By several sources of encouragement (or demand) I will be sharing some thoughts and experiences I have in my 2009 baseball season.
To give you the run down on the life of this professional baseball player, while writing this I am currently laying in my bed at the Days Inn in Bakersfield at 11:07 AM. I am proud to say I am watching my boy Axel Foley causing havoc in Beverly Hills Cop III. Axel has been the butt of a couple of my nicknames in High School, i.e. Axel Foley-Rod and Beverly Hills Dyldo…true story. We were just talking yesterday about how many nicknames I have and I told these guys that they have barely scratched the surface with what they have come up with so far.
I am playing for the Lake Elsinore Storm, the High Class A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. We are 9 games into our season and after a 7 day home stand we are on our first road trip of the year. First stop: 4 games in Bakersfield and then 3 games in San Jose. Bakersfield is not as bad as I thought it would be, there is a solid assortment of food options around the hotel and the TV’s have inputs for my PS2. A few of us are hooked on MVP 05’ and we have some heated games that send expletives and shouts of glory flying under our doors and down hallways. Another way we pass our downtime and bus rides is playing cards.
We play a game called “Passoy” I really have no idea how to spell it. You might spell it b-e-s-t c-a-r-d g-a-m-e e-v-e-r. Basically the gist of the game is you deal out all the cards to 3 players, the goal is to get rid of all your cards first by playing all poker hands. The two people that lose and have cards left in their hand pay the winner a quarter for every card left in their respective hands. There is a lot of strategy involved and there are some crazy swings in terms of the money you are up or down. Last year I made about $80. But its basically about having fun.
Speaking of fun, that is one of my goals for this season. I feel like last year in my dedication and determination to progress and do well, I lost sight of the present moment and how blessed I am to do what I do. At the end of last season I figured it out realized this is about fun and its counterproductive to be all baseball all the time. You have to be well rounded and get away from the pressures baseball can put on you at times. In college I had the distraction of school and roommates and such. Now that I play professionally, its baseball…period. However I want to do my best to stay busy and have healthy distractions.
As for the start of our season, we opened up at home in front of an 8000 + sellout. We have probably the nicest facility in the California League and we are treated extremely well by the staff, booster club and fans. We opened up against Visalia and it was great to play against an old teammate in Ollie Linton. We played together at UC Irvine, he was our starting center fielder there and now at Visalia. That UCI team was a beautiful thing, we were truly like brothers. I faced Ollie once last year in Fort Wayne and we faced off 2 more times in our first series this year. So far he is 0-3 but I don’t want to gloat because he might just get me eventually. All the guys on my team were giving me a hard time because I started laughing out there on the mound. I threw a slider down the middle and Ollie fouled it off and looked at me with this face as if to say “your so lucky man.” I just started laughing…sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. His teammates were messing with him too because of a few laughs we shared on the field. Its a special thing to look over and see one of your buddies and to just share a moment and a look, knowing you both have taken that next step towards playing at the top of our profession.
See in my eyes that’s what it’s about. Those times are the true essence of having fun playing baseball and it’s a beautiful thing.
I have to go eat
-Axe
To give you the run down on the life of this professional baseball player, while writing this I am currently laying in my bed at the Days Inn in Bakersfield at 11:07 AM. I am proud to say I am watching my boy Axel Foley causing havoc in Beverly Hills Cop III. Axel has been the butt of a couple of my nicknames in High School, i.e. Axel Foley-Rod and Beverly Hills Dyldo…true story. We were just talking yesterday about how many nicknames I have and I told these guys that they have barely scratched the surface with what they have come up with so far.
I am playing for the Lake Elsinore Storm, the High Class A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. We are 9 games into our season and after a 7 day home stand we are on our first road trip of the year. First stop: 4 games in Bakersfield and then 3 games in San Jose. Bakersfield is not as bad as I thought it would be, there is a solid assortment of food options around the hotel and the TV’s have inputs for my PS2. A few of us are hooked on MVP 05’ and we have some heated games that send expletives and shouts of glory flying under our doors and down hallways. Another way we pass our downtime and bus rides is playing cards.
We play a game called “Passoy” I really have no idea how to spell it. You might spell it b-e-s-t c-a-r-d g-a-m-e e-v-e-r. Basically the gist of the game is you deal out all the cards to 3 players, the goal is to get rid of all your cards first by playing all poker hands. The two people that lose and have cards left in their hand pay the winner a quarter for every card left in their respective hands. There is a lot of strategy involved and there are some crazy swings in terms of the money you are up or down. Last year I made about $80. But its basically about having fun.
Speaking of fun, that is one of my goals for this season. I feel like last year in my dedication and determination to progress and do well, I lost sight of the present moment and how blessed I am to do what I do. At the end of last season I figured it out realized this is about fun and its counterproductive to be all baseball all the time. You have to be well rounded and get away from the pressures baseball can put on you at times. In college I had the distraction of school and roommates and such. Now that I play professionally, its baseball…period. However I want to do my best to stay busy and have healthy distractions.
As for the start of our season, we opened up at home in front of an 8000 + sellout. We have probably the nicest facility in the California League and we are treated extremely well by the staff, booster club and fans. We opened up against Visalia and it was great to play against an old teammate in Ollie Linton. We played together at UC Irvine, he was our starting center fielder there and now at Visalia. That UCI team was a beautiful thing, we were truly like brothers. I faced Ollie once last year in Fort Wayne and we faced off 2 more times in our first series this year. So far he is 0-3 but I don’t want to gloat because he might just get me eventually. All the guys on my team were giving me a hard time because I started laughing out there on the mound. I threw a slider down the middle and Ollie fouled it off and looked at me with this face as if to say “your so lucky man.” I just started laughing…sorry, I just couldn’t help myself. His teammates were messing with him too because of a few laughs we shared on the field. Its a special thing to look over and see one of your buddies and to just share a moment and a look, knowing you both have taken that next step towards playing at the top of our profession.
See in my eyes that’s what it’s about. Those times are the true essence of having fun playing baseball and it’s a beautiful thing.
I have to go eat
-Axe
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