being julio heyward
(part eight)
((because this is almost too good to be true))



listen. i am guilty of putting the athletes that i love up on very high and very unrealistic pedestals. i know this. we all have our heroes. most of mine just so happen to bounce, catch or hit a ball. it's not because i want to be them (even though i would, just for a day). it's not because of how great they are or how great they have been in the past. "what happened, happened." in my world, it's all about how great you can be. how great do you want to be. the process. the journey.

every so often, there are those that trip into my world to whom much has been given. very much. very early. julio. jordan. and now "julio". how they handle their pressure provides for me a vicarious experience that i will never be able to duplicate. their own professional and personal stories i will intertwine into my own because i choose to. they are bound to disappoint me because of my own aforementioned (and mismanaged) expectations. i will celebrate their victories like they are my own, because i choose to share it with them. i invest my time into them. they don't owe me anything. they don't know me and never will. and that is how it should be.

they are ghosts. they are myths. they are the stories that i will tell to myself in my dreams. they and their very "trivial" athletic exercises will be a part of my finding a deeper meaning in something, somewhere, because i choose to look for it in them, in their reactions, in their successes and most especially in their failures. because we are all failures. not in the "we are fallen" kind of failures. we are just defined by how we fail. it's that simple.

make no mistake. jason heyward will fail, in baseball and in life. in my story, though, he's becoming a recurring character. one HACAM will travel with for some time.

you have 5 minutes and 45 seconds i bet. you don't have a favorite player? don't care about baseball? watch this. you will.



(thanks to mark mc. for the tip. i don't know how i missed it.)