GameChanger of the Week – 7/30
Spencer Wright· · Leave a Comment
You can submit nominations for next week by emailing GameChanger.Featured.Team@gmail.com with a photo and a description of what your favorite team/player did in the last week.
Although the award this week goes to a player who had extraordinary in-game accomplishments, what sets this performance apart is the circumstances under which it happened. While at the Cooperstown All-Star Village camp, Michael Wischer had a tumultuous night. After some general camp shenanigans led to teammate accidentally breaking a window, at 1am their lodgings were greeted with the fire alarm going off. Needless to say, little sleep was accomplished the night before a big game.
The beginning of the game brought little calm to the storm, as a teammates parent began screaming obscenities at Michael’s father, who is also his coach. Having anyone yell at your coach or parent is distracting. When it’s a teammates parent and the coach is also your parent, that certainly magnifies the situation.
But Michael was not to be distracted. The first inning he came up to bat with two outs and no one on base and hit a home run to center field. His next at-bat came with the score tied 3-3 and runners on second and third. The result? A line drive home run to right. Guess what happened in his third at-bat, with a runner on second?
If you guessed a home run to left field because that fits the pattern, you’d be wrong. But he did hit another home run to dead center field to clinch the victory for his team. His batting of 3-3 with 3 home runs and 6 RBI’s is impressive enough. To do all this after little sleep and the distraction of parents fighting is GameChanging.
This story really resonated with the panel not because of the statistical accomplishment, but because it serves as a great reminder of everything that goes along with amateur baseball. Distractions are just that: distractions from the more important task of playing baseball and having fun.
Honorable Mentions:
Bryce Keziah had game-winning walk off hits in back-to-back games to help his team advance to the Triple Crown National Baseball Championships. They lose, but it’s impressive enough to get there.
The No Fear 10U team went undefeated to win their tournament this past weekend, leading to one of the better/funnier team pictures in recent memory.
Finally, Blake Miller, a 9 year old who plays for Elite Baseball, had surgery to repair his ACL last week. We wish him a speedy recovery.
