get me down, but there were more than a few moments when I felt
depressed and overwhelmed.
I became painfully aware of how far I had to go when I returned to the
baseball field one year later. Baseball had always been a major part of my
life. My dad had played minor league baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals,
and I had a dream of playing professionally, too. After months of
rehabilitation, what I wanted more than anything was to get back on the
field.
But my return to baseball was not smooth. When the season rolled
around, I was the only junior to be cut from the varsity baseball team. I was
sent down to play with the sophomores on junior varsity. I had been playing
since age four, and for someone who had spent so much time and effort on
the sport, getting cut was humiliating. I vividly remember the day it
happened. I sat in my car and cried as I flipped through the radio,
desperately searching for a song that would make me feel better.
After a year of self-doubt, I managed to make the varsity team as a
senior, but I rarely made it on the field. In total, I played eleven innings of
high school varsity baseball, barely more than a single game.
Despite my lackluster high school career, I still believed I could become
a great player. And I knew that if things were going to improve, I was the
one responsible for making it happen. The turning point came two years
after my injury, when I began college at Denison University. It was a new
beginning, and it was the place where I would discover the surprising power
of small habits for the first time.
