✓ | 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐘 ☁︎ 𝑩𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒚 𝑹𝒐𝒅𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒖𝒆𝒛

01 - 15

CHAPTER ONE
The Girl With A Strained Family

           THERE IS ONE ALL-TIME greatest moment in the history of sports, and it happened in the 1932 World Series.

The story goes that in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs, a full count, and the tying run on base. Babe Ruth raised his arm and pointed to the center-field bleachers.

No one believed it, because nobody had ever done it before, but the Babe was calling his shot.

On the next pitch, the Great Bambino hit a towering 400 foot home run. And even though he'd been a hero before that, that's pretty much how he became a legend.

Thirty years later, a kid named Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez became a neighborhood legend, alongside Jordan Allison Watts. It was in the greatest summer of my life when they taught me how to play baseball, and both became my best friend, and they got me out of the biggest pickle I'd ever be in.

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     IT WAS THE LAST DAY of school, every kid was watching the intense baseball game that was happening on the school's diamond; it was the school's baseball team versus the Sandlot. In the stands of the game, a girl was biting her lip from the anticipation of the game right in front of her.

It was the last inning and everyone was at the edge of their seats. The score was 10 - 6, with the Sandlot taking the lead.
The last batter was Benny Rodriguez, the school and hometown's all-star baseball player.

Despite him not playing for his school, he was the best at the ball game and everyone knew it. A lot of the girls liked him, most of the boys saw him as practically a god. Thankfully, he wasn't a typical cliche.
The boy was charming, kind, an overall nice guy. He didn't hang out with the school jocks — despite their many invites to games and hangouts — but his neighborhood friends; an actually a reason to like him than just his pretty face.

His teammates cheered for him in the dugout, as the pitcher was ready. The pitcher throws the ball, and Benny hits it far into left field.
He runs quickly to first and second base, with ease, yet when he passed third base, everything turned. What stopped him from getting home was the catcher, who was passing the ball to third base as Benny tries to run back to the base. It was a hassling sight to see the boy going back and forward, trying not to get out.

"Pickle!" Hamilton, or Ham, shouts.

All of the Sandlot boys were running out near the sight to cheer on Benny. This encourages him to keep going, no matter how tired he was getting.