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"Trust the process, James," Broadway said as he pulled out another piece of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum. His wife, he explained, had been nagging on him to quit dipping chewing tobacco.
We sat in the film room and watched film together once again.
"When you get older, James, these things will become more obvious. It's harder to recognize right now but there are some small things getting better."
He was right about the hard to recognize part. Like the changeup. I couldn't see the improvement at all. It had to be one of the worst off speed pitches in all of professional baseball. My changeup that is.
Still, he kept saying that it would one day be my best pitch.
I wondered if tobacco withdrawals were making him hallucinate.
He would constantly pull out the stat line of my idol Nolan Ryan. Currently in 1986, Ryan was 3-5 in 11 starts. He had pitched 68.2 innnings with a 3.28 ERA, 27 walks and 54 strikeouts.
At the age of 39.
"He doesn't just throw a fastball, James," Broadway said. "He throws a circle change too. And a mean curve ball. You also have a slider. You actually can throw one more pitch than the great Nolan Ryan."
If you call what I do with the slider, curve and changeup as throwing pitches.
"You see, James, none of us are going to be judged on the record of the Reno Padres. We are here, all of us, to make sure you become worthy of being a first round draft pick for the San Diego Padres. Nothing else matters. If at the age of 25, you are the Padres ace and winning games and awards and the World Series, then we all did our job in Reno. Then you will understand that the growing pains were all worth it.
"You are a good student of the game. But you're impatient. Trust the process. Don't try and win every game. Try and improve every game."
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