For as long as I can remember baseball and fishing have made my world go round. I grew up doing both, year round, with never much of a break. I am going to focus more on my baseball story first, since that is a closed book, and we will talk more about fishing later.
I started playing baseball when I was 4 years old playing year round to the age of 25. However, my story to the pros is not what you would expect. Until High School, I was always a key player. Always hit in the middle of the lineup, always had the ball on the mound when things were on the line. However, for what ever reason, High School was different. My freshman year I was cut. It was such a blow, for the first time I was not playing baseball. That did not last long though, I found a recreational team and caught on with them. My sophomore year I made the Junior Varsity team and sat the bench the entire year. I think I may have gotten 2 at bats and maybe pitched 2 innings. My Junior year I was cut again. I can remember the conversation like it was yesterday, "Brandon, you are slow as a turtle and when the ball is hit at you, it's a coin flip if you are going to field it or not." This time however, I did not go without a fight. I swallowed my pride and asked to stay as the manager with the request to be allowed to practice with team. All of my friends were on the team, and I was not going to get any better with out being around that level of the game. I was allowed to dress that year, but never saw the field. The coach's words rang in my head all year, "...slow as a turtle..., flip a coin...." I am the type of person that if you tell me I'm not good enough, I will do my best to make you eat your words. I may not be better than you, but I will play harder and work harder than you. I can't stand to lose at anything, period, and sitting an entire year on the bench just fueled the fire even more. My Senior year I made the team, with the stinging words of, "We are keeping you as a role model." I forgot to mention that I was a straight A student in honors classes that was never in trouble. I again sat the bench. Then one game, over spring break, I arrived at the field, went through pregame as usual, and picked up the scorebook to obtain the vistor's lineup like I had done so many times before. Upon returning to the dugout my coach flipped me the ball and told me to, "...go get lose, you are starting...." Finally, and I made the most of it. I pitched 5 innings of no hit baseball with 7 strikeouts and do not recall if I walked anybody. In the 6th inning, I left the mound to play 3rd base, my secondary position, and while warming up between innings the opposing coach struck up a conversation with me. The first thing he asked me was where I had signed to play college baseball? I had to laugh, and after I told him an abbreviated version of my story, he whipped out a notepad and asked me my SAT score. In between pitches for the entire next inning he was getting bits of information about me, writing everything down. When the game was over, he asked me if I would play up north and I responded that I would play anywhere that would take me. Remember, I had played baseball all of my life. It's all I knew, that and fishing, and I was not ready to give it up. The opposing coach then told me to not be suprised if I received some phone calls with in the next couple of days, and he was not kidding... The next day Virgina Tech called. Then an in-state division II school called. By the end of the day I had received at least 6 calls from schools all over the US. I visited VT, but with a full in state academic scholarship, it was hard to turn down the in-state opportunity. I enrolled there with the promise to be allowed to walk on as a pitcher. That is all I was looking for, an opportunity. That is all anyone needs. If you get an opportunity, it is up to you what you do with it....
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