The People You Know & Meet

Greetings from Bowling Green, KY  

    So I've decided to start each blog with a little team update first, then give some fun stuff to digest after.

The Silverhawks have been playing better of late.  We had a come from behind victory last night here against the Hot Rods.  This makes us 9-5 in our last 14 games.  We are steadily working our way back to .500.  Overall, the hitters have been doing a better job of relaxing and putting the ball in play when they need too.  The pitching continues to be our strong suit as well.  Today we have a double header, to make up for a rain out here on our last road trip.

    It's quite amazing when you take a step back from everything and look at all of the people you know in your life.  Granted there are a lot of people who will come and go, but even at that, they are still people you have had some sort of impact on.  The reason that this is on my mind as of late comes from our recent trip to Grand Rapids, where we played the West Michigan Whitecaps (my hometown team).  I'm not going to go into how it was a place where I always aspired to be growing up and going to so many games as a kid.  However, the trip really made me realize how many people have been in my life and played a pivotal part of my development, as a person, growing up.
    Fortunately, I was able to make a spot start on Tuesday night as part of a double header and that is when most of my support base came out to show their colors.  Tuesday night, I put right about 100 people on the pass list for the game.  I'm lucky it was early in the season still because as the spring turns to summer I won't be so lucky because games become a hotter commodity.  Really think about that though, 100 people!  I had multiple people tell me that they didn't even know 100 people.  For a second I wondered if I really did, or if I was just handing out tickets to hand them out.  However, I do think I really could say I know 100 people I would give tickets too.  Sure, I left tickets for friends who wanted to being some other friends, but over the years I have had the opportunity to play with, work with, or even instruct a numerous amount of people.  Talk about a humbling experience.
    To make it even better, all 3 categories I just listed showed up on Tuesday night.  It is human nature that friends you are with growing up will grow apart and start lives separately.  No matter though, the friends you are close with, you at least stay in touch with, via facebook, occasional email, or some other technologically driven avenue.  To have friends and teammates from high school, people I worked with growing up and currently, and kids that I've instructed over the years to all show up on one night to support me makes me feel honored beyond belief!  Just the opportunity alone to play in front of a home crowd is enough, but to have more support for you than the home town team is even more amazing.  I was in awe of how stunning it was.  I don't know if it would compare to a big league feeling, but at that moment, when I was on the mound in West Michigan I felt like I was a big leaguer and I got to have all of those who mean the most to me there.  THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE!

   I wanted to close this with another 1 other story that adds on.  No matter how many people you know, you continue to meet new people.  As the trip to West Michigan came to a close, I now have the opportunity to get to know someone new.  We added another player to a roster, due to an injury, so I now have a roommate on the road.  A lot of the time people stick with what they know and are comfortable with.  I have to say though, this experience has opened my eyes and makes me think about things like that.  My roommate is from Panama, speaks good English, but still not someone I would have probably chosen as a roommate prior to this trip.  The conversation that we have had the last 1.5 days has been awesome.  Come to find out he also plays guitar left handed (few do), he gave me a little education on Panama City last night (where he lives), and we've joked about the different dialects in America and how they are not so different from Spanish speaking dialects.  Last night, talking about Panama City I was shocked because I felt so poorly educated.  It is quite a distinct city and has some amazing skylines and places to go.  Then to find out he lives right in the city in a sky rise place was wow!  It would be like growing up in downtown New York or Chicago.  Such an amazing experience.

    I guess I just wanted to share some of the blessings I've had in the last 96 hours with everyone, and hopefully bring some awareness to the amazing things that happen in our lives everyday that can be easily over looked.  We all get caught up in the day to day, but when you slow it all down is when things become divine!

Find a way to challenged yourself today, push your limits beyond your comfort zone, and further our amazing species!