The At-Bat

I still remember the plate appearance vividly. My last college at-bat. I still remember the crowds cheering louder than the half-filled stadium would suggest. I still remember my hands being so sweaty from nerves that it was a minor miracle that the sweat didn’t seep through my batting gloves and cause me to lose my grip on the bat. I still remember the pitcher, a closer for East Texas who ended up a fourth-round draft pick by the Pirates named Diablo Reed. I still remember how clean my uniform was because I had yet to get on base at any point in the game. I needed to get some dirt on the uniform.

There were two outs. A third out would mean game over. We were down by one run in the bottom of the 9^th inning. We had a guy on third base. Any base hit would have tied the game and extended my college career.

Perhaps I should backtrack. Although, any fan of baseball will be familiar with the story, I should give context for those who don’t know. We were in the elimination game of the 2023 College World Series, which is the tournament for the top college teams in the country to compete for the national championship. The team was the Valencia State University Wildfire. The fact that we were even in the competition was a shocker. The fact that I was even in this position is even more shocking.

I had previously played baseball in high school, specifically an infielder, but I was a bench player. I rarely got a chance to bat and when I did, I didn’t get on base a whole lot. I was used mostly as a defensive substitution as I was a player with great defensive range in the state of California. However, this was not enough to get any scholarship opportunities. So I went to the local university to get a business degree.

However, the love of playing baseball never left my mind. I had kept my ear to the ground regarding walk-on opportunities at local colleges and universities. Those opportunities unfortunately never came up during my first two years of college. But I had the feeling inside me to keep in shape because opportunity will come someday. Every weekday morning at 6 AM, I would go to the gym to keep in shape. Five sets of five reps of squats, bicep curls, pectoral exercises, and tricep exercises. I would then run for four laps around the quarter-mile track at the college, even in the stifling Southern California summers. After this, I would drive to a local batting cage and stay for a half hour. Working on my timing and stance to make sure I was not rusty when the call came to try out for the team. I would after that throw a ball against a nearby net while holding a baseball glove, ready to catch the return. I couldn’t be rusty with my defensive skills either. One skill I let go could mean the end of my opportunity to play baseball again.

The opportunity finally came my junior season. The school had a star third baseman named Todd Chapman, who was expected to help bring the team at least a College World Series appearance. Unfortunately for Valencia State, it was discovered that that Mr. Chapman had been receiving payments from a coach in violation of NCAA rules. I don’t know all the details, but I do know this: my junior year, Valencia State was banned from the post season for one year. Mr. Chapman was banned from the team. Most of the upperclassmen fled to other baseball programs. The program was in shambles.

But, in order to replenish the roster, Valencia State held an open tryout. The tryouts were on a cool October Saturday morning. I was surprisingly relaxed about the tryouts. It was nice having a competitive batting session for the first time in three years. I missed the thrill of competing. I knew I had prepared for this day, so all I could do was perform to the best of my abilities. If there’s one takeaway from my story that I want you to know its always be prepared because you never know when opportunity is going to strike.

I went through the several batting drills, running drills, catching drills against a few freshmen and sophomores, but their play was much sloppier than mine. Some of the freshmen had such trouble finding the ball and would be constantly looking around for the ball in a way where I would have guessed they were leading an expedition through a jungle and scouting for trouble ahead if I didn’t know any better. I wasn’t 100% sure that some of the sophomores had ever swung a bat before the way their stances looked.

Even though I was older than most of the other walk-ons, my extra preparation appeared to have paid off. The coach immediately pulled me aside and welcomed me to the team. A wave of excitement came over me the likes of which I had not felt in years. I was finally playing the sport I had loved at a competitive level again. The runs, the catching, the batting cages took on a whole new meaning and necessity.

To show you how awful and desperate we were my junior season, those clumsy players I mentioned earlier, well, they made our team. Yet, I still couldn’t even make the starting lineup. You see, my primary position was as a shortstop. That’s where my defensive skills really shined. Sometimes I made the lineup as an outfielder or second baseman if we needed a day off, but I was still primarily a shortstop. The team had a shortstop already who could hit the ball further than me, more often than me. So, I mostly was in the starting lineup if he was resting for a day. He was the only bright spot in a rough season where we had 9 wins and 41 losses. Yet, he was blocking my playing time.

All I could do was keep up with my batting and fielding drills. The star shortstop was a senior, so all I could do was develop my skills for my senior year. Or maybe wow the coaches with my skills in practice, but of course, that never happened. When I did play other positions, my mediocre speed couldn’t make up for my mediocre bat. I could be a defensive star only at shortstop and my bat wasn’t good enough to make up for shortcomings at other positions. At least not yet.

