Personal Narrative: Playing In Dreams

Every weekend in the summer I felt a sense of loneliness. Something no other normal kid would feel, almost like a drifter. I had a cowboy mentality from moving place to place tournament by tournament, but one Saturday was different. I traveled to upstate New York to play instead of Kansas City or Springfield. As my father and I drove about ourselves the trees around us seemed to engulf us; and the smell of pine car freshener everywhere you turn.

I found out we were traveling to Cooperstown New York for a tournament. There was embrace of only two things in that town baseball and the hall of fame. Playing in Dreams Park was a major shock to an eleven year old but soon turned to a quick reality. When I played centerfield for the Sedalia Bandits

I could see my whole team around me play different. Every pitch we seemed to play better like we were some of the boys in the hall of fame. But most of us imagined we were that player, I took it to a whole other level.
In those two short weeks I learned a lot about myself. And when I went to the hall of fame there was an embracing of emotions as if I saw my life flash before my eyes. I knew there’s nothing more or less I wanted to be than a baseball player. There was a unique plaque over Mickey Mantle it entreated me by the MVP trophies and the World Series wins. And so I began to read on, the more I read the more I became a Mickey Mantle fan. I noticed he grew up in Commerce, Oklahoma. My mind traveled back to when my dad an I passed through the little factory town on a recruiting trip.
And instantly I saw myself playing ball with Mickey and his town home friends in a abandon construction site in the late 1930’s. The way he played the game at such a young age was like watching snow fall it just came natural, there was a reason his nickname was the natural. Next I was playing with him at his local high school team, and it just blew me away how he was teaching his teammates more than the coach. From there I followed Mick from minor league ball till he moved up to the big leagues. It was a pleasure watching him; every hit was a learning experience. But as he struggled with being homesick and depressed I saw you can’t let that take you down. Soon Mickey would discover alcohol and that taught me how never to mix the game and alcohol together. But with all his faults he was still a class act on the field I still strive to have the respect and class for the game the way he did in his seventeen year career.
The car door slammed, I arose from and aging sleep and realized the seed that was planted in my brain, and what it’ll take to become a professional ball player.