Faith

This post is going to be a little different from the others as it won't focus primarily on my actions or sports, but my beliefs.  What I should say first is that there are few things that hurt me to be 7 hours away and actually consider feeling guilty for being so far away.  Over the past year, our family has endured it all.  Last August, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer for the second time in her life.

First, you need to have an understanding on my mother's attitude in her day to day life.  She believes in tough love.  This attitude has taught me more in my lifetime than any class or "teacher" could preach.  It taught me hard work, respect, as well as humor.  Throughout her treatments, every morning (before work) at 6 am, she kept the most incredible attitude I've ever witnessed in a human being.  I would call her after school (my senior year of high school at the time) and see how her day went.  Her response usually being, "Yeah, I'm fine, when's your next game?"  It was incredible.  It's almost impossible to put into words what that span of time taught me in life.  Her attitude was the single most important thing to her eventual clear tests of the cancer.  Unfortunately, this wasn't the only thing thrown at us during the year.

2 months ago, my grandmother passed away.  She lived a great life, and though it was unexpected, we knew she was where she wanted to be.  With my grandfather.  After my family mourned this death, I get a call from my mother once I go back to school.  I was working on a paper and pick up the phone.  My mother had her "quiet voice."  This is never good.  "Are you sitting down?"  Again.  Usually not good.  "We found a lump in your brother's shoulder, we don't know what it is but he's going to need to go in for testing next week."

For anyone reading this who knows my brother and my relationship.  This was not good.  My brother is hands down my best friend and always will be on this Earth and any life hereafter.  We are essentially the same person.  We laugh at everything sacred enough to be laughed at and together, humbly of course, are two of the funniest people one can encounter.  If something happens to him, I want it to happen to me instead.

He went in for testing and they stated it was a tumor on his collar bone.  This could be caused by many things.  Leukemia, lymphoma, bone spurs, etc.  None of them good.  It's never, "We found a tumor, but it's made out of Jolly Rancher so that's gonna be super delicious."  I was at practice towards the end of the college season and see that there's a missed call from my mother on my phone.  She knew I was at practice.  After practice, of course I called her.  Again, "Are you sitting down?"  I was in the locker room with about 5 other teammates.

"Your brother has lymphoma.  He's going to need treatment but he should be fine."

Silence.

My mother asks, "Are you ok?"
"No."
"He'll be fine, Ron, do you want to talk to him?"

I partly didn't.

"Hey."
"You okay dude?" Good question Ron, very convincing.
"Yeah, I'll be fine don't worry."

It's again impossible to state the optimistic attitude of my brother throughout this endeavor as well.  He went in to have the tumor removed the week after.  Naturally, I came home for this, 3 classes can go to hell if they think I'm missing my brother's surgery.  I walked in to the waiting room to find most of my family, as well as our best friend Marshall waiting around for whatever results were coming.

Before I continue, I need to focus on the actual title of this post.  Faith.  I'm going to be straightforward here.  I don't know if there is God.  No one does.  Throughout this process surely I prayed, but it wasn't so "Ryan would be fine" or "Heal him please savior."  I simply asked Him or Her or Whatever to make sure these surgeons removed the damn thing without ruining his motor functions in his arm.  Let's take this one step at a time people.  No one has magically just not had cancer without a misdiagnosis.  That's like trying to finish a marathon with no training, but hey we prayed right?  This is pretty much my stance.  I'm going to poke fun at all I can to keep my spirits up.  Sounds shallow?  It is.

About 15 minutes later, the surgeon comes out of the "fixing people area."  He stated that it was not actually a "tumor," but a big ugly sac of blood on his collar bone.  Completely benign.  He stayed in surgery another 2 hours until we could see him.  This would be one of the single funniest moments of my human life.

I walk back to where he was set up with monitors and wires and whatever else they chose to hook up to his body.  Marshall and I ask him how he's feeling and he states,

"My tumor was benignant."

Now, I don't know if it was the massive amount of drugs they had this kid on, or just his comedic nature to make stuff up to be funny, but I teared up laughing.  He then continued to feel sorry for himself because, "Chicks loved me when they thought I had cancer."  Of course he could no longer play that card.

So this was the extent of my brother and my mother's cancer.  I guess the main point I want to preach to as many people as I can is this:  It doesn't matter how religious or even what religion, if at all, you are.  Laugh as much as you possibly can.  Nothing in life is sacred, nothing is free of satire.  Why spend this little time we have here feeling sorry for something that has happened.  If I'm ever in a horrible situation and have limited time left on this Earth, I'll be honest, I don't want your prayers.  Come make me laugh.  Please.  It's the one thing on this Earth I will never turn away.  I'm not saying tell God to make sure not to help me, but don't make praying your main method of attack in the war.

Laughter is the one thing here that everyone can relate to, unfortunately fewer and fewer people understand that today.
  

New Day

Okay, so I just woke up.  Big deal.  It's noon-something and my suitemates came in with homemade breakfast.  Today is a better day.  We're going to workout then get ready for our games later.  I'll most likely throw a bullpen and I'll try to get an inning, but have no clue if that will happen.  I'd throw everyday if I could.  I don't love the relief role, but I am very effective as a reliever.  I just love throwing really.  This will be a short post as nothing has really happened today.  Probably because I just woke up.  Stay hot, Ron.

