Changing Priorities

If my mom wanted me to give up on playing baseball, all she had to do was put beer, girls, and music in front of me long enough to become overwhelmed, as it were.

When I was in high school, I had an above-average arm -- not a Major League arm, not even a professional ball arm, but one with which I should have been able to play some school ball with. Coming into St. Ignatius, my body was far from an athletic one. In short, I was fat and slow. I guess I was absolutely determined to change all that.

Having not played with the local travelling teams during junior high, I was at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to my fellow freshmen competitors (with well over 100 frosh showing up for the first day of pitchers and catchers try-out, the competition promised to be far from lax). In the weeks leading up to try-outs though, my mom came through for me and brought to my attention that Cleveland State University would be holding a winter baseball camp for junior high and high school students. I would attend those and really absorbed a lot about how the game is played. I still carry a lot of that knowledge with me today, and it really affects how i even watch a game. The pitching coach at CSU was a young man called Coach Healy. He offered one-on-one pitching clinics for the low, low price of $25/hour. I quickly convinced my father to let me set up a clinic with him every weekend leading up to and through the first weeks of freshmen tryouts. From the clinics I learned a lot about the intricacies of pitching mechanics, and every night I would practice my form and perform the various drills in front of a mirror in order to perfect my delivery. Every now and then, I find myself working on my mechanics even today, when I get bored or anxious.

I learned how to throw a great circle change-up pitch while working with Coach Healy. Had I not been dumb and lost confidence in that pitch, I would have thrown well enough during a scrimmage on the last week of tryouts to make the team. I was too dumb to realize that the reason my change was bouncing in front of the catcher while I was warming-up was because I was throwing from a distance greater than the regulation 60 feet 6 inches from the rubber to the plate. I was convinced that I was throwing in the 70-75 mph range that day of the scrimmage against the farm boys from Orange High. I was blowing my fastball by them but was having trouble putting them away without the aid of plus change.

As a result of that severe miscalculation, I had a less than impressive performance that day and ended up not making the freshmen team. I worked hard all off-season and played both summer and fall ball for the city of Parma. I went into tryouts the next year on a roll. The weekend before tryouts, I threw a bullpen at around 70 feet from the catcher where I had pinpoint control of my two-seam, change and curve. That was the one moment in my life where pitching seemed effortless. I was completely zoned in and had such great command of those pitches that I felt that nothing was going to keep me off that Ignatius JV roster. I must have worked my body too hard though, between workouts with the team and doing extra work at Cleveland State, because I ended up being sidelined with painful shin splints.

The next year, my elbow gave up on me.

As a senior, I tried out again. My heart definitely was not in it though. I was more interested in participating in things like Kairos and SEARCH retreats to care as much as I had in the past. I went through the motions anyway and got cut for an inauspicious fourth time, out of spite of course.

I loved baseball more than anything at the time, but it never loved my back. That's what my mother would tell me. She's a smarter lady than I had given her credit for. During that time, I think she felt that I was wasting my time. At least she let me discover that for myself, because I wanted baseball badly. I'd spend countless evenings in a row going through the mechanics of my delivery as though I were in a deep meditative, contemplative state. It became prayer for me in its own way. Oftentimes, my mind would wander to delusions of grandeur -- like pitching Ignatius into the state championship or toe-ing the rubber from my hometown Tribe. This is not to say that I never had any successes as a ballplayer. I really enjoyed playing summer ball with the other kids that got cut in my class, and I really felt that I was their undisputed leader whenever I stepped onto the rubber. There was the one summer where I pitched four complete games and only incurred one loss. But that was just not enough for me, I wanted it all of course. I worked so hard every day -- running and lifting and working on my mechanics. I worked in the vain hope that one day I'd wake up with the gift of having a "thunderbolt for a right arm."

When I graduated from Ignatius, I was excited at the possibility of playing as a non-recruit for Wabash. The change in scenery, diet, and routine made it so difficult to keep my focus like I did back in high school though. I found myself struggling to stay off the bottom of the depth charts with my dead, sore arm and inability to stay awake during weekend fall ball games while sitting on the bench and charting pitches.

One of those first weekends at Kappa Sigma, I found myself at the movie theater with my pledge brother Bob Chapman watching Zoolander. We left the house because we both did not want to drink. I had not even touched alcohol yet at this point. We came back to see many of my pledge brothers hammered beyond recognition. Everyone was yelling, running, and someone had fried Howard's pants.

The next weekend, I was at a party at the Fiji house. I met some of the other baseball players there, had a great drunk time, and danced on some girls. The next morning, we were to leave for an away game. I stayed in bed. I told Coach Flynn of my decision the next day.

My dead and sore arm would thank me for the break, although every now and then, it likes to wake me up in the middle of the night, screaming in pain. I think it misses the days when I'd raise it over my head and bring it thundering down back towards the earth. I think it gets nightmares due to separation anxiety. My right arm loved baseball as much as I did, and it thinks it can still blow a fastball by some poor sap of a hitter. I should have thought more highly of it and treated it with more respect when I had the chance.

I guess no one will ever know though.