Million Dollar Arm by J. B. Bernstein

Author:J. B. Bernstein
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

I carried my piece of plywood out of the clubhouse where I’d stashed it and laid it across a bleacher chair. The California sun was strong, even for a September morning. Luckily, I don’t burn easily, since I planned to sit out here for most of the day. A bigger problem was the glare on my computer that I set atop the plywood. I shifted the laptop around until I could see the email replies to the messages I had sent out in the middle of the night.

From my outdoor office setup, I saw Dinesh and Rinku warming up, throwing back and forth to each other, nice and easy. For a few months now, I had been working at my makeshift desk as much as I could so that the guys would know I was around.

After Dinesh threw the punch at a USC kid, it was clear that the boys were starting to crack from all the pressure. Coach House gave me a wake-up call. “You aren’t supporting them enough,” he said. With his gentle but serious tone, he got the point across. “You need to spend more time with Rinku and Dinesh to counteract their homesickness and mental fatigue.”

More time together? I felt like I spent every waking moment with these guys. But I knew Tom was really good about diagnosing that kind of stuff. He did have a PhD in sports psychology, after all. Having told the guys they had to do whatever they needed to in order to realize their goals, I couldn’t be a hypocrite. I owed it to them, and myself, to be every ounce as committed.

That’s when I realized that I needed to be on-site as often as possible—and that meant setting up my agency on the side of Dedeaux Field. Even on days when I could not work from the stands, I would try to swing by the field even if just for an hour. There was power in my bearing witness to their training. All it took was a quick exchange of glances after a particularly bad pitch for their shoulders to lift again and for them to stand straight on the mound. I wanted them to see me there, to know that I was behind them no matter what. They didn’t want to let me down even more than they wanted to succeed for themselves.

I didn’t need to sit on the sidelines to know how hard Rinku and Dinesh were working. The two of them were the epitome of diligence and perseverance. When they first arrived in America, I gave them a framework in which to think about their training.

“There is a good chance you aren’t going to make it into the major leagues,” I said. “After all, most guys don’t, and that includes all those guys who have been playing ball since birth. You can’t control whether or not you make it. You can only control how hard you work trying to make it.

“Most of the American kids you are competing against have at least fifteen years of baseball on you,” I continued.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.