team, and didn’t want some old lady messing things up. He looked me over, who had no mitt but wore an old T-shirt and gym shoes. However, I didn’t care.

That very first day was quite bitter. He had me run bases all night and never gave me a chance to bat or play the field, with the attempt to make me shrink from difficulty. But he had no idea how determined I was. I still showed up to play in the following Mondays, which clearly surprised him.

Finally, he gave in. During the last inning of the last game of the season, the coach told me to go to center field. I had to borrow a mitt from a member of our team and used it to catch an impossibly high ball, winning the game for us. Again, the coach looked surprised. It never hit him that I might be able to play.

After the game, I received an unexpected invitation from another coach.

It turned out I didn’t let my coach down.