A Love Letter to BASEBALL & DEREK JETER

   So I just finished watching the last game DEREK JETER will ever play at yankee stadium.  And I am still in tears.  And yes it is true that I cry a lot but how can you know be in tears after a performance like the one that I just saw.  After 20 years of excellence and doing it all his way DEREK JETER got a walk off single shooting the ball the other way like he has done so many times in his career.  This man has been a special player.  A player for the ages in any age.  I have been on record saying that he is the greatest Yankee in the history of this storied organization and I will never back down from that statement.  

   But this blog isn't about that.  It's about something else entirely.  I want to write about BASEBALL and what it means to me.  I've actually tried to write this blog 3 times this week, but every time I start I can't seem to keep a thought in my head and I go in every different direction trying to some it all up.  JETER, baseball, life.... There really isn't even words or time to express what they all mean but I'm going to do my best and try right now.

   Simply put, BASEBALL is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  I can say that and mean in 100 percent.  

   I have never been nor really will I ever be the most confident guy in the room. I mean I've been in the room with the most confident guy in the room so I know what it looks like, but that guy is definitely not me. Now over the years I've learned how to fake it, but there has always been one place where I didn't have to fake it and that was on the baseball field.  I'll tell you what, it's the best feeling in the world.  To be able to lace them up everyday and know that you have a group of guys counting on you and you're not going to let them down.  

   The day I knew I could no longer cut it and decided to hang up my cleats was one of the saddest days of my life.  It was an inter-squad scrimmage at OU.  I was one of the pitchers that was going to pitch that day.  I knew before I stepped out of the mound that it was going to be the last time I ever did so.  My arm had been hurting me a lot lately and I just didn't have the stuff to keep up with everyone else anymore.  I just wasn't good enough.  My dad came and watched me and so did my best friend Bryan.  I can't remember if I pitched Two or Three innings that day.  I do remember I lost a little bit in the last inning, but I didn't give up a run.  And I remember when I was done, I knew I was done.  

   And the game went on, like it has for a hundred years and like it will for a hundred more.  Because the game always goes on weather you're Brandon Ponder or DEREK JETER.  I remember falling into a great depression when I was done playing and feeling so incredibly lost.  The thing that I had done the longest in my life was gone and I had no idea who I was without it.  But I got over it like all of us ex ball players do.  Not really getting over it at all just finding things to occupy our time until the next spring comes around, and then the next spring, and the next one.  Until somewhere down the round it doesn't quite hurt as much.

   And I find myself today loving baseball maybe even more than I have in my entire life.  This game is magical.  It is America's game.  I have had great loves in my life, and both of the have ended poorly.  The girl who I will not name completely destroyed me, but that is nothing compared to what the other love of my life did to me, BASEBALL.  But that love is an undying love that will stand the test of time.  

   I repeat baseball is the best thing that ever happened to me.  It gave me memories with my father that I will cherish for the rest of my life.  It gave me friendships that are more like a brotherhood that will never be broken.  It gave me a toughness that can never been taken by anyone, a will to know that I can run through a wall if need be.  It gave me a romantic heart that beats stronger every day that I am walking this great earth.  It gave me a place in the universal when I felt completely out of place.

   And you may be reading this and think that the guy writing it is completely bat shit crazy and maybe I am.  But I'm pushing 30 years old and I have loved baseball since I was about 5 years old.  That is 25 years for all of you out there counting.  So if you are reading this ask yourself if there is anything in your life still that you have loved since you were 5 years old?  And then ask yourself how can you not be romantic about baseball?

Bryan, Brad, Clayton, Ricky, Nick, Mike, Church, Alyssa, Alan, Cory, Cody, Justin, Cavner, Case, Bill, Don, Randall, Bradon, Tiger, Giblet, Timmy, Jimmy, Chuckie, John, Amy, Kelli, Brynn, Brittani, Cooper, Bo, Newman, JoJo, Hurley, Jenny, Coleen, Kyla, Mike, Miller, and so many so many more. These are just some of the people that baseball has put in my life.  Baseball is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I owe everything in my life to it.  So on a night like tonight when I get to see DEREK JETER play his last home game at Yankee Stadium and get a walk off single.  I know that life is pretty good.