By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… I was looking through an old shoe box and ran across a document in my oldest son’s handwriting. I stopped and read the following that speaks to his dreams and aspirations as a young man. I believe that they convey a message for all of us as we set our goals and dreams for our lives.
I should preface the piece with a note that we are a baseball family. My youngest son’s letterman jacket had embroidered across its back: “Baseball is not a matter of life and death; it is more important than that.”
The essay is entitled: “Old Dreams.” It reads thus.
“What does a 115-degree day make you think about. It makes me get ready for an 85-degree night. The nights in Las Vegas are perfect, for the sun is finally gone and nobody is sorry to see it go. When I was growing up sitting in our air-conditioned house during the day the only thing I could think about was what I was going to do that night. Nearly every night I played a game. But to me it was more than a game; it was life itself.”
“It was a game of leather and aluminum. It is a game played under the lights on grass and dirt; and the dirtier you got the better you played. It is an individual game of “one on one” competition while at the same time it is a team game. It is a game that involves two teams consisting of nine players trying to do whatever is necessary to win. It is a game in which one player is forced to take on every member of the other team. This player is called the pitcher and the name of greatest game on Earth is baseball.
When I turned eight years old my dad took me to sign up for my first Little League team. I had no idea what was in store.
I was scared when I went to my first practice. There were so many people on my team and I didn’t know any of them. The first time I came to the plate to bat a kid laughed at me because I was batting left handed. He hurt my pride so I had to show him I could hit left handed. I hit a long fly ball and the kid never laughed at me again.
After the first practice I knew that the only thing I wanted to do was play baseball. I was going to be the best player ever, a baseball legend. It is funny how kids can just know what they are going be when they grow up. I was going to be a professional baseball player.
The position I chose was pitcher. It is probably the greatest challenge on Earth. Pitching was so important to me that I would get highly frustrated when I couldn’t do it right. I would cry when I failed. When I lost a game pitching I would be depressed until the next game.
As a pitcher the fate of your team rests in your hands. If the pitcher doesn’t perform, the team loses. Why would anyone put themselves in this position? Only one reason. When you are on the pitcher’s mound you control the game, “you’re the man.” The game goes as fast or as slow as the pitcher likes.
He puts the ball in play and tries to end the play in the catchers glove. He has seven men behind him that are also trying to end the play in case the batter puts the ball in play. There is nothing more gratifying than pitching the last out of a ball game. The pitcher is the King of the Hill taking on nine players that are trying to knock him off with their bats. The loses hurt but the winning is great. When I won, I was a god.
The main problem with childhood dreams is that they usually die. It took a number of years for my dream to die, dreams die slowly.
My dream of becoming a professional baseball player began to die when I was sixteen. I would never say no when a coach asked me to pitch, so I threw a lot. I had thrown twelve innings in a five-day period and my arm hurt. However, the next day, we were playing the best team in town and I had to pitch. I threw my arm out.
At first, I couldn’t face the fact that I had a problem. I tried to ignore the pain, but every time I threw hard my hand would go numb. I went to therapy for eight weeks but it didn’t work. I had to get surgery and miss a whole year of baseball.
When I returned to baseball for my senior year at Bonanza High School I had lost velocity. I still pitched but not as effectively as before. At the end of the season I was not offered a scholarship so I knew that my chance of playing professionally was gone. The dream was dead.
I found it necessary to have new dreams. They weren’t quite as exciting as the dreams I had as a child but they are more realistic.
Today when it hits 115 degrees and I am sitting in an air-conditioned house, I still think about the 85-degree nights and being under the lights on a grass field and playing a game called baseball.
Yes, the dream is gone. But the memories are everlasting. And every summer it feels as though I should be playing baseball.”
Scott wrote this when he was 23. He is now 57.
For thirty years Scott successfully taught English and Reading at various high schools in southern Nevada. His main clientele were struggling students other teachers didn’t want. He coached high school football and baseball at various CCSD schools. He is presently teaching and coaching at a charter school, where he and his friend Danny Barnson are building a football program.
I write this to encourage those who believe their dream is gone to understand: Your dreams are never gone, they merely take a different form.
Thought of the week…Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.
-Pope John XXIII
