When I started chasing down the idea of throwing a first pitch, I overlooked two things: 1. 60 feet is much further than you expect, and 2. I have never thrown a real pitch before. I’ve played catch but never a legitimate pitch.
So I went out and did what anyone would do. I stood on the side of my house, judged what was roughly 50 feet from my sidewalk to my fence, and did my best Justin Verlander impression. I can hit the fence. Awesome! But I knew it wasn’t perfect, and honestly, I don’t want to look foolish when I stand on the mound.
So I did what anyone would do: Find a former professional baseball player and ask him to help me.
What? Is that not what people do?
I guess I’m not normal. But I did it. I found a guy here in San Antonio, looked up his Instagram, and sent him a message asking for his help. He responded, "Come by the facility, we’ll make sure you don’t throw like 50 Cent did." See that here.
In that moment, I got a pitching coach, Coach Nick. Someone who would be able to teach me what I need to know. He was drafted by the Washington Nationals and pitched in their system, so of course, he knows his stuff.
A few days later, we met up at his gym. He showed me how to hold the ball for specific pitches, where to place my feet, proper release, and aiming. We threw for an hour. At first, I’ll be honest, I struggled. I didn’t take my time; I was throwing before my foot was planted in the wrong place. But Nick is smart; he saw my issues and kept giving me tweaks and encouragement that things were getting better. It’s not easy teaching a legally blind guy how to be a pitcher. But as the hour went on, we hit a rhythm. The things he taught me were catching on, and I could tell with every throw I heard him catch the ball, as that was how I knew I got it to him.
When the throwing ended, we sat down and talked. I shared my story, and he shared his. Turns out our paths weren’t very different. He played baseball his whole life, chasing the dream until Covid hit and it all changed. He was away from the game, but with all this baseball knowledge. And much the same for me, from high school to Covid, radio is all I knew, and I chased the opportunity wherever it took me until Covid found me on the outside looking in. So I had to take what I knew to a new profession in media marketing. Two guys just having to pivot when the world told us to.
Nick said helping me made him feel like he was a player again. That means a lot, because I know what he means. Having to change dreams isn’t easy, and a lot of the time, we don’t get to make the choice.
We’re going to meet every week until the Marlins game, so he can help me get dialed in, and maybe unknowingly help him too.
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