Without the white lines, the players, the coaches, or the fans- to so many, this field is just dirt and grass and an empty bench. . Those people might describe softball as “just a game.” They might not see the point of the weekends spent at tournaments or the need to practice outside of your actual practices. . It’s OK that they don’t get it. Sure, it would make things easier if everyone just understood what it took to build character through sport; it would be nice if we didn’t have to battle through the rolling of the eyes when we say “Can’t. I have softball.” . But we didn’t pick this sport because it was easy. We might have picked it because there’s less running than soccer, but we sure didn’t pick it because we wanted to feel good about the results only about 30% of the time. . We might not be understood- not even by other athletes. But again, we didn’t pick this game to fit in. I know I picked it because it clicked with something inside: A part of me that wouldn’t settle for easy...