Baseball is a game we fall in love with in our youth. When a child gets a base hit, it is like he has conquered the world. They stand at first base and feel they have done it, they have ascended to the summit. They have overcome the odds and hit the ball. In The Greatest Inning Ever Pitched, I talk about overcoming great odds from my personal recollection of my childhood. Everyone has stories, but these are mine. In high school, I landed the job of closer for my varsity baseball team. This means my job was to come into games that we were winning and I was responsible for preserving the win and getting a save. It also means that I was brought into situations late in games when the circumstances had become real bad and I was being called on to pull off a miracle. The odds were often stacked against me when I entered the game and I was relied on to get our team safely out of the inning and secure a victory. As a child I loved the game of baseball as much as any kid could. Like many boys, my career aspirations began and ended with the dream of being a professional baseball player. And why not want to make a career out of a game you loved. At times, I was challenged by the sport to push through adversity, as I was and am, outside the sport. Like many, high school ball was the highest summit I would climb as a player, but the lessons learned can be passed on to the next generation of ball players. I share some of my greatest successes and largest failures in this book through stories about baseball and other facets of my life. I give real accounts from my memory and life, as well as some reflections that resulted through writing this volume. These stories are my real stories, but they could be anyone's who was brave enough to put on a uniform. As much as it is a joy to succeed and make a crucial contribution for your team, it is as difficult when you do not come through. But that is both the difficulty and the beauty of youth sports and life. It is an arena for victory and for loss. The champion inside is developed when the child continues to put on their jersey and go play. These stories are to honor and inspire the children, coaches and parents that make youth sports a place for our kids to discover inside themselves an overcoming spirit and the heart of a champ.