When I was about eight or nine years old my dad wrote this quote in my baseball glove.  He was a winner and I never once saw him give up, give in or quit and that rubbed off on me and my brothers.  You know that quitting is easy to do.  Quitting is easy to do and when life gets you down that is when doubt creeps on and says just give up.  Just quit and take the easy way out.  I wore that glove playing baseball until I was 16 years old and one Saturday morning I was outside playing with my friends and we lived in an old dirt road.  If you have ever fallen on a dirt road running wide open then you know the pain I felt when I crashed into that ground with those little shards of rock and gravel tearing into my skin.  I had a ball game that night and it was for all the marbles.  My teammates and I had made it to the county championships and I was scheduled to pitch that day.

I stood up and looked down and saw that my hand was torn open and it was obvious I needed stitches.  So my mom took me the doctor and he put five stitches in my glove hand.  He told me I didn’t need to play because I might tear the stitches out and have to do them again or do worse damage.  My team was counting on me so I had the doctor tape my hand up.  My dad cut a piece of padding out and inserted it into my old glove right under the slogan he had wrote several years ago.  I was on a roll and had lead the team as the #1 pitcher all season and it was my time to seal the deal.  I couldn’t quit on the team now, it was for all the marbles.  So I showed up and played.  Every time the catcher threw the ball back to me it hurt worse and worse.  My dad and another coach wanted to take me out but I refused and pushed through it.  

We were different back then and didn’t quit or stand down over a few stitches, a head ache, an ankle sprain or soreness.  We balled out and gave it all we had.  Quitting was not an option that day and nor was stepping aside either.  I suffered through the best game of my young baseball career throwing a no hitter with about 10 strikeouts in seven innings.  I hit a three run homer also during that game and we went on to take the title as county champions with a dominating 16-0 win.  I was thinking about that old glove today and how sometime life gets to you.  Life beats us up and pushes us to want to quit.  But I always think about my dad and what he wrote in my glove.  Winners never quit and quitters never win.  Keep that in mind next time it gets tough and you want to give up.