Major League Player: The Journey to a Championship (PART 1)

I apologize for not posting for so long, and while I hate making excuses last week was really hectic for me. The weekend league I participate in held its annual city championship on Saturday, so I was in practice, eating healthy, and thinking baseball all week o_O I suppose things worked out in the end because our team won! ^_^ Everyone played their best, and while I can regale you with stories of our ups and downs I would be writing clear until next Monday o_O Anyway, I'll try to keep it short.

Last year, about this time, I was captain of a very good team playing in the same city championship. We practiced hard all week, and my co-captain and I did everything we could to prepare the team for what lay ahead. While we were short in numbers, I felt we would do well. Up until that point, I never won a tournament of that magnitude before, but I prayed and believed we were due. That Saturday morning, we played three games: We lost the first two by more than thirty combined runs, and the offensive and defensive strategies I crafted for the previous two weeks fell apart in my hands. Before the third game, my friend Kurtis, who drove out west to vacation with his then girlfriend and now wife Jen, spotted me alone on a park bench with head bowed, clothes drenched in rain water, and sobbing profusely. He told me weeks later how he was about to come over, and then he silently backed away before I noticed his surprise arrival at the ballpark. In the third game, we played better but lost the game, 5-4. I felt numb as I shook the hands of the players on the other team, held back tears as I tried to thank the few teammates who came out and played against both the elements and insurmountable odds, and after offering congratulations to others on a great season I drove home in the rain at about one in the afternoon, went to my room, and stayed there for six hours.

After playing that way, falling apart and then melting down, I didn't want to play baseball anymore, not because I didn't win that championship but because I couldn't win anything. I was starting a new job, helping out in church, volunteering time in the league committee, organizing team outings and devotions with my co-captain every week, and running practices at any available field I could find from week to week. I wasn't the best leader, and as I sat alone in my room I determined I wasn't the "best" Christian either. After the sixth hour, my parents, whose love I cherish to this day, lovingly kicked the door into my room and said I had a responsibility to be with my team at the post-game party that evening. They were counting on me to be there, and to be an example of a humbled leader. So, I got dressed and went to the party: There were good times, from one person's failed attempts at Wii Bowling (One-pin Minho) to a marathon game of Dutch Blitz. I still felt bad, but I did not want to show it or take it out on anyone there. The league banquet held the following night gave us a chance to thank everyone for their efforts in making the season the success that it was, however I reserved a pledge to finish the work of 2010 the next year, no matter the cost.

The theme was PIRATES gear about three months after the end of the 2010 season. Not because I wanted to steal what I thought was mine the next year, but because the Pittsburgh Pirates were among the worst teams in baseball that year, and shop.mlb.com sold authentic gear at reduced prices. Whatever the cost, I thought. Even if it meant spending at least one thousand dollars on jerseys alone, hitting every baseball shop within the Greater Toronto Area for extra large baseball socks in each of the four major colours, buying and working in three different types of baseball gloves and labelling each of them after famous girls from Youtube, playing in a beer league during the spring dressed up as a pro ball player and not coming close to playing like one, blogging about my experiences playing in a beer league, switching diet plans to lose weight and get into shape only to get sick in the process, and giving up Facebook to focus on my new job and prepping for the upcoming summer season: Whatever the cost, I thought. Therefore, when it came time to join the newly formed "Major League Players" team for the 2011 season, I was in the best condition of my life, and after the first at-bat everyone would know the work from 2010 would be complete this year!

By midseason, I was lying on the pavement behind a school after tripping, falling, and potentially damaging my knee trying to run down a flyball. The clutch hitting "star" of the team, who made weekly diving catches in left field and hit more homeruns that year than in his previous years combined, lay in a tangled mess. Yes, we were a winning team at that point, but everything I worked for was unravelling in what I thought would be serious ligament damage. The team was staring at a 4-3 record, and the next few days were really touch and go as I tried to regain that "magic touch", but it was futile. Whatever the cost? What could I do?