The Passion For Baseball
What is something you are passionate about? Passion is contagious and feed off this positive energy. Have you ever seen two people who truly love the game of baseball talk about baseball?
I had a friend’s wife tell me once that we can remember every play in a game we watched or played in but why is it that we can not remember a simple grocery list that is given to us. Some of us can recite stats for their teams 50 years ago. We can tell who played in what World Series and who the winning pitcher was and who hit the game winning homerun, off of whom and what pitch. Why is that?
A lot of my childhood memories are tied to baseball. I remember spending hours hitting a rock in front of my house pretending to be my idol Rod Carew. I used to mimic his stance and his loose wrists. I wanted to be just like him. I made myself into a switch hitter because of him. As I grew older the demise of my professional career was that I could not hit the breaking ball. I could sit on that fastball and hit it out of the park but as soon as they took something off or put a break on it I could not hit it. So there went my dream of a professional career but not my passion for the game.
I have been playing softball for the past 10 years.
We have been part of the same league for over 10 years. Another team in the same league played for the same amount of time. I remember saying to myself that wouldn’t it be cool if all of us can be playing together like this other team when we are 40 something. We were all in our 30’s and this team was in their 40’s. Well I catch myself thinking now wouldn’t it be cool to be playing ball in our 50’s like these guys are.
Every year this team beat us. We never beat them. It had almost become an obsession for me to beat them. This year we finally did. After the game I was talking to their captain and kidded him that now I can die in peace. He replied by saying that it has been true joy playing us these past years because he can tell we loved the game and played like it.
Why do a bunch of “old” people continue to play the game of softball? I truly believe that we can not give up the love of baseball and the passion we have for it. It is part of us and it has shaped who we are. If you looked at each one of us in our profession or home life, the way we live our lives are similar to how we play the game. Getting back to the earlier question on why is it that some people can recite stats or remember every play in a game? It’s the love we have for the game of baseball. The passion and the love for the game helps define who some of us are. Find your passion and share it with the world and make each one of us that much better for knowing you.
This article was written by Isaac Kama - A True Baseball Lover]]>
