Yes I am with the Brewers…I’m Ben Sheets…that’s Jason Kendall.

Had the security guard come up to the other half of the faux battery of me and my fellow Seamhead in the Maryvale Baseball Complex practice bullpen, that phrase more than likely would have been uttered. But instead they asked me if we were with the Brewers…and I went with no.

 

Lets get this straight…the following is not meant to say baseball makes you lie. But rather baseball is a game that can not only provide the swagger to give that answer to a really dumb question…but also it can provide an extreme confidence for life.

 

Think about it…what is one of the first phrases you are taught when you step onto a little league field? “I got it, I got it, I got it!” That makes it clear to your team who is going to catch the ball. To do that…you have to believe that you can guide your glove under that plummeting sphere of seams and cork.

 

The next phase of the game that can instill confidence can also…in one sweeping curve of that same sphere…leave even the largest major leaguer questioning. Feeling the sting of bat on ball can supply the utmost confidence. Conversely the sting of ball on back can leave a hitter with a permanent foot toward the bucket. Even still…though cowering and quivering, the line-up will turn around and up to the plate will march that same victim for another shot at confidence.

 

Even with failure directly in the rear view, baseball forces its combatants to push forward and keep going. And if you don’t think that’s a confidence every single person will need sometime in their life…then I’ll tell you a first hand story of a 16-year-old who threw high and tight to Barry Bonds…then struck him out with a wicked bender.