Natpharm
Boy, you just brought up a "bad" memory that I hadn't thought of for a few years!! Like you, I also played baseball every summer all through high school. This occurred when I was about 13 years old. We had a pretty good team and won the championship of our league, which qualified us for a city-wide championship tournament. The team we played against had a real good left-handed pitcher.....one of the best in town, we'd heard. He proved to be just as good as his reputation.....threw the ball hard, and had a curve that broke pretty good, so he was hard to hit.
We get to the top of the last inning, and we're down 3-1. We get runners on second and third with two outs, and I come up to bat. I hit a chopper that hits off home plate and bounces way up in the air, so I'm able to beat it out, the runner from third scores, and the guy on second moves to third. So, now we've got runners at first and third with two out. Now, at that level, when you got runners in that position and a catcher whose arm was iffy, it was common to send the runner down to second. Sure enough, the coach gives me the steal sign on the first pitch.
I lead off, and must have been too obvious that I was going to try to steal. So, sure enough, the lefty throws over to first, and I'm caught leaning the wrong way! I crawled, stumbled back to first, but of course, the ball is there waiting for me, and I'm tagged out for the last out of the game. Man did I feel stupid and embarrassed!!!!
I remember telling that story two each of my two sons when they were playing ball and suffered some kind of the inevitable humiliation that sports inflicts on us. I suspect they'll have their own stories to tell their sons when the time comes.....