It all began back in 9th grade, when I pretty much started playing baseball (I played when I was younger, but didn’t really care much about it because of former love for soccer). I was miserable at the 9th grade tryouts because of my inexperience, so I signed up for my local recreation league. I didn’t do too bad, but that year was a learning experience, and it was my first ever year pitching.
Then came the 10th grade tryouts. I was alot better this time around, but I still wasn’t ready for the High School level, so I got cut and went back to the recreation league. That year of recreation was just absolutely horrible. All the things I did to work on my pitching went right down the drain, and I pretty much choked and lost my mechanics, and my ability to pitch. I took alot of crap during that season because of how badly I played, and I took alot of crap in the offseason too. I got everything from everyone, like “your never gonna make varsity, quit now”, “you suck, stop wasting your time”. My new motivation was to prove all of them people wrong.
So after that season, I decided to go and get stronger at my local gym. I changed my diet around, and did things to make myself a better pitcher. I basically worked my ass off. Baseball conditioning finally came in November, and I showed up to every workout but 1 in which I was sick. But I worked harder than anyone there, and the coach saw how badly I wanted to make the team. I didn’t throw much in the offseason, but I threw a bullpen probably every week. I wanted to throw more, but there was never anyone to throw with.
As tryouts neared, my pitching began to cave in again. The weekend before tryouts, I threw 1 last bullpen, but I began to feel pain in my elbow, and my mechanics were falling apart. So going into my 3rd year of tryouts, I decided that I was only going to tryout for 2nd base. On the 1st day of tryouts, my plan for just 2nd base began to fail, as I missed ground ball after ground ball and bad throw after bad throw. As the end of the 1st day of tryouts neared, I decided that all I could do to save my chances of making the team was to throw a bullpen and hope that my mechanics would return. The pitching coach for the school team who watched my 1st bullpen at the 9th grade tryouts watched my bullpen again. I don’t know how it happened, but my mechanics returned, and I threw a really good bullpen. “You have a come a very long way, I remember in 9th grade when you threw a bullpen, you couldent even throw a strike, and now you have come in here as a completely different player.” That is exactly what the pitching coach said, and I will always remember it.
The next morning, we found out who made the Varsity and JV team, and I had learned that all my hard work paid off, as I saw my name on the JV list. But I was still a little annoyed that I had only made the JV team because 11th graders shoulden’t make the JV team. But I knew that I had to start somewhere, and I ended up having a OK season. Here were my stats: 17.1 IP, 3.28 ERA, 1 win, 1 loss, 3 saves.
So now a new offseason has come, and I plan on making the Varsity team next year. I am going to work harder than ever before because I want to make Varsity more than anything.
I am going to be posting my workouts and my food/drink/supplement intake everyday for you all to observe, and if you feel the need to help me on anything, feel free to, because I can still use alot of advice.
This week I am going to be just making the transition back into training mode, so I am going to run all week, and then return to the weight room next week. I am also gonna fix my diet this week. Updates will be posted later on tonight.
I’ll be following!