After the atrocious showing my junior year, it was showtime my senior year. All of the walk-ons the previous season had gained experience and finally were starting to look like they had seen a baseball field at some point in their lives. The promise of playing time made some pitching transfers come from other schools and vastly improve our pitching staff. And more importantly for me, I was in the starting lineup as the shortstop. I was finally able to obtain some playing time.

And boy did I take advantage of that playing time. Despite my mediocre bat the year before, something clicked in me to start the senior season, probably the ability to see live pitching consistently, and I went on a tear. I was the named the conference player of the month that March after getting on base half of the times I went to bat.

My defense was also catching the eyes of those around me. I still remember in a late March game against UCLA, it was the 8^th inning and UCLA had two outs, but the bases were loaded. We were up by two runs so a base hit would have at least tied the game. The batter was their streaky third baseman named Cal Osmond. And at this point, he was on almost as much of a hot streak as I had been. On one pitch, I first heard the “ping” of the ball hitting his bat and saw the ball on a trajectory that would have been roughly five feet above my head. I took two steps back and leapt as high as I had ever leapt before. My arm stretched out for the ball. I expected it to go over my head but I felt the ball fall into my glove. The momentum of the jump caused me to go off-balance so I fell back but managed to backflip myself and land on my feet. I certainly made ESPN that night.

But as the calendar turned to April, I turned suddenly…average, if not terrible. I still was in the starting lineup but the hot streak was over. I couldn’t get on base to save my life. My defense was still superlative, but my bat was as cold as Antarctica. I went to the batting cages to make adjustments to my swing. I knew where pitchers were getting me out, yet I still couldn’t adjust. I couldn’t buy a hit to save my life. And when my bat managed to make contact, it was just weak contact. I would get the occasional extra base hit to justify my starting lineup position.

Yet my team was still winning. Buoyed by strong pitching rotation and the best hitting first baseman, Corey Appleton, in the conference, we ended up with 39 wins and 11 losses. We were ranked in the top 10 by the end of the season and steamrolled our conference, earning the conference title. We had made it to the College World Series merely one year after posting the worst season in school history. We were the Cinderella story and everyone was talking about Valencia State.

After losing game one of the three game series, we were down by a run in game two in the 9^th inning. I was up to bat. I had a man on first. While there was only one out, if I hit into a double play, it was game, season, and career over. But it wasn’t game, season, or career over. In that game, I got a pitch that was right in one of the few locations where I could still hit. And hit I did. I swung as hard as I could and the ball ricocheted off my bat. I knew as soon as I heard the noise that the ball was out of the park, but it seemed to take forever to get there. Then the ball began dropping. I was worried the right fielder would be able to catch it. He leapt up but the ball barely cleared his glove and the fence. A walk-off home run to keep the season alive and go to a game three elimination game.

Now that the scene is set, let me take you back to the at-bat I was talking about. I was once again in a position to win the game. We would move on to the next round if I just got a hit here. Would magic strike twice in a row. The first pitch was a slider off the left hand side of the plate. Ball one. The next pitch came. With sweat beading down my face I could barely see the ball. It was another slider, but I swung at it like a fastball. One ball, one strike. The next pitch, I was looking for another fastball, but the pitch came way slower than anticipated. My timing was off. One ball, two strikes. Next pitch was the fastball I was looking for, but it fouled back. Still one ball, two strikes. The pitcher stared at the catcher, looking for the pitch to end this game. I saw the release in slow motion. It was a fastball that looked like it was coming a bit inside. I did not swing. Two balls, two strikes. That’s what I thought until I heard the umpire yell “Strike Three” and give the strike out signal. Officially, I had ended the game. The entire East Texas bench ran onto the field in celebration. I thought I had my last at-bat competitively. I let my team down. I was sick to my stomach and couldn’t stop crying.

Well you know the rest. A few days later, in the 20^th round of the MLB Draft, I was selected by the Boston Red Sox. I ended up winning an MVP, three World Series rings, a batting title, thirteen All-Star game appearances, over twenty-five hundred hits, ten Gold Glove awards, and now, I can stand before you, speaking here at Cooperstown, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

So out of my entire career, why didn’t I talk about any of my clutch hits or failures in MLB? Because I wanted to bring you back to where it really began. It didn’t begin when I debuted. It didn’t begin when I was even drafted. My drive never to let that situation where I cost my team the victory is where it began. I worked harder than ever on my batting because that’s what I needed to succeed at the professional level. I learned from that heartache and never wanted that feeling again.

But it began even before that, didn’t it. It began even before I stepped foot on a Valencia State field. It began when I was doing the push-ups and lunges in the gym. It began when I was running sprints in 90 degree weather. It began at the cages. It really began because I wanted to try to make it back into baseball. As the old saying goes, you never know unless you try.