Long ago and far away I was a young boy in the netherlands of Western North Dakota. And my dad was a baseball fan. Because of this, I occasionally stumbled on a baseball book and rarely had anything better to do than read it.
Not very long ago and not very far away, I was not a young boy and I was staying at my dad’s while waiting for my new place to be ready – back in North Dakota. I came across his old copy of The Wrong Stuff, by Bill Lee and decided to pick it up. Entertaining enough, to be sure. The biggest kick I got out of it was realizing that the most memorable story from reading it when I was around 10-12 years was the tale of Carlton Fisk getting hit in the nuts with a baseball. So much mature now, my favorite antecdote from the second read:
The Spaceman tells the story of getting drafted by the Red Sox out of USC. He wasn’t a very high draft pick and knew he wasn’t all that highly regarded – because of that, he wasn’t even sure that he was going to sign. Eventually he decided to give it a shot, if nothing else, he didn’t want to regret not at least trying to find out if he’d make it as a professional ballyplayer. He took his small bonus and the airplane ticket the Sox gave him to Idaho Falls, or whatever little minor league town it was they sent him to, and showed up at the park. He put on his uniform and went in to meet the manager. As he tells it, he introduced himself and the manager paused, gave him a good once over, then just said “we’ll see” and turned and walked away. It was at that moment, Lee says, he decided that was a pretty good response, and the next time he faced a major life altering decision, that would be his too. We’ll see.
Seems to me that’s not a bad way to look at life.
