"Somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back... play for her." -Mia Hamm
The other night, I was watching the MLB Network and this commercial came on:
When the commercial ended, I started crying because it brought me back to when I was a young girl growing up in Southern California. Some may know that I have two older brothers who played baseball for the majority of their lives. I'm the youngest of four siblings and I wouldn't have traded growing up with them for anything in this world. When I was one week old, my mom took me to Disneyland and my first Dodgers game. Low and behold twenty-four years later, I have an extensive amount of knowledge and passion for both Disney and the sport of baseball. I knew from a young age that I wanted to work in sports, I had a phase in my life where I wanted to obtain a marine biology degree from California State University, Monterey Bay and eventually work as an otter caretaker (low-key, still a dream of mine). However, I loved sports so much that I wanted to maintain my dream to work in professional baseball. Looking back at my last few years of how I ended up in Minor League Baseball, I've had quite a journey of getting to where I am. I've had many ups and downs through it all but every step towards a better career is fulfilling enough for me. Any baseball game that I attend, whether its professional, collegiate or my nephew's t-ball game, I feel a sense of belonging and a place where I can call home. There were times that I spent over 12 hours at a ballpark and it never felt like it. Its fulfilling to. Many people would ask me, how I got involved with baseball, and quite honestly, the answer is simple. I explain to whomever asks me, that its the sport that my family loves, its where I have countless memories, and the some of the best. I have such a passion for the sport, why not make a career out of it? I've been on this rollercoaster ride the past few years and soaking in as much as I can.
During my time as an Operations Intern at Salt River Fields (SRF), the Spring Training Facility for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, the interns were in charge of choosing bat boys/girls to sit in the dugout for each game along with other tasks. There is one distinct game that I will remember for the rest of my life. It was a Diamondbacks game on St. Patrick's Day, another intern and myself were walking throughout the concourse and there was a kid that came to the game with his aunt. They were at a concession stand buying food and drinks for the game. We both agreed that we wanted to choose him. When we told him that he was going to be the bat boy for the day, his aunt was more excited than I could ever imagine. When the game had ended, I was walking doing my usual duties post-game along the concourse and I happened to run into the son and aunt that had been picked for the game. The aunt noticed me immediately and gave me a hug. I believe it was fate that I ran into them at the end of this game. The boy ended up getting a bat from David Peralta and the smile he gave me, it was something that I had never seen before. This sounds lame, but I was emotional when this all happened. The motto of Salt River Fields is, "We create happiness and lasting memories, one day, one guest and one interaction at a time." There is an inside joke from when I started with the facility, when I received my credentials during my first season, this motto was written on the back of my card. I had nonchalantly brought it up to other people in the box office and it turned out that I was the only one that had the motto on my credentials. It turned into a standard inside joke till this day (also shoutout to my Salt River Fields homies, I miss y'all everyday at the ballpark). But in all seriousness, I remember motto with everything that I do for the love of families and friends attending a game at the ballpark. It can be the worst of days and I just know and trust that I know this is where I'm supposed to be.
This past season at SRF, my Dad had called me and said that one of his friends were going to attend a game over with his son's baseball team at Salt River Fields. I knew that I wanted to do something special for them. I was able to make him one of the bat boys for the game and his teammates were able to watch him interact with the team in the dugout. When I moved to Idaho Falls about a month ago, I received a letter in the mail. I had opened it and immediately wanted to start sobbing. The thank you note was from Nick, this was his thank you card to me that I had received:
These are the memories that kids will cherish for the rest of their lives and knowing I had something to do with it, it's something that I will never forget. Whenever I tell this story, people say that I changed those kids lives, but to be real here, they're changing mine.
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