It’s been a long season, you find out so many things about yourself as each season goes by. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t gone through a long season like we play. Baseball’s not so much a physical contact sport but injuries arise nonetheless. With how often we play most of the time the injuries don’t get a chance to heal so they linger and if they don’t get a chance to get better they get worse. With the long season players body’s break down, they get tired, they get slow and that usually leads to injuries. The physical can’t be compared to the mental aspect. Usually there is someone waiting on the bench for your position if you don’t perform well. A batting average is always something that goes up and down throughout the season, the days get difficult when it’s down. You doubt, second guess yourself, try to fix this or that, sometimes it gets worse, sometimes it gets better, but we play on. That’s one of the great things about baseball, it’s fair. You aren’t rated on your worst performance nor your best, your stats show the average of how you played. They say the numbers don’t lie.
I played well this season but the thing I’m most proud of is that I played. Through health and nutrition and the understanding of how important the mental aspect, I was able to be on the field the entire season. Like the palm tree that bends but doesn’t break. I was fortunate enough to be able to play through whatever was troubling me, and ‘fix it’ before it got worse. This is the third season in a row that I’ve started and played in every game, I’m happier with that then anything else.
When I was younger and in college I always seemed to hurt this or that which kept me off the field. I had no idea what any sort of ‘balance’ meant or mental clarity. That was a large hurdle in my athletic career I’m happy and fully confident to say is over with.
The organization went through many things this season, not all positive. Some couldn’t handle the long season and quit, some were injured, asked for trades and mentally checked out about half way through.
Through all the ups and downs I’m happy to say we were able to clinch the last playoff spot in the last couple games of the season.
It’s a new season, the post season, where anything can happen.