By Stubby Clapp Today is the day that we as athletes have been waiting for the most, besides the actual moment of competing -- the Opening Ceremonies.

We have the opportunity to represent not only as individual athletes but as a whole country of athletes in front of the whole world when we get to walk through the gates of the Birds Nest National Stadium in Beijing China for the XXIX Olympiad.

Over 300 hundred athletes will be wearing our specially designed clothing and dressed as one team with the intentions of showing our pride and respect for our country.

In the videos to follow you will be able to view the passion and pride the baseball team has when it comes to representing our country and playing to earn respect from the Olympic qualifier in Taiwan back in March. In these games you will see a come from behind win, after the host Chinese Taipei team took the lead on a home run. There will be collisions at home plate, game tying runs and in the bottom of the 10th, a clutch hit by Jimmy VanOstrand to put us ahead and eventually win a pivotal game in our route to qualify for Beijing.

If we would have lost this particular game, it would have been a devastating blow to our program and our chances in the tournament at that particular time because of the won-loss record and we possibly would not be in Beijing right now. This is how close we came to not being here, but more important how much we cared to keep competing all the way through the game, so that we could be here!

Oh, how sweet these Opening Ceremonies are going to be!!!!!!!

The video evidence ...

Stubby Flips after Tying Run Stubby beats out INF hit Out at the Plate The Benches Empty

Stubby Clapp Houston Astros Hitting Instructor CooperReese Childrens Boutique cooperreeseboutique.com Owner