Slugging With a Dream
It all started on the Wiffle Ball field outside of Oracle Park.
My mom was a big San Francisco Giants fan, and I remember making the trip out to the stadium every once in a while when we lived in Reno. Barry Bonds was still playing at the time, and I quickly fell in love with the game. I was three years old running around in our backyard trying to match his slash line—just a kid with big dreams and more energy than I knew what to do with really.
But as I grew older, I started to appreciate the competitiveness of the sport. Ted Williams once said, “Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.”
Boy, was he right.
I became a Huskers fan when my family moved to Nebraska. That’s when I put down the plastic bat and picked up a real one. It’s when the dreams of playing Division I baseball for the Huskers started to consume me.
Unfortunately, however, I wasn’t the most physically gifted player growing up. I wasn’t the biggest, strongest, or hardest-throwing kid. So I knew I probably wasn’t ready to make that jump to Division I baseball right out of high school.
And honestly, it was really disappointing.
Imagine spending your entire childhood working towards a goal, only to have it snubbed by your own physical limitations. While others were being recruited, my phone was silent.
All I needed was an opportunity, and with a little help from social media, I finally got one.
The head coach from South Mountain Community College in Arizona made a habit of liking posts on Twitter that were retweeting out my stat lines. He had been doing this so often that he finally took a closer look at me. So he reached out to invite me on a visit, and the next thing I knew, I was on a plane ride to Arizona to commit to a junior college for my freshman year.
Surely, there was still disappointment over not playing for a Division I school, but honestly, I was just so thankful for the opportunity. Not everybody gets a chance like that.
After all, I was one of those guys that got to continue playing baseball after college.
What more could I ask for?
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December 05, 2020 at 04:15AM
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The Local Kid - University of Nebraska - huskers.com
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