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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#136: The Old College Try

Though its origins are debated, it looks likely that the phrase “the old college try” was first used in baseball. According to Babe Ruth, to “give something the old college try” is to keep going, even when the odds are stacked against you — like chasing a flyball out into foul territory, just in case you somehow make the impossible catch.

There’s a lot to be said for those who keep trying despite knowing that their chances are slim. This week’s prompts take a closer look at those determined (or perhaps foolhardy) folk among us. After all, as the saying goes, God loves a trier.

This week's prompts

Start or end your story with someone saying “You’ll never know unless you try.”

Dialogue – 57 stories

Write about somebody who knows they’re probably going to fail at something, but does it anyway.

Narrative – 32 stories

Write about a character giving something one last shot.

Narrative – 51 stories

Set your story on a baseball field.

Middle School – 39 stories

Write a story where hard work doesn’t pay off.

Angst – 28 stories

Stories

“The Next Generation” by Lucky Ooog

Submitted to Contest #136

I breathe in the cold night air and close my eyes. For a second I consider just walking away. Then I brace myself, step out of the shadows and onto the field. No sense in delaying the inevitable. The stands are empty, there is not a soul in sight. "We don't have to do this, you know," I yell out, loud enough for my voice to carry into the far corners of the stadium. "You could just walk away." A few moments go by without anything happening. I already hope that she won't show when I hear her footsteps behind me. I slowly turn around, showin...

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“The Take Off” by Omali Jayah

Submitted to Contest #136

“Go ahead, Babu! Hurry up – hurry up!!” Leela pinched babu’s elbow with her super excited big eyes glued to the paper on his hand. “Read, will you? What more?” “mmmm” Babu squinted his eyes. “Let me see” They were sitting under the shade of the big mango tree in the garden. Sun was slowly setting beyond the tall coconut trees and the golden rays of dusk shone on their faces. Babu had a page of an English newspaper on his hand. Leela was anxiously sitting beside him, bending over his arm, waiting for him to unveil the magic written in black ...

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“Old Man Transport” by Tyler Havoc

Submitted to Contest #136

That long white line ended for Henry Buck. He had returned to his shop with his old lunchbox and empty thermos, and was greeted by the owner, and a few other "Suits" he had walked past some mornings. "Henry, could you come with us to the conference room inside?" The CEO, Darryl Squibb asked. As the men trudged through the gravel lot into the monolithic office building that Henry only knew as the place his paperwork was handed in. The men were lead into a large conference room with a huge, beautiful mahogany table surrounded by what Henry i...

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“The Devil in the Details” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #136

Each mysterious turn in the deadly quiet forest brought Joe Stinson face to face with another patch of darkness. He had driven around the entire afternoon trying to uncover the path to the ramshackle “mansion” that he thought would form the foundation of his future retreat on the Eastern Shore. Joe’s backwoods excursion, however, quickly brought him face-to-face with a confrontation more troubling and creepy than the twists and turns of his own deeply damaged psyche. For...

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“The Maple Box” by Leah Pratt

Submitted to Contest #136

The maple-wood box had sat on her dresser for as long as she could remember. It was a staple of her bedroom, the sort of thing that she barely noticed on a day-to-day basis, but that would be palpably obvious were it absent. In her adolescence, she had often delved into its contents, hunting through a disorganized mess of colored buttons, scraps of fabric, and thread in search of one that could serve to mend the tear in her favorite shirt, praying the other children at school wouldn’t notice the patch job....

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“THIS CAMEL AND DOG WALK INTO A BAR...” by Debbie Curtin

Submitted to Contest #136

Camel looked around the room to see if he could spot the three wise guys. He knew that they were drawn to this place given the name of it and what went on behind the doors. Glitter and glam was the calling card and it showed all that from the outside. Aptly named, Frank’s Intense Gold ‘n More – Grand Casino and Bar, this is where the three came to play the game since being drawn in a long time ago. Camel’s eyes stopped at the casino table and Dog watched as his friend began to move his big lips and chew noisily. “Don’t give them any trouble,...

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“One Last Shot At Love” by Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #136

BROOKS Two days from now is when I leave for my deployment and I have one last shot to tell the woman, the only woman I have ever loved how I feel about her. Sabrina has been my best friend since we were kids. We did everything together. We played for hours everyday in each others backyards. Every summer me and Sabrina would go to the lake behind our houses and collect rocks and play in the water. Every Halloween we would dress up as superheroes and go trick or treating, after words we would go back to my house and count the candy. O...

