Growing up my life centered around 3 things; my family, my faith, and baseball. Often times those three areas would overlap with each other. During the summer time most of my weekends were spent with family at either my dad’s softball tournaments, my baseball tournaments or one of my two sister’s fast pitch tournaments. It was a crazy and amazing existence every summer.
I remember summers where I would play a game one night, go to my sisters game the next night, go to my dad’s game the next night, have practices going throughout the week, play a game on Saturday and then go to a double header of my dad’s on Sunday.
I once sat down and figured that I have played in over 1,000 baseball/softball games, coached somewhere around 400 to 500 softball/fastpitch games and probably watched over 5,000 baseball or softball games in total in my life already.
So it’s safe to say I’ve had some experience but over the past couple of years things have changed. Although I’m still watching baseball I haven’t played or coached competitively in 6 years. I miss the competition, the challenge of facing a pitcher or making a diving catch. The closest I’ve come to playing is fielding balls with the Volcanoes during BP and hitting some. Oh and even now with a wood bat I can still put it too and over the fence, which I’m very proud of.
For many baseball players who were once extremely active in the game it can be hard to just sit back and watch games now. This blog has been a welcome release to my sadness over no longer playing competitively but it still doesn’t erase the understanding that I’m now on the other side.
A lot of people feel this way after they are done and maybe none more so than those who have played at the highest level. As fans we often wonder why a player who is unable to perform anywhere near what they were once capable of in their prime, wont hang up their spikes and move on. The answer is actually quite simple why they won’t. They are afraid to cross over to the other side of baseball. The side where you can instruct someone how to play, but you can’t go out there and do it because you’ve crossed over.
It is for this reason that I try my hardest to never utter the words “He just needs to retire.” I never played at the major league level but yet I understand what it feels like to not have the competition as a regular part of my life.
Willie Stargell puts the challenge of retiring from baseball the best in these words:
“People like us are afraid to leave ball. What else is there to do? When baseball has been your whole life, you can’t think about a future without it, so you hang on as long as you can.”
For those who have never felt the competition it is hard to describe. Baseball is a sport where you are at times completely dependent on your teammates, while other times it is simply you versus the entire other team. It isn’t a sport designed for adrenaline seekers. It is a sport for the athletes who are methodical about what they do. That is why baseball is so unique and why even though I don’t play or coach right now, I still love the game. It reminds me of amazing memories with family, friends and more.