Senior Kyle Thomas doesn’t like to follow everyone else’s lead; he prefers to create drama by straying from the ordinary. So, when everyone he knew was rooting for the Phillies in the 2008 World Series, he knew he couldn’t root for them too.

“I first started watching baseball when I was four—the 2008 World Series,” Kyle said. “I lived outside of Philadelphia, and the Phillies made it to the World Series, so everyone was watching it. I decided I wanted to be different and started rooting for the Rays because I was born in Tampa, and ever since then, I’ve been a Rays’ fan and a baseball fan.”

Kyle has been a baseball fan since a young age, and since then, he has been trying to set himself apart from all the other baseball fans in Philadelphia. He was still a baseball fan which made him part of a community.

He has been playing baseball for several years and has quite a few good memories with his teams. He also has a few bad memories, but that is to be expected with any sport. One of the most memorable moments for him took place at a tournament in New Jersey.

“I won a tournament with my Northampton travel team,” Kyle said. “We went to New Jersey and we had six rain delays over the weekend, but we still won the tournament, despite it taking six times longer.”

Despite some of the tough times baseball has put him through, Kyle has still retained his love for it. He has built so many connections, solely through his love of the sport–connections and friends that will last a lifetime. The fond memories aren’t the only things that will be sticking with him.

“I met a lot of my closest friends through baseball,” Kyle said. “I’ve met a ton of people from all across the world and a couple of people from a Canadian national team, people from Texas and Florida, all across the world I have connections because of baseball, and playing the game and being a fan of it.”

Playing sports is a great way to form relationships with so many different people from different cultures, and Kyle has experienced this firsthand. He has met lots of different people through their shared love of baseball.

Kyle has made some very close friendships that he has had since he started playing baseball thirteen years ago. He has had these relationships for such a long time, and he knows the strength in them. He knows that these people will always be there for him, even if they aren’t there with him.

“I’ve played baseball with my best friend since we both started when we were five, and we’ve stayed in touch, even though he goes to school in Florida and lives in Texas,” Kyle said. “He’s not someone that I’m actively seeing all the time, but we’ve stayed in touch purely because of baseball, [since] we talk about [it] all the time.”

Since the Phillies are in the World Series this year, Kyle has, in some sort, come full circle in his experience with baseball. He has rekindled some old bonds, due to this year’s World Series, and he has been talking to some of his past friends more and has been looking back on his experience with baseball.

“With the World Series coming up and the Phillies making it, a lot of my friends that fell out of baseball, as they grew up, are getting back into it,” Kyle said. “I’m getting to enjoy some baseball memories that I shared with my friends when I was younger, like watching World Series games with the Phillies, sharing players, and stories, and events that happened to lead up to a World Series.”

As Kyle looks back on his life with baseball, he has been reflecting over his favorite parts of the game. He loves the mental aspect as much as the physical aspect. He loves the behind-the-scenes work of the game.

“There’s always something hidden going on with strategy and statistics that explains every action made throughout the course of the game,” Kyle said. “It’s just as much, if not more so, a mental game than a physical game.”