Baseball season is over for the Monarchs. It was a strange year on many levels.  There were many expectations of good things happening, and those things did happen, but in ways and at times that no one could foresee.

We started by winning 8 games easily.  Too easily at times.  The pitchers joked about who would be the first to have a run scored against them.  Baseball isn't played that way.  We lost the 9th game, a tournament championship game 4-3. We played well, never realizing what would happen the next few weeks.

Then we lost a shortstop to a drug bust.  Yes, the undercover bust that rattled the school and made news across the country.  My son called from North Carolina to ask about the story.  We had moved up our first league game to avoid a potential rain storm.  That was the day of the bust, and that was the beginning of seven more losses before we winning again.

The first four games of league and three games in the Easter tournament. Some were close, tantalizingly close.  Some were embarrassments.  One was played entirely in the rain.  Never had done that before.

Then we won against a larger school.  Spirits were rising.  Then an out of character loss with many more errors than runs.  More strange news and loss of another shortstop, this time to grades.

Now came the roller coaster of a win, then a loss.  But something else emerged.  The boys were playing better.  They were playing baseball and there were more wins than losses.  Beating teams by catching and throwing, making no errors, pitching well and getting hits when needed.  Everything the coaches had taught was working.  Confidence soared.

Then an injury to one of our most energetic players.  He had been playing hurt most of the year after fouling a ball off his shin.  This time another knock to the shin and it was a stress fracture. Done for the rest of the year.

A heartbreaking loss to end league and then the playoffs loomed.  The young man with the stress fracture was cleared by his doctor and another chance.  The problem though is that the other team doesn't really care about how you have overcome adversity.  We lost our first playoff game to a team that out hustled us and did the one thing many of our team never learned this year.

If you put the ball in play, sometimes the defense makes mistakes.  Baseball is a game of failure and learning to deal with failure.  It is better to fail as a batter by hitting the ball and making the defense make a play to get you out, than to strike out and only force the pitcher and catcher to catch and throw.  We didn't learn that.

It was a successful season though.  We won 4 league games, up from 1 each of the last two years.  We ended up 13-13 for the season.  .500.  Average.  50-50.  Isn't that what we all really are, good at times and not so good at others.  Again, Baseball is a lesson in life.