last season.
Telling my story had only started getting easier more recently. There were times when it still hurt like hell, and I found myself getting emotional as I tried to speak, but knowing what I’d created for these guys helped ease the pain somehow.
When I hadn’t gotten drafted, I’d thought my life was over. Even after moving to New York with Sunny. She had her new career, and I was still depressed and feeling sorry for myself. I had no idea what I was going to do or who I even was anymore. Nothing interested me. My entire identity had been wrapped up in being a ballplayer, and once that was gone, where did that leave me? DD’s words echoed in my mind, followed closely behind by Hayley’s. Both of them reminding me that I wasn’t good enough to play professional baseball, that it was all a pipe dream. I’d wondered for a while there what they had always seen that I hadn’t.
I’d spilled my guts to Chance one day over the phone in a tantrum of epic fucking proportions. To this day, I had no idea how he hadn’t hung up on me.
I screamed.
I yelled.
I cursed everyone’s existence for not helping when my world had crashed around me.
We ended the call and when Sunny walked through our front door after work, I did it all over again.
Her face lit up with a smug smirk in the midst of my absolute misery as she said, “That’s it, babe.”
“What is? What’s it?” I smacked my hand on the table, hating myself, hating baseball, hating everything on this fucking planet, except her.
“You said that there’s no one to help you guys navigate what comes next, right? For those of you who don’t get drafted.”
“Yeah. So? What’s your point?” I was being a fucking asshole, and I watched as she fingered the necklace that I’d given her for Christmas.
I’d started to realize that she did that whenever she was trying to stay calm and collected. She had been doing it a lot lately while I tested her patience.
“I think you should start a company that helps them,” she suggested as she threw a pile of folders on top of the counter. “You’ve been sitting here, all sad and depressed, but I think it’s because you’ve just been left in the wind to figure it all out on your own,” she added.
The wheels started spinning in my mind immediately, like they had always been turning and were just waiting for me to activate them.
“I could start a nonprofit. One that deals with life after baseball, specifically when you don’t get drafted. How to process that grief, that loss, and then figure out your next steps. Maybe I could have some sort of job opportunity board for all of the open coaching positions at various schools and travel baseball teams,” I started talking, and my wheels would stop spinning. “You’re a genius, babe. A fucking genius,” I said before grabbing my girl and kissing her senseless.
“I think you’d be great at it.” She gave me her trademark megawatt smile.
“I’d need funding,” I continued brainstorming out loud. “Since this isn’t something I’d want to charge the guys for. I want to provide a service. To really help.”
“What about Chance’s dad? I bet he would invest. He probably has retired baseball friends who would invest too,” Sunny added with a know-it-all grin, and the two of us sat down for the rest of the night, plotting and dreaming and making a plan.
I called Coach Carter the next day, explaining to him what I wanted to do even though I hadn’t researched every detail thoroughly yet. I wasn’t even halfway through my planned speech when he told me to shut up before texting me a picture of him signing a check.
“Look, Mac, we always need write-offs, but this is something I can really get behind,” he said through the phone. “And I know at least twenty guys who will feel the same way. Just say the word. How big do you want this to be?”
Shit. I wasn’t sure. “What do you think?”
“I think this could be as big or as small as you want. You could have physical locations in every state or make it mostly online. It’s up to you, but you’ll need a staff. You can’t be the only one who talks to all these guys. There will be too many,” he said before sucking in a breath and blowing it into the phone. “Unless you