“Do you think I could ever pitch in a stadium like this?”
I looked toward the enormous field.
The stands.
The bright lights.
The white home plate waiting in the distance.
Then I looked back at him.
“Maybe.”
He frowned.
“Maybe?”
I nodded.
“Nobody can promise you that. But you can start practicing today.”
The boy considered that.
Then smiled.
“Okay.”
He ran back toward his teammates.
I watched him go.
And I realized something I hadn’t understood when I was eleven.
The million dollars had changed our baseball field.
But the most important thing it gave us wasn’t new equipment or better facilities.
It was the chance for more children to discover what they could do.
I slipped my hand into the old glove.
The leather settled around my fingers.
The stitches held.
And somewhere beyond the outfield fence, the afternoon sun began to sink.
The End.
