A Life in Baseball, Digital and Otherwise

To a kid growing up in the armpit of Massachusetts during the late 80’s, a perennial little-leaguer two-stepping every 4th of July through clouds of second hand smoke, a child with shiny dreams of baseball glory not yet sullied by the dinge of athletic mediocrity, to him Roger Clemens was god. I wanted to be him. I didn’t know what a steroid was, nobody did, and at that point he was simply the greatest pitcher I had, in my yet young existence, ever seen. My father would mention names as we played catch in the street – Seaver, Palmer, Gibson, Carlton, Koufax, but to a 9 year old they were merely fiction. They were stories of greatness imagined, but unknown. But Clemens, he I had seen. Clemens, he was real. My imagination was free then. I remember toeing the slick rubbery plastic atop the pitchers mound, thinking about how Clemens would move, thinking about how he would stare in at the batter, attempting to win the battle before any pitch was even thrown. I remember wanting to duplicate the smooth windup, and the explosive, violent delivery. A scrawny, lean, and lanky boy, I wanted to defy my body and blow every single batter away with heat. I wanted to strike out the entire opposing team. I worked ceaselessly, pitch after pitch, waiting patiently for the teledramatic breakout moment, the moment when a salty, small town coach, watching a young phenom throw, takes off his hat and shakes his head, not believing the talent to which he just bore witness. I waited for that moment, wishing and wanting for a future I did not know was outside my reach. I waited for the moment that would
signal a future in baseball; a future that, until recently, I thought had passed me by.