Away from Home

I'm not going to sugar coat anything.  Today kinda sucked.  I woke up late and had a job interview at 2:30. I nailed the interview, but there might not be enough open hours to give me any work.  I don't NEED a job, but I do need something to kill time.  By the time I got back to the room, I was in a "pissy mood" as my mother calls it.  It's not that I can't mentally take being away from home, it doesn't bother me.  It was just one of those days where every little thing sets me off and I end up taking it out on myself.  I ended up in the weight room trying to de-stress.  I just have to accept that some days are gonna be a little rough mentally and all I can do is continue to work hard.

Tomorrow is a new day and I'm going to start it off right by continuing my workout and throwing a bullpen or two at my game.  With my next start being Sunday, I need to start mentally preparing tomorrow for me to be satisfied with my effort by the weekend.

Draft

A lot of people look at me on game day or in the weight room and say, "You look like you want to kill somebody." This isn't entirely true, if true at all.  Let's back track:

It's my Freshman year of high school and I've just finished playing Pony League baseball, age 14.  I'm skinny with no muscle on me, but tall.  I go out for the Freshman baseball team and end up starting every game, either in the outfield, first base, or pitching.  At the end of the season my coach says, "I didn't even think you were good enough to make it, let alone play every game."

This is the moment I always think back to. "Not good enough."  This is why I have this look every time I take the mound and every minute I put in in the weight room.  I want to prove to everyone that I am good enough to play this game.  Most of all, I want to prove this to myself.  I've had unlimited support from my family and close friends, but some just see me as a tall skinny kid who has an "ok" fastball and decent off speed stuff.  This is why I'm pushing myself so much.  I didn't get any offers to play under scholarship out of high school.  I made college baseball happen for myself.  I never got first team all-conference in high school, yet I had the best record out of anyone in my four years.  I'm used to this kind of thinking, and it's what gets me excited to play this game every day.  I wake up and think about my goal, I go to bed thinking about my goal.  When I'm taking tests, I'm thinking about it.  Even when I'm sleeping I'm dreaming about it.  This game means more to me than anything.  It's how I want to support my family, and it's how I want my kids to learn hard work someday.

I guess the main point I'm trying to make is that I don't care how distant a dream playing baseball after college is.  I have four years in college to become the best player/person I can become.  If it happens, I did it for myself, with no help from "who I know."  And I know there will be people who read this and chuckle, because I still am underweight or "not talented enough."  Honestly, I'd laugh in their face if given the chance.  Only I have control of how long I will play this game, and I'm going to do everything in my power to play it as long as I can.  If there's kids reading this, do what makes you happy for as long as you can.  Do everything you can to extend that time you've been given.  I can't imagine waking up and not being able to play.  I don't want that day to come for a very long time.  And this is why I work my a** off.

Successful First Start

I had my first start for my summer league team today.  With the amount of pitching that we have, I'm grateful to be a starter as a Freshman in this league.  It does, however, limit the amount of pitches our starters are able to throw.  We need to work everyone in, so starters get about 4 innings or 85 pitches.  I threw 4 innings today to a good-hitting ball team.  After I was done, I had 5 strikeouts and gave up 2 hits for 2 runs.  I was very happy with those numbers as some of these kids are no-doubters for the draft whenever they're eligible.  Every pitch felt great and my velocity is picking up as well.  Working out every day is definitely showing on the field.  I threw to this team just like I would any other team, working fastballs inside and soft stuff away to freeze hitters.  This worked out extremely well, as I gave up only 2 hits.  One being on a terrible hop due to an undragged field.  In a league like this, a pitcher needs to work inside as much as possible.  I hit one kid (the pitch was actually a strike) by working a Splitter inside on an 0-2 count.  Things like that happen, and overall I was very satisfied with the result of my day.  Now, it's another week in the weight room and I'll be ready for my next start.

First Start Tomorrow

Well, it's Saturday and the suite decided to sleep in.  Rightfully so because we've been hitting the weights hard every morning and it's taken a toll over the week.  I'm taking the day off today for my start tomorrow. I'm very excited to throw, as well as coming off my Freshman year and already being a starter in this league, there's a lot of talent. A LOT.  My approach for tomorrow will be the same as any other start, attack batters and get them confused quickly.  I know enough from my coaching over these past few years to know how to really exploit batters and make effective pitches at the right time.  With wood bats, good pitches will be rewarded with weak slaps and loopy fly balls.  This is unlike the metal bat situation where a terrible swing could be a double up the line.

First Game Last Night

Last night, I went to the first game with my summer league team.  Essentially, I was just showing up to get my uniform and get a bullpen or two in to stay crisp.  Our starting pitcher threw a good outing and one horrid inning led to an 11 run loss.  Pretty much all I could do was shrug my shoulders and look forward to my start on Sunday.  We played my roommate's team last night and we play them twice Sunday, so that should lead to some good competition.  I'm applying to jobs and working my tail off every day in the weight room to put as much velocity as I can on the fastball.  It's nice working out around Division 1 football players to get some motivation to get stronger.  It's definitely something everyone needs from time to time.  Above is a picture of part of the Monmouth campus.  The place is unbelievable.