In a world that all-too-often doesn’t live up to expectations, where the fairy tale ending almost never happens, and disappointment outstrips elation, days like Sunday don’t happen very often.

Having squandered a 4-0 lead, and then going down 6-4 to UCLA, in danger of being swept at home for the first time this season, the Cal baseball team gave the over 1,000 people in attendance, and one cynical sports writer, a reason to believe.

Rally caps on. Fans on their feet. Right fielder and pitcher Blake Smith, who had given up two runs in the top of the ninth, strokes his second home run of the game in the bottom of the frame. 6-5 Bruins.

Sophomore third baseman Jeff Kobernus draws a walk and is sacrificed to second by shortstop Michael Brady. Freshman Mark Canha nails a double over the drawn-in infield to tie the game. 6-6.

Fast forward to the bottom of the tenth inning. Rally caps on. Fans on their feet. It’s senior day, so four of those 1,000-plus fans are the grandparents of the hitter leading off this inning, senior second baseman Josh Satin.

The first pitch sails high and outside, and Satin waits. The second ball buzzes a bit too close to Satin’s jersey. Ball two. The next pitch is about 2-3 inches off the plate, but the umpire calls it a strike. The umpires in the stands, needless to say, are livid. Satin steps out nonchalantly, and digs back in, waggling his bat low behind his head.

Just before the pitch is thrown, said Shirley Satin, Josh’s grandmother, the entire family all joined in one singular forbidden hope: With 17 home runs on the year, what if Josh hit his 18^th in his last home game?

They didn’t have to wonder for long. They didn’t have to hope for long. And no one had to wait for long, because on the very next pitch, Josh Satin wrote the last line of a movie script with his orange metal bat, sending a drive into left center field which floated over the glove of senior Bruins centerfielder Brady Dolan, and over the wall.

“I faced that guy three times already, and every pitch was a change up for a ball,” says Satin. “So I thought that they were going to try to get me to swing at garbage. Then he just left that one up.”

And up, and up and up.

The team was almost louder than the fans, as they roared while their senior infielder triumphantly flew around the bases. His feet didn’t touch dirt even once.

“It was unreal,” says Satin, “just unreal.”

As he touched home plate, Satin threw his fists in the air, and the team in turn threw him into the air, to sit upon their shoulders to revel in the impossibility of triumph, the perfect closing act to a senior season that would not have happened were it not for all 30 major league teams passing on Satin in last year’s major league draft.

“He’s been through so much,” Shirley said, the happiness clearly visible on her smiling face. Josh’s mother, Gail, put her hand on her son’s shoulder, voice quivering, overjoyed at seeing her little boy do something so big.

“I just asked for a base hit, that’s all I wanted,” Gail said. “I’m a very proud mother of a wonderful guy.

“I’m so proud, so happy. It was his last game, unbelievable.”

I think she can be forgiven the public kvelling (it’s Yiddish, look it up).

Everyone under four feet tall that was in the stands when Satin hit his shot crowd around the 6-foot-2 infielder, holding up balls and scraps of paper for him to sign. One pen doesn’t work. He presses harder and harder until it does. Wouldn’t want the little fan to go away empty handed.

He signs and signs and signs, and one day soon, he’ll be signing a major league contract. Gail remarks that she hopes I’ll be there to cover him when he does, seeing as our families know one another and I’ve covered Josh for so long here at Cal.

I tell her it would be my pleasure not only to cover Josh, but Tyson Ross, Charlie Cutler, Matt Gorgen, David Cooper, and any other Cal baseball player that makes it to the big leagues.

Over the past three years, they have let me into their world, a world that I once-upon-a-time dreamed of being a part of. They have let me experience it through their eyes, and have made me feel like a part of the family.

When I tracked Josh down after the celebration, I shook his hand, looked him in the eye, and said, “Thank you.” That goes out not only to Satin, but to all of the Bears. Thank you for reminding me, and everyone who comes to Evans Diamond, how beautiful this game is.

It gives us moments of awe, of hopes and dreams, of the improbable. It allows you to believe. It allows you to put on a rally cap and see it work. It allows you to ask ‘What if?’ It allows you to cheer.

Cal may have lost the weekend series to the Bruins, but that home run gave them all of the mental and emotional momentum they will need as they head into the playoffs (the selection show will be tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM, and my colleague Matt Kawahara and I will be with the team as they watch it, so more on that tomorrow morning).

“Now we’ve got all the momentum in the world,” Satin said. “This was a hard-fought game against a good team. They’re definitely going to make it (into the playoffs), and maybe we’ll see them down the line. If not, hopefully this was a springboard to something better.”

Maybe even, a springboard to Omaha.