This year our Galway Babe Ruth team started out the season with a large group of players ranging from 13 to 15 years old. We only had two practices at the beginning of our season because every week our practices would get rained out. That didn’t stop us though. We had played together before and we all worked really well together– that foundation showed in our games. Sadly in the middle of our season, one of our players, Darren Heigel, broke his arm, taking him out for the rest of the season. Despite the hardship, we finished our season with 13 wins and one loss. That loss being against the Saratoga green team, the Skippers.

After our regular season came the Babe Ruth tournament. Because our team had the best record, we were granted a first round by, meaning we only had to play two games to win the whole tournament rather than having to play three like the other teams. In our first game we had to play the Saratoga grey team. We beat them by a large margin,13-2.

Then came the final game, the championship game against the Saratoga Skippers.  They had beat us once and we had beat them once. This was the rubber match for the championship title. The coaches had the game all planned out with our best, and fastest pitcher Nick Hanna starting off the game pitching. Graham at first, Michael at short and so on. We were the home team which means that we got the last ups. We started off on defense the top of the first inning, not letting up any runs against the green team although they did have some very good hits. In the bottom of the inning, we were up to bat and we scored one run. So it was one zero in the top of the second inning and we held them again. This time in the bottom of the inning we scored four runs off their pitcher. I scored one of them and batted in one of the runs as well. At that point it seemed like everything would be going our way, like it would be easy, that we’d kill them. It kept going that way in the third inning–no runs were scored on either side.

Then the fourth inning came, and disaster hit. All of our happiness and my confidence about the game seemed to be draining away. In the top of that inning, the other team had read our pitcher and gotten used to his speed and ball movement. They were really good hitters and got five runs off of us in that fourth inning. That made it a tie game, five to five. The tension rose from none to a ton. We scored nothing in the bottom of the fourth and everyone’s nerves were up, including the many fans. We still performed very well on defense it was our offense that just wasn’t coming around. Our coaches decided to make a pitching change even though our first pitcher really did do a phenomenal job. They put in Graham Willbrant. He was another one of our very good pitchers and his pitching held off the other team for innings to come, as well as our great defense. Many line drives and ground balls were fielded greatly to get the outs that we needed to win.

Still in the bottom of the seventh, no more runs on either side. It seemed almost as if it would stay like that forever. In the eighth inning we held the other team again with our very good defense. Travis Neahr was up first in that inning and got hit by a pitch getting on base and making it to first. He eventually made his way over to third base by stealing bases. After Travis’s hit, Michael Sowle struck out, but got on after the catcher dropped the third strike. Travis tried to go home but got tagged out on third leaving Michael at first with one out and Graham up to bat. Graham grounded out, but advanced Michael to second base. My brother, Erik Malanoski, got on and was at first base with Michael at second. Nick was now up and all pressure was on him, with two outs and two runners on base. All we needed was that one run. Nick had a nice hit out into right field and Michael ran as fast as he could. He ran from second to first and then ran home as the throw was coming in. All fingers were crossed. He thought he would get tagged out so he jumped the plate. Michael reached his hand across the plate and made it under the tag of the catcher. WE HAD WON!!!

Everyone was jumping up and down from fans to players hugging Michael, and patting him on the back. We were all so excited we had done it. It was the first time the team with the best record had won the Babe Ruth tournament. This news made us feel even better. We did one last chant after we were done talking to the coaches. We all put our hands in the middle and called out, “One, two, three, family!” I couldn’t have picked a better word, because that’s really what it felt like. We weren’t just a team–it really felt like we were a family.