I was cut from a varsity sport; here’s what I took away

Baseball became the biggest source of stress in my life my freshman year of high school. I was playing on the Bethesda Bards — a fall and summer league team that’s indirectly affiliated with Whitman and is coached by the Whitman coaches. I  dreaded going to games and practices; I felt like I was under constant pressure to do everything right to get the coaches to like me and think I was a good player. I didn’t really feel like I was a part of the Whitman baseball community because I was afraid to play the game I loved. Whenever I stood in the field or in the batter’s box, I would repeat to myself “Don’t screw up. Don’t screw up. Don’t screw up.” The only place where I could remain calm was on the pitcher’s mound.

I never threw the ball very hard, but I felt like I was the most accurate pitcher on the team. I wouldn’t walk batters, and my occasional dominance on the mound helped me earn the nicknames “Strike-throwing McGuire” and “Iron McGuire.” I assumed that my accuracy and prowess would earn me a spot on the Whitman JV team. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the team freshman year. The coaches told me that I simply needed to throw harder if I wanted to be on the team. 

Back then, I still wanted to be a part of Whitman baseball. I wanted to play for my school. I wanted to win a State Championship. The coach told me that if I wanted to play Whitman baseball the next year, I had to work extremely hard — and I was ready to give it my all. He recommended I go to Prime Performance, a sports facility in Gaithersburg that specializes in helping high school baseball players improve. 

Prime Performance had a macho, testosterone-filled atmosphere. High school baseball players would be lifting weights, throwing weighted baseballs into nets and swinging bats as hard as they could — all while a mixture of rap, heavy metal and, oddly, yacht rock blasted from the radio. As a scrawny kid with glasses, I was very put off by the facility, but I would still go to Prime Performance twice a week for two and half hour sessions, and I soon began to dramatically improve my skills. When I first started at Prime, my average fastball velocity was about 61 miles per hour. Within a year, I was throwing 73 miles per hour (for non-baseball enthusiasts, this is a massive improvement). 

My hard work ended up paying off: I made JV as a sophomore. Unfortunately, my dream soon turned to disillusion. Each day I would go to two and a half hour practices where, yet again, I was terrified to make a mistake. I was constantly afraid that the coaches would ask for my jersey and tell me not to come to practice, just because of one small mistake I made on the field. While the intense atmosphere might have been beneficial for some players, it wasn’t for me.

To make matters worse, I lost the opportunity to pitch in most of our games for that season. While I was pitching in one of our first JV scrimmages, a line drive hit my hand, breaking my right pinky knuckle. I couldn’t pitch for four weeks, but I still went to all of our games and two and a half hour practices to show my support for the team. 

When I finally recovered from my injury, I had the chance to pitch in two of the last three JV games of the season. In my first inning back from injury, I struck out all three batters I faced and the whole team started to cheer around me as I walked back to the dugout. For the first time, I truly felt like I had become a part of the Whitman baseball community.

As my sophomore year ended and junior year began, I still went to Prime Performance, but not as frequently as I would have liked, and I still played for the Bards. But my interests and priorities began to shift. I’m a member of the school’s debate team and I started going to more out-of-state debate tournaments. I started to write for The Black & White (oh yeah!) and I had to spend more time on school and getting ready to apply for college. I didn’t have the time to devote to baseball that I had my sophomore year, and I began to realize that I was okay with that. 

As this year’s tryouts approached, I honestly didn’t know whether I would make the team or not. I was nervous; I certainly wanted to make the team, but in the back of my mind I thought, if I don’t make it, I’ll be fine. I didn’t make it. And I was fine. 

Now, I don’t view myself as a cut baseball player, but a liberated one. I’m now free not only from mandatory, daily two hour practices, but also the biggest stressor in my life. I now also have the opportunity to play recreational baseball with my friends and allied softball at Whitman. I can still play the sport I love without the added stress.

When I was playing for Whitman, the coaches would always say, “We don’t want kids who play baseball on our team. We want baseball players.” Honestly, I think I’m fine with just being a kid who plays baseball.