An uninformed baseball analogy to illustrate 'Mondays'

Do you know that feeling when you've just struck out? You know it, the pitcher and catcher know it, half the supporters already clapped a sad "better luck next time, pal" but for some absurd reason umpire called ball on all three pitches? And you're standing there, flabbergasted at the injustice that is happening in your favour. Your team is counting on you to make this next pitch. The pitch that shouldn't be. You watch intently as the pitcher swings his body like a perfect pendulum, throwing the ball right towards the strike zone.

Your arms freeze as the ball flies past your torso (it doesn't matter if you swing or not at this point).

You hear the signature thud of the ball hitting the catcher's mitt.

You hate yourself.

"Ball!" the umpire shouts.

You make your way to first base. You make sure to take as long as possible. You look at the crowd and your team mates at the pen. You know you don't deserve to be on first. You think of that kid who got cut that last week of training whose face and name you already forgot. You think of how they would have made a better player in spite of how stats showed how shitty they were at camp compared to you.

You hear absolute silence, even though the crowd is losing its mind over all sorts of different things besides the game. You feel their gazes pierce through your ribs, even though no one is actually all that invested in how you managed to magically set foot on first. And you want to disappear. You want to crouch down to make yourself as small as possible and pretend you can again magically set foot elsewhere, a dimension only you know exists, a dimension where time has stopped and none of the stupid things you've done mattered or reflected poorly on those around you. You think of how you must have disappointed your team and coach and family, and how the opposing team and their hundred supporters must loathe you right now.

You think of all these things in what feels like a ridiculously long time but in reality has only been 3 seconds. You think and think and think of you. You. You. You. Then you notice one of your shoe laces are untied and you scream. You don't know why you're screaming but you are. You scream louder than you've ever screamed before. And you feel like crying but you don't want to because there's no crying in baseball. You feel like crying but you don't want to because this shouldn't be the reason why you would cry that particular day. You feel like crying but you know the fact that you're playing on that field means you're part of a privileged bunch in society.

"Why?" you ask no one in particular as you find yourself crying anyway.