Almost a Camel--Well, Not Really

1/21/14

If you've been reading The Baseball Romantic, you'll remember reading that I unsuccessfully tried out for the Chicago Cubs. It was a long, long, long shot, but I at least wanted to try. I was a sophomore in high school at the time, in the midst of an exceptionally mediocre high school baseball career. I worked hard enough to eventually earn myself a starting spot on the varsity team playing third base and batting leadoff (except for my final home game as a senior, when my jerk of a coach batted me ninth. He and I never got along. I never figured out why). I loved playing the game too much give it up after my last high school game, so not being content with an exceptionally mediocre high school baseball career, I wanted to also have an exceptionally mediocre college baseball career.

I enrolled at Campbell University, a small school not too far from home. I wanted to go to a small college specifically because I might have a better chance of making the team. Deep down inside, I knew I probably didn't have the talent to play college ball, but I thought I had the hustle for it. I had been greatly inspired by the movie Rudy and I thought maybe things like that happened in real life. So on my application to Campbell, under Hobbies and Special Interests, I wrote BASEBALL. I also wrote in the margin that I planned on trying out for the team.

About two weeks after my acceptance letter came, I got a phone call. On the other end was Campbell's baseball coach. I don't remember everything I said, but I remember thinking I could talk him into a scholarship over the phone (I couldn't). "Your application says you're gonna try out for the team," he said. He sounded like a friendly, jovial man and I looked forward to playing for him. "That's good! Do you pitch?" I told him that I only pitched one inning in my whole life, but I had come in with the bases loaded and only one out and got out of it unscathed. I wasn't a pitcher per se, but I pitched batting practice almost every day. His tone changed to what sounded like disappointment. "Oh," he said. "Well, we're in the same boat as every other baseball team in the world. We need pitchers. You're welcome to try out anyway and we'll give you a fair look." I wasn't sure how to feel about our conversation, whether to be excited that he called me or discouraged that I wasn't a pitcher. Either way, he knew who I was and would be expecting me at tryouts.

I showed up at the field that first hot August afternoon, determined to be the hustlingest, hardest-working player on the field. If I couldn't stand out by my talent, I could stand out by my effort. I had been practicing and working out pretty hard all summer in anticipation of tryouts, so I was already in pretty good shape when I got there. Still, I was so sore that I could barely walk at the end of each day's practice. The coach said the same thing at the conclusion of practice every day: "Thanks for sweating freely, men!" And I did. I probably lost about five pounds that first week, and I didn't have it to spare. On Thursday of the first week, during stretches, I saw the coach walking toward me with an orange CAMELS BASEBALL t-shirt in his hand. I thought he was coming toward me and my heart started pounding. "I made it!" I thought. But he stopped at the player stretching next to me and tossed the shirt to him. "Don't lose this one and don't give it to no little girls either," he said. So close, yet so far away.

One afternoon the next week, sore, sweaty, but hopeful, I was walking off the field after practice when the coach approached me and put his arm around me. "I appreciate you coming out here every day and sweating freely," he said, "but we need pitchers. If you could pitch, we could use you." My heart sank. But I wasn't ready to give up just yet. I reminded him that I pitched batting practice every day in high school and I would be willing to try to pitch. I just wanted to play. He had a puzzled look on his face. "Son, you don't come to NCAA college baseball to learn how to pitch. You need to know how to pitch when you get here," he said. I couldn't argue. So I shook his hand and mumbled something about being thankful for the opportunity, and picked up my equipment bag and started off the field, brokenhearted.

"Now what?" The question rolled through my mind a thousand times between the field and my dorm room. "All I've ever wanted to be is a ballplayer, it's all I've worked toward, and I didn't make it. If I can't play small college ball, I surely can't play professionally. Now what?" Thirteen years came to a stop that day (I started playing when I was five). I majored in communications with the vague notion of going into radio broadcasting (that didn't work out either), played intramural softball, played countless games of catch with my roommate (he didn't make the team either), and played a few seasons of softball after college, but I never found the answer to the question, "now what?" 

And honestly, I still haven't.