Hello, My name is Dylan Dropps, and I am a high school senior at Our Lady of the Lakes Catholic School, a school with less than 100 students. Before my class was in high school, the baseball program at Lakes was a bit shaky. Our School hadn't won anything in years, and the program was only getting worse due to the lack of interest in playing baseball at our small school. Unfortunately, my freshman year of baseball was cancelled due to COVID, but when we came back the next year we took the league by storm. We changed the culture of the baseball program at lakes, and brought it the winningest season the team had seen in years, beating teams that had almost 5 times the number of students we had. The next year, my junior year, we even won districts and made it to regionals, and as I am approaching my senior baseball season, things are really looking up for us. We have an amazing freshman class full of great athletes and a whole lot of interest in playing baseball, and even though we lost some great seniors, I believe we really have something special, and I believe that we can bring a regional, or even statewide title to our small school. I have loved baseball ever since I could walk. My childhood was full of experimenting with several different sports with some of my neighborhood friends, and though I found interest in other sports, Baseball reigned supreme. I have been playing organized baseball since I was about 4 years old, and my love for the sport has carried on throughout my entire life. I have played travel baseball since I was 9, and I unfortunately played through my final season last summer. Although I am sad to see it go, I can look back fondly at the endless happy memories I have with the sport, and carry on with life knowing that I played the best sport in the world throughout my entire childhood; but for now, I still have my senior year of school ball to play, and I can look forward to that. Moving on to my favorite team, since I live so close to Detroit, the Detroit Tigers are my favorite. I grew up watching these guys, and even though they aren't the best, I still enjoy watching them from year to year. Because the Tigers are my favorite team, it only makes sense for me to choose Miguel Cabrera as my favorite player. Having a dominant player like Cabrera on your favorite team makes the sport really fun to watch. I remember watching the Little League World Series one year, and almost every player on both teams said that Miguel Cabrera was their favorite player. This was really cool to see, and it really made me proud to be a Tigers fan. Although Cabrera is past his prime, him hitting his 500th home run this season was probably my favorite memory as a fan. It was almost like a farewell to a legend, a farewell to a talent that only comes around a few times. This is why Cabrera is my favorite player, he made me love baseball on a deeper level; and I don't know if it's the nostalgia talking, but that 500th home run meant something to me, as well as every Detroit fan.