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June---Unexpected Success
If his inmost heart could have been laid open, there would have been discovered that dream of undying fame, which, dream as it is, is more powerful than a thousand realities…Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe
Two of my teammates were arguing in the clubhouse recently about whether the WBL should be considered equal to the establlished major leagues.
“Well let me ask you this”, said one, jerking a thumb in my direction, “How can we be a major league if Dean can hit .300 here”? Depressingly, that seemed to win the argument for him.
When I was a kid, I spent countless hours throwing a tennis ball against the side of my grandfather’s house and fantasizing about becoming a big baseball star. Then I grew older and as playing baseball for a living became a real possibility I flattered myself that I was becoming too mature to have “superstar” dreams any more; that I was reconciled to a goal of just making a nice living at the game. Now, I’m on a hot streak, and the world is full of new possibilities.
I even spoke with our manager, Forlorn Phil, about what it would take for me to win a starting job. “I can’t promise you much”, he mumbled, turning his habitually hangdog countenance toward me, “None of our infielders are playing great, but none of them are playing bad enough to get benched. Now if you could only catch; that damn Marty Irwin is killing me. I’ve seen Wal-Mart greeters that could outhit him. I’m going to ask him to autograph the x-ray of my stomach ulcer, since I’m naming it after him.”
But that’s not deterring my newly-aroused fantasy life. As I shag fly balls I mentally write gushing newspaper articles about myself. When I take batting practice I imagine myself in the game lashing line drives off the walls while scouts from the real major league drool in the stands. What’s happening to me; how can a college-educated grown-up suddenly turn into Beaver Cleaver? Maybe our dreams never die; they just wait to bloom again in a magic spring.
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