I’m all packed and ready to go… and this time, I have a plane ticket.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. I don’t speak a lick of Italian. I don’t have any friends waiting for me. I don’t even know much about the Italian league other than it’s in Italy, my manager—nick-named the “Panther”— is allergic to umpires, and the team has high expectations for an American pitcher with big league time under his belt.
That last part makes me a little nervous. I hope they don’t expect me to get off the plane and start striking people out like some video game cheat code. I need these next two weeks to get up to full game speed. I’ve been doing my best to get ready here at home, but there is only so much a player can do in a cold weather state when all his potential catch partners are playing college ball, or in spring training.
All things considered, this has probably been one of the harder off seasons to prepare myself. First, the launch of Out Of My League had me doing all manner of publicity. I’m not complaining, I’m glad the book is doing well and I hope it continues to, but squeezing in as much publicity as I could before I landed in Italy was paramount to it’s strong launch, which meant that times I could have snuck into facilities around the area were eaten up by radio call-in’s and 750 word article creation for small market (those that are still alive) news papers.
Balancing two careers was tough in previous seasons, but it will be even tougher this season with a six hour time change and an ocean of separation to contend with. I’m going to have to generate a lot more of my own content because I wont have American’s built in baseball media injecting me into the blood stream of social relevance like I did years past. But even if I did, I’d still have the separation factor at an all time
Right now, I need to focus on my wife. This is the last time I’ll see her for the next 40 days. It never gets any easier leaving her. In fact, I’d say it gets worse. As we grow to love and rely on each other, the separation feels more like the tearing apart of something not meant to be undone.
When I was young, I was always told that women wreck baseball dreams for this very reason. They increase homesickness. They distract. They question your resolve to go out and test your metal. They make you feel like you have happiness right where you are no longer need to go on baseball quests to find it.
And they’re right, but in a great way. I don’t need baseball to be happy, which, made me better at baseball. It took the pressure of me to find fulfillment in th game. In a lot of ways, that’s why I’m playing Italian ball and not Indy ball, or Minor League ball. I’m happy with my life away from the game. Very happy, actually. Happy enough to adventure a little.
Trevor Hoffman once told me that the best parts of me were not located on a baseball field. He didn’t mean that as an insult, but as an insight. My wife is the best part of me, and I will miss her dearly. Ironically, it is she who is now talking me into going abroad and experiencing life in Italia, not talking me out of it. Even so, I know it wont really be the experience I long for it to be until she’s there with me.
And so, it is with both excitement and sadness that I leave for another season. Maybe the biggest adventure of a season I’ve had since my first year in the minors.
