6 replies to this topic

[Oriole85]

The New Yorker: Why I Quit Major League Baseball

 

http://www.newyorker...html#entry-more

[You Play to Win the Game]

Really good read - Good for him. Not many people in his situation would have the courage to just do something he wanted more. And a great point about the pressure to continually get better getting in the way of enjoying the present.

[Russ]

Really good read - Good for him. Not many people in his situation would have the courage to just do something he wanted more. And a great point about the pressure to continually get better getting in the way of enjoying the present.

I can understand not wanting to play baseball anymore, but so far as the pressure to continually get better, welcome to life.

[Mackus]

Good, quick read.  Was thinking "must've been a hell of an editor on this piece, because no way does a kid drafted out of high school write this well" until I got to this part:

 

I quit after trying to balance my life as a professional baseball player with my life as a student during the last three years of my career. In the spring and summer, I played ball. In the fall, I studied creative writing and philosophy at New York University. But with every semester that passed, I loved school more than I loved baseball, and eventually I knew I had to choose one over the other. As I submerged myself into an academic environment, I thought often of my parents, who knew nothing about baseball but raised me with a passion for music and language so great that sports seemed irrelevant by comparison.

 

Good for him for now pursuing what he really wants to do.  Seems to me that he used a sport he loves to propel him into a major head start for the rest of his life, gotta be a lot easier to get into creative writing and philosophy with a 7-figure pile of money leftover from a brief professional baseball career.  That's not exactly a money-making major, at least not right out, so to have that security behind you so you can continue with what you're passionate about while not having to worry about where your next paycheck is coming from is huge.

[Oriole85]

I can understand not wanting to play baseball anymore, but so far as the pressure to continually get better, welcome to life.

It's hard to pass up such a lucrative career that as a time frame IMO. It's not like it's being an accountant or lawyer, you hate it, go to something else. Those jobs don't exactly have the shelf life of a professional athlete.

[You Play to Win the Game]

I can understand not wanting to play baseball anymore, but so far as the pressure to continually get better, welcome to life.

 

Absolutely - that doesn't change - but the lesson is that while you won't ever (or shouldn't ever) rid yourself of the desire to continually get better, you can learn to pause from time to time and enjoy what you have. This is a lesson many can learn.

[Oriole85]

Chasing the MLB dream (Tim Pahuta)

 

Here’s the problem with chasing your dream for as long as you possibly can. You know the numbers going in: something like 10% of college baseball players go on to play professionally. Of that 10%, roughly 8% manage to play in the major leagues. That’s including guys that go up and fill the roster out in September, not necessarily have any kind of successful career. So if you are in the top 10% of all college baseball players and then are in the top 8% of that whole group, you have a chance of playing a game or two in the big leagues.

 

My name is Tim Pahuta. I played eight years of semi-successful baseball in the Washington Nationals minor league system. I am now an unemployed 30 year old with no job experience and an out-dated degree in, you guessed it, communication.

Somebody please tell me, what now?