Max definitely had a summer to remember. Actually he will probably forget it because it was so bad. It all started right after baseball season started when his parents caught him smoking with his friends. At that very moment, his plans for the summer of fun and friends drastically changed. His parents pretty much isolated him into the supervision of his own house. His dad ran a construction company and since he only had one guy working for him, he could use all of the help he could get. His dad had him help on the job site every day that he didn’t have a baseball game scheduled.
Max played outfield for the Slammers. They had games every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and sometimes on Saturdays. He also played on a team out of Oregon that only played out of town, every weekend of the summer. This meant that every single weekend for the entire summer, June - August, he was out of town. He was one of the better hitters on the Oregon team and he had the highest batting average on the Slammers.
Two weeks of summer had gone by and he had not seen his friends in person. They had invited him many places to go hangout with them. Each time his parents either said no or he was busy playing baseball. Since none of them played baseball, he never got the chance to see them. He always heard stories about what they did and also how he, “should have been there.” Apparently one time a bunch of drunk rednecks were at the rope swing with them and one guy tried to backflip, but didn’t rotate enough and landed on his back into the river.
He wished he could have been there to see it instead of working in the miserable heat with his dad. He was way out in the outskirts of town building a home to be modeled in the Parade of Homes. The Parade of Homes is where a bunch of rich people that can buy a lot of houses go around and look at the quality of houses built and buy them just to show they are rich people. They are normally in the scenic or richer and newer parts of town.
It was June and Max had been to Pullman, WA for baseball twice on the weekends. His team had won both of the tournaments there and so far Max was the best hitter on the team. He had a .604 batting average in 12 games. That’s amazing considering a good player’s batting average is around .325. That weekend he played a team called the Prowlers. They were out of the Seattle area and they were a solid team. Nine of the 13 players on the team had college scholarships to play baseball. The pitcher he faced in the championship game was planning on going to Seattle U on a 50% scholarship. He could throw around 90 MPH and he could throw it wherever he liked. Max hit a home run to start the game to make it 2-0 and that’s how it ended, in a 2-0 win in 7 innings. Everyone was so happy with Max, it was unbelievable.
The ride home consisted of his parents telling him what days he was going to work with his dad and a congratulatory high five. Max was kind of disappointed about his parents not being as excited as he was about the whole thing. He got home around 9 and went to bed knowing he would have to be up early in the morning for work.

The next week, he had 8 games during the week. Max had two games a day on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Tuesday and Wednesday, he played the Bandits. On Tuesday it would be at home and on Wednesday it would be at the Bandits’ field. Max pitched the second game Tuesday and they lost 7-4. He did really well hitting, but his team made 5 errors on defense which cost them the game. The Slammers only had ten people on their team for that week and the average temperature was 98 degrees. Everyone was exhausted by the end of the two losses on Wednesday; the Slammers won one of the four games against the Bandits. Thursday and Friday the Slammers played the Flames at the Flames’ home field. Those were the longest four games of his life because they were so hot. They lost and they were ready to be done for the week. Once Max got home he went straight upstairs and began to watch his favorite TV show, Family Guy. He spent about two hours upstairs watching TV until he finally went to bed.
The next morning, he woke up to about 20 text messages asking him to come and hangout with his friends. They were sent at about 1:30 A.M so he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea at the time. He missed his friends a whole bunch.
It was now mid-July and Max had a huge baseball tournament in Eugene, Oregon. He had to drive himself and two of his friends down there where he would stay at his other friend’s house for the weekend. They left on a Thursday and his two friends stayed the night Wednesday night. They only got two hours of sleep because they were up all night messing around, playing ps3, and talking about baseball and girls. They woke up at 5:30 and left the house at 6. Max drove down in his Tahoe and they had the best time ever. They were talking and laughing the entire time and the drive flew by. They got to their game at 12:30 and they won 12-2. They went to their friend Jace’s house in Newport and they stayed there for the weekend while going back and forth to play baseball. Max and his friends met many new kids down in Newport and got to know a lot of them. They even had a bonfire and went and floated a river with all of them. It was probably one of his favorite weekends ever. The drive home was pretty boring because his mom was in the car and they couldn’t say the same jokes they did on the way up.
That was his last tournament with the team from Oregon and so he had to say goodbye to his friends he made over the summer. He told them that he would come down and visit many times like over spring break and the next summer.
He got back and had to go play some more games with the Slammers. They had two games that weekend also and they got smashed by the rockets 12-4 and 16-2. It had been a long season for the Slammers and Max was pretty glad he didn’t make the playoffs with them. He was burnt out from baseball he needed a rest. He had become the best hitter on the team. He had hit two home runs and had the best batting average.
Since he wasn’t playing baseball though, he had to go to work with his dad again every day of the week. He went to work every day for about a month and it was so hot. He had never been put through this hot of work conditions before. He wanted to be done every single day, but he knew his dad wouldn’t let him out of it. He fell off a ladder and a sheet of 8x4 wood came and landed directly on his ankle. He was very bruised and bloody and he could barely walk to his car to drive home. It was probably the worst pain he had ever felt. His dad let him get off work early that day. He was so lucky the wood didn’t leave wood in his leg or cut deeper into his leg.
The next day he left for the last baseball tournament of the summer. He was chosen to play on a select team from the best kids out of his area of the state. There were 15 other guys on his team so he wasn’t sure how much playing time he was going to get. He got up there and he got to know his teammates and his coach split time with everyone evenly. They played against good pitching from all over the state and Max had a blast. He was the best hitter on his team with the best batting average (.604) and the most RBI’s (12).

The county fair was a week away and he was so excited. During the fair Max had his older cousin, who was 22, meet him there. The first night he and his friend James got some tickets to meet the band that was performing that night.
James was a kid that Max had known for his whole life but hasn’t really been friends with. He was a smart kid and he did all of the right things. He wanted to become friends with James so he could get away from all of the friends he had gotten in trouble with.
They were the first ones to meet the band and they signed their shirts and got a cool picture with the whole band. Once the concert started they met two girls who were by themselves and they hung out with Max and James for the whole concert. They had a great time at the concert.
Friday, Max’s dad told him to not worry about going to work and go hang out at the fair and assist some of the fair board members since that’s what his family did if they needed help. He got to the fair around 11 and that was when the rides opened up. He went and found his grandma who helped with the carnival. She gave him and James free ride wristbands good for all day. The day was adding up to be a great day. Him and James spent all day together and met up with some of James’ other friends and they had a good day that day. He ended up making a new set of friends to start off the school year.
School was right around the corner for his senior year and he couldn’t have been more excited. He saw all of his old and new friends when he went to get his schedule. He saw he had a lot of good classes and a lot of friends in each one. They proceeded to tell each other cool stories about summer and all the crazy stuff they did while he sat back and told a story or two of his own. He was glad summer was over and school was back in session where he could see all of his friends again.
Max had gotten called to play in a baseball tournament in Venezuela with the American national team. He left on Wednesday and he did alright for playing against the best kids in the world. He got two hits and got talked to by some pro scouts.
That weekend there was a huge party in town that all of his old friends would definitely be at. He was disappointed though, because he would still be in Venezuela . When Max got back from his trip, he learned that the party was raided and all of his old friends had been caught drunk and under the influence of the drug Ecstasy. They were arrested and put in drug counseling classes. Max’s baseball career would have been over. Max was very happy he had found positive friends and that he wasn’t a part of that group.