Tags
athlete, baseball, basketball, bergen county, Championship, clutch, Devils, epass17, giants, gifs, goal, hero, hockey, jets, nets, save, soccer, underdogs, yankees
Hey, from my first couple of posts, were you able to tell that I kind of enjoy sports?
Ok I guess that was pretty obvious. Growing up in Bergen County, NJ (about 20 minutes outside of NYC), I was raised as a fan of some popular local sports teams:
- New York Yankees
- New Jersey Devils
- New York Giants*
- New Jersey Nets**
*I don’t really know why I switched over to become a Jets fan… Maybe it was because I went to the Jets/Colts playoff game for a friend’s birthday? Who knows.
**The New Jersey Nets technically don’t exist anymore. But yes, I followed them over to Brooklyn. Literally. Here’s proof:
Anyway – the point here is that I grew up loving to watch sports. And I quickly grew a desire to play sports as much as humanly possible, whether that be in pickup games or in organized leagues. Here are some of my favorite memories playing sports between the ages of 0 and 23.5 years old (in no particular order):
78 to 5
Yup. 78 to 5. To 5. Final score. To 5. You’ll probably think I’m kidding when I saw that my 8th grade rec basketball team managed to win a regular season game by the score of 78 to 5… but I’m not. To 5.
We gave up 5 points. Scoring 78 as a team is impressive, sure. But the fact that we only gave up 5 points is what still blows my mind. We had one of the best offensive players in our grade on our team, so he accounted for about 40 of our points. I remember I finished second on the team with 9, so I guess I can call that an accomplishment. I can’t believe I’m still talking about a regular season rec basketball game I played in prior to even entering high school. Unreal.
The Underdogs
9th grade Chuck O’Connor/Babe Ruth Baseball League; Fair Lawn Homeowners – Champs. We finished in 6th place in the regular season. We proceeded to go on a run for the ages in the playoffs. Looking back on it, I really don’t know how we finished in 6th place having the best top 6 batters in any lineup in our league (I hit 5th). So while we were technically the “underdogs” in the playoffs, we knew we had one of the best teams in the league. We were capable of doing big things, and we did.
My favorite memory from the championship game — I was playing left field in one of the later innings of the game to preserve our lead. With a runner on first base and the shortstop shaded up the middle in double-play depth, a guy hit a ball on the ground that got past the shortstop for a single. I charged the ball like any outfielder normally would. When I picked up the ball, though, I immediately pounced into a crow hop and fired the ball right to second base. Force out. My throw beat the runner by about two full steps. Needless to say, I was pumped.
#17
What’s with me and the number 17? Well, I don’t know, actually. “Were you born on the 17th or something?” Nope [I was born on the 27th].
So why do I always wear number 17? Why is that the number on my custom jerseys? Why is it part of my Instagram/Twitter handle (@epass17)? Why was 17 attached to my AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) screen names?
Quick story to explain: I grew up playing soccer. I thought I was pretty decent. Scored some goals, played some midfield… I was just always a bit slow, but that’s not the point. One year, I was assigned the number 17. In my first game, I proceeded to score a hat trick. 3 goals. Stuck with the number forever.
Last Second Heroics
I can assure you that I’m not a superhero. I don’t have any superhuman qualities, either. Or do I?
What I can tell you, though, is that I have been known to come up big in the clutch. During my senior year of high school, I decided to play rec street hockey for the first time since fourth grade. For those of you who know me well, this probably will shock you. But yes, I really did take about 8 years off from playing organized street hockey. When I returned to the courts by Memorial Middle School, however, it was like I had never left.
Here’s the situation: Tie game. 10 seconds left. I’m on the bench.
Ok time out… the real question here should be – Why was Eric on the bench? Answer – I have no idea.
Anyway, I was sitting on the edge of the boards ready to hop over when the coach of the team curiously didn’t call my name out. I was legitimately surprised. And confused. I turned to my coach and told him that if he put me in at left wing, I’d get to the front of the net immediately and screen the goalie to hopefully redirect a shot past him into the net for the game-winning goal.
So what do you think happened? I got to the front of the net, screened the goalie, deflected the ball in off a shot from the point to win the game. #Clutch
Enter Sandman
I’m not Mariano Rivera. In fact, I barely ever pitched in rec baseball. In 9th grade, the same year we won the championship, I made my first career start. My line – 3 IP, 6 ER, 1 K. For those of you who don’t know baseball too well… that’s not too good.
During a big game against our rival team in the regular season, we were forced with an interesting situation. I was our only “experienced” pitcher eligible to pitch in the bottom half of the last inning of the game. Apparently, those who had already pitched in the game weren’t eligible to retake the mound. All players who pitched on the Freshman/JV/Varsity teams weren’t allowed to pitch. That left me sitting at the end of the bench, alone, waiting to see what would happen.
We took the lead in the top of the 7th inning (we played 7-inning games). I took a deep break, wandered over to the head coach and said, “I’m guessing I should go throw in the bullpen, right?” I don’t think he had any idea of the situation at that point. He looked around, mumbled under his breath, and simply replied by saying, “Yeah.”
It was my turn to take the mound. I jogged out there and my coach was waiting for me. “We have 10 minutes left to get this game in under the time-limit rule. No warm-ups. Just get the ball over the plate and you’ll be fine.” Well, that was reassuring…
1st batter – strikeout. 2nd batter – pop out to second base. 3rd batter – walk. 4th batter – walk. Time was ticking. Imagine we lost this game because we “couldn’t finish it” due to a time restriction?
Coach jogs out to the mound. Yeah, he chose to waste more time to try to calm me down by screaming at me, letting me know I had to get the ball over the plate. Oh, really?
I got the next guy to ground out. 1st (and only) career save. Only 651 more to tie Mariano Rivera’s record…
… I feel like I can go on forever, but at this point this post is already at 1200+ words and I don’t know who who have the attention span to keep reading these today. Therefore, I’ll just write another one soon including some more awesome memories, stories, pictures, unnecessary GIFs, etc.!