Married To Baseball

These Three Goofballs.

Jailyn~

"What to even say about Jailyn James-Yelich," Camille starts off, "Her Career obviously speaks for itself. Over seventeen seasons with Team USA, she's got a career batting average of .528. A five-twenty-eight." She repeats looking at me as she shakes her head. "It'll be a cold day in hell when that career record ever gets broken." The room laughs a little as I take my turn to shake my head smiling a little. "I've been lucky enough to be able to get to know Jailyn for the last seven years as head coach of Team USA. In those seven years, I've gotten to see not only her being an absolute boss on and off the field. Not only regularly getting drilled with a pitch or two after hitting an absolute bomb, but also running one of the most successful campaigns that Adidas and DeMarini have ever had. Not only that but she manages to also be an absolutely incredible mother to her two beautiful children, Ryker and Ariella, all while juggling everything with soft with being the face of softball and continuing to produce incredible product lines." 

"Jailyn has been an absolute force to behold since she debuted in 2020. Her first season the team went undefeated, Jailyn herself put up a .474 batting average in that season and knocking out twenty-three home runs at the time being the most for any softball season at that point. She'd obviously go on and shatter those records herself, breaking an, at the time, twenty-five-year-old single-season home record formerly held by Barry Bonds and hitting seventy-five homers in a single season. She did that in about fifty fewer games too." 

"That's my girl," Christian comments quietly too me making me grin.

"While I've had the honor of getting to know Jai for the last almost eight years, I feel like there's someone else who would be better suited to talk about her early career." Camille takes a step back and waves Ken up to where she'd been speaking. The room claps as they trade-off and Ken holds his hand up to take his turn.

Ken smiles a little before looking to me, "Well if it isn't the shy little twenty-year-old who had no clue what she was capable of. Funny what can happen in twenty years huh kid?" I shrug slightly and tip my head towards my shoulder with a small smile. "I've known Mrs.James-Yelich here since she was twenty years old. You know when she was swearing up and down that she'd never even met her now-husband and claiming she wasn't an Olympic level athlete?" The room laughs as I just smile shaking my head. "When I met Jai, she was this young woman who didn't really know how incredible she was. In her defense, though she hadn't really gotten the chance to show off while in the colligate circuit. When Jai was at the Olympic Trials she held back a little, it was apparent that she was unsure of herself but she still held her own to land her a spot on the Olympic team that year. I think that was the boost she really needed to get her to loosen up and actually rely on her talents. As Camille said, Jailyn in her first season was an absolute break out star. No one has a .474 in their first season let alone continues to have that average or higher consistently throughout their career." 

"Her first season was historic, as is the rest of her career obviously." Ken continues, "That first season was incredible, I knew we had something when I first saw the team together, but never did I ever expect it to be as incredible as it was. Jailyn very quickly becoming a leader and someone that the team could rally around even if she was the youngest on the team at the time. That's why it was such a hit to see her get injured in the Gold Medal Game in Tokyo that year. An Achilles tear for a lot of people could be a career-ending injury. For it to happen to someone who's twenty-one, and already proving to be one of the greatest athletes of her generation, it's a pretty scary thought. She proved to be an absolute badass though and somehow continued onto third base safely, and then walked off the field on her own. At that time I'm pretty sure none of us expected it to be anything more than a nasty sprain at best." Ken scoffs a second and shakes his head. "I had no clue what to think when I heard that it was a tear. Her walking it off though made me pretty sure it wasn't going to be anything more than a minor inconvenience at the time. Pretty safe to say I was right on that one."