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“Tick, Tick” by Hayden Morrison

Submitted to Contest #136

Tick, tick. At this point in my life, the clock in my office was the most interesting thing in my world. The ticking sounds it made graced my dreams, filling my nights with bliss. The movements of the hands over the numbers were more captivating than the most attractive person I have ever laid eyes on. The shape was one of perfection- if all of the gods of all the myths were to combine their images into one, the beauty of that single holy being would still be dwarfed by the image of this clock. Unfortunately, the only reason this clock was ...

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“Is It Too Late?” by Chloe Longstreet

Submitted to Contest #136

Eli glanced around the empty helicopter before dropping his head into his hands. He hoped more of his friends would attend the Society meeting this year. They needed to work together right now. But it appeared they had given up. He traveled alone. He placed a hand on the seat beside him as his eyes welled up. Marquesa didn't give up. She died three months ago, before her 90th birthday. When news of her illness reached him, he dropped everything and raced to Italy. A few weeks after her death, devastating fires ravaged half of Milan, includin...

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“Blind Shot” by Stella T Morgan

Submitted to Contest #136

Propping on an elbow, Claire tried to rub the sleep from her eyes. Smashing the alarm clock dead with a muttered curse, she got on her feet blindly in search of coffee. She couldn’t afford to be late today. Madison would pick her up from the god-forsaken station in the middle of nowhere. There was no time to shower, and the idea of riding a bus for three hours to this tiny hamlet made her skin crawl. But they had agreed on neutral grounds to culminate their online trysts of the last fortnight. This was going to be a meeting beyond the p...

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“Give It One Last Try” by Valerie Preston

Submitted to Contest #136

My admiration for my gran only grew as I got older. She was known in the family as a tough old boot, a lovable character who called a spade a spade, but would help anyone who needed it. She grew up in England, in the country, one of nine children. Her mother was a seamstress and her father a labourer. Even when Gran’s dad went off to war, Gran’s mum still worked when she could. Of course her services weren’t needed as much as before the war, but there were some of the aristocracy needing the neat and immaculate sewing she did as they were s...

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“Gillian's Last Diet” by KS Logan

Submitted to Contest #136

There is an old saying that goes ‘I have not failed. I have simply found 10,000 ways that don’t work.’ Gillian felt they should engrave it on her tombstone. Sadly, she’d dedicated the last thirty years of her life to finding ten thousand diets that didn’t work. Thirty bloody years! Can you imagine waking up every morning of your adult life and your first thoughts are, did I eat too much yesterday? How should I eat today? Or, oh no, I went off my diet again. Special occasions are secondly about whose birthday it is or who got the promotio...

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“THE LAST CALL” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #136

THE LAST CALL She had long contacted that association___FOR CITIZEN’S RIGHTS____which claimed to be able tohelp people who were suffering psychiatric abuse and other malpractices by health care. She was suffering much more than abuse. Since too much time she had been subjected to a dictatorship, which probably wasn’t only psychiatry to inflict her. That it was a very unjust and very much...

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“Epitaph: Do not say goodbye” by Maria Esther Vilar Alvarez

Submitted to Contest #136

Epitaph: Do not say goodbye “An empty page stares at me like a menacing creature. I came to it for refuge and in return, I am greeted by a shivering coldness. A cold that freezes my very being and leaves me there, unresponsive, eyes fixated upon it. Blind eyes. I thought I had secured one bosom friend, watering and loving that friendship over the years but today I feel abandoned. My thoughts fly and crawl with the clumsiness of bees, foolishly struggling to reach the light where only darkness prevails. To reach freedom when they are bound ...

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“The Golden Key” by Hailey Gaar

Submitted to Contest #136

Kat pulls on the doorknob, nothing happens. You’ve got to have the key, you see. Nobody ever got through that door without a key. The door in Grandpa’s study was old and green, carved wood spun in intricate details that seemed too ornate to hold anything other than something extraordinary on the other side. She’s still tugging and twisting the knob when we hear noise coming down the hall. I grab my sister’s hand and we hide behind the floor-length curtains, curling our toes in. We breathe into each other’s faces and grin. K...

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$250

Prize money

207

Contest entries

100

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 11, 2022 EST

Won by Howard Halsall 🏆

Title: Cigarettes: A Romance

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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