Blog #8: From Snowball to Avalanche Part 1

       Following the embarrassment I put myself through, I was ousted from the starting rotation. It was all downhill from there. A few weeks later, our pitching coach “Sweetness”, as everyone called him, told me that he didn’t think it was a good idea to play on his summer ball team in Alaska. (I was planning to play outside of California during the summer if I didn’t get drafted and signed.) Sweetness asked me at the beginning of the season if I would pitch for his team. Now all of the sudden, he said it wasn’t such a good idea. His explanation for not wanting me to play was that he knew my grades were questionable to transfer to a D-1 and thought that I should stay in San Luis Obispo and do summer school. However, I thought that because of the recent slip in performance that he didn’t want me on his team. This caused instant tension. One day during practice, I was shagging BP while he was watching pitchers throw bullpens, and we got into a big fight because he wanted me to do some bitch work or something and I told him to have the “geek squad” do it for him. Sweetness yelled at me and then I told him to “f*** off”. It was a major low point in my career showing that much disrespect, especially in front of half the team. I was losing it slowly but surely. By the way, the “geek squad” was what the team referred to our two starting pitchers and closer. These three guys didn’t really party that much with the rest of the team and they always hung out together. During road trips, they would huddle around Sweetness in the front of the van and soak up his glory days in the minors.  It really agitated me while I would sit in the back and have to listen to it.

       A few days later, there was an incident with our other assistant coach, who would joke around but sometimes didn’t know when to stop. He said something that really got under my skin and I snapped. I went home that day after practice and seriously questioned my ability as a player and whether I wanted to put myself through that much agony to attempt to make it at the next level, which the chances of doing are incredibly tiny.  The week before playoffs, I had a talk with my head coach about my recent behavior and how my level of desire and commitment had fallen dramatically in the recent months. After working out some issues with him and talking it over with my parents, I decided to finish out the rest of the season and then figure out what I wanted to do. The opening round of the playoffs, I sat in the bullpen rotting away, and getting in my head even worse than ever. I couldn’t fathom how my dream of having the perfect season had slipped away in what seemed to be an instant. At the beginning of the season I had an amazing amount of confidence, just 4 months later, I had regressed all the way to the point of wanting to quit. This year however, we made it to the second round of playoffs, no help from me of course. The Super Regionals were being played in San Diego, and this time, the coach would need me for a critical start...