Over the years of playing both baseball and football, along with fishing tournaments, so many of my life’s lessons have come from playing or participating in sports. Some lessons we learn the hard way and some we learn through experience. Today, we’ll look at a couple of lessons I learned even when things didn’t always go the way I wanted.
This first lesson I learned came very early in my baseball career. In my hometown of Mt. Pleasant, Texas, my baseball playing days started at the age of 7 in what was called Pee Wee League.
Spending my first summer in MP with my aunt and uncle, we lived on the west side of the town.
It was an awesome neighborhood where everyone knew each other. Every day we played baseball on a sandlot or on one of the neighbor’s side yards. Several windows were broken during these summer battles and like most kids our age, trouble wasn’t far behind.
Then the day came for Pee Wee League tryouts. There were six teams in the league with a lot of very good players. This is where a man by the name of Coach James Stansell shaped and instilled confidence in me to be the best baseball player I could be.
The day before tryouts, he asked me to pull back during the evaluation. He wanted me to “look bad” so that other coaches would not draft me onto their team. Being the new kid on the block, he did not want the other coaches knowing the ability I had.
This was hard for me to go out and miss ground balls and look silly on fly balls as if I had never played before. But I played along and pretended I could not even throw a baseball much less catch one.
Lo and behold, Coach Stansell called later that night and told me that I was going to play for him and the Yankees!
The best part of all this was that our entire neighborhood, including my best friend Kevin, was going to be playing for the Yankees. And oh, how good we were! Over the course of two seasons, the Yankees went 24-0 for two straight years and won back-to-back city championships!
Then at the age of 9 it was time to move up to the next level called Minor League. But then there was a draft, and this time there was no fooling the coaches into thinking I could not play.
When it came to the draft, the team that finished last in the league the year before got the first pick of the draft, which meant it would be the Tigers.
Tigers head coach Ted Leach took advantage of this opportunity and picked me first in the draft. This was the last team I wanted to get picked by, because they were horrible and for the previous two years hardly ever won a game.
When Coach Leach came to my house and told me I was his first pick, I wanted to cry but didn’t. They were absolutely the worst team every year! But he assured me that these Tigers were not going to be losers.
Then later that same night, Coach Stansell came by the house and explained how he was not able to draft me. But adding salt to the wound was the fact that Coach Stansell was able to get every Yankee player that went 24-0 over those two years, including my best friend (Kevin), to play for him and the Cardinals.
When he told me this, the tears began to flow, and I thought my world was coming to an end. How in the world was I going play without all my buddies? How was I going to face them daily on the sandlot while being the only one not on the Cardinals?
I was going to play for those losing Tigers while the Cardinals and all my friends would probably dominate the league and win the championship. I was crushed and did not know how to handle this. I was now the neighborhood outsider as a Tiger and not a Cardinal!
But this is where one of life’s lessons began to take shape. After my first practice with the Tigers, I realized that maybe we weren’t going to be that bad. In fact, we might actually be pretty darn good. This is when I took ownership and decided I would do whatever I could to help my team win.
Lo and behold, at the end of the season we played the Cardinals for the City Championship. We had one loss in that season before those games, and even won a game in the best of three championship series as I pitched and beat the Cardinals. But the Cardinals prevailed, and we finished league runner-up both years.
So, what was the lesson I learned? Things are never as bad or as good as you think they are. You must believe in yourself and always think you’re just as good as any player on the field. Believe that “you” can make a difference on whatever team you’re playing on. Go out, compete, and prove to yourself that you are and can be a winner no matter what team you’re on.
Over the years I’ve heard how kids quit playing a particular sport because they did not like the coach. One thing I’ve always told these kids and their parents is, “it doesn’t matter who the coach is because you don’t play for the coach; you play for yourself and your teammates.” Adolf Hitler could have been my coach, and it would not have changed how much I love the game or how hard I played.
The next lesson learned was to be positive and have a good attitude, no matter what. Some things in life you cannot control, but the one thing you have total control over is your attitude.
Playing sports has taught me that life doesn’t always go the way we want, but going through trials and tribulations help shape us into the kind of person we want to be.
Contact Steve at sgraf26@yahoo.com.
