![]() I needed to go back and watch the video clip from that night at Wrigley Field to learn that I watched the first five pitches go by without swinging. You master the ability to lose yourself in the game, because that’s what you need to do-to not be conscious of being conscious. In moments like these, it’s true that a batter doesn’t really hear or feel anything. But there I was, forty-seven years later, standing at the plate with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, trying to preserve a streak I knew nothing about. I didn’t even know that the Dodgers had originally played in Brooklyn. I didn’t know that this was the very same year that Koufax refused to pitch the first game of the World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. Burnett, who had pitched seven and two thirds innings without giving up a hit.Īt the time, I didn’t know that the Cubs hadn’t given up a no-hitter since Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game against them on September 9, 1965. But these demotions only fuelled my determination to succeed, and on July 31, 2012, in my first game back in the majors, I was asked to pinch hit against the Pirates’ A. (He tied the mark, and won a Gold Glove that year.) A team can only keep twenty-five players on the active roster. ![]() This is common for rookies, especially if their competition for a roster spot is doing well-and I was playing behind Darwin Barney, who was chasing the record for the most consecutive games at second base without an error. I was proud to be standing at the plate in front of so many people the adrenaline alone made me feel weightless.ĭuring my first year in the major leagues, I was twice sent back down to the minors. I stepped up to the plate with the mixed serum of emotions that every first-timer feels: happy that I had arrived at a place so hard to reach astounded that I was now playing with the players I had idolized and determined to keep getting better so that I could take their jobs. I made my major-league début with the Cubs on May 7, 2012, as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning of a home game against the Atlanta Braves. I was picked for the All-Star Futures Game, which showcases the best minor leaguers one year I was even rated as the best second baseman in the minor leagues. I spent six years playing minor-league ball in Florida, Texas, California, New Jersey, and Iowa. I had narrowed my choices to Stanford and Florida, but the Philadelphia Phillies selected me in the first round of the draft-and gave me nearly a million dollars to join their organization and start working my way to the majors. When I was eighteen, in 2006, I decided to bypass my college offers and play baseball professionally. I was only twenty-four, healthy and strong, and earning lots of money as a Chicago Cubs rookie pinch hitter, with a decent chance of becoming an everyday starter. It would be correct to say that I also retired from baseball, but it seems pretentious and unmerited I quit. Photograph by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images.Īfter Mariano Rivera, unarguably the greatest closer in baseball history, announced in March that this season would be his last, a fanfare accompanied his arrival at every stadium-a season-long celebration of Rivera’s retirement.
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