Success!

Yes that’s right. My tryout for the Israel baseball league was extremely successful. I successfully navigated my way to Tel Aviv. I successfully paid my entrance fee. And I successfully filled out my injury waiver. I also successfully met league founder Larry Baras and former GM of the Red Sox Dan Duquette. Unfortunately, that’s where the success ended. It is my sad duty to inform all of my loyal readers that I did not make the initial cut.

It was a good experience though. Meeting people who are running the league definitely gave me a leg up in terms of trying to volunteer administratively for the league. It was also interesting to see what a tryout is like, and to see what they are looking for in terms of talent. I also had a bunch of fun. I can’t even remember the last time I took a ground ball.

Two particularly interesting notes that I discovered about myself:

1) I am out of shape. I knew that being sick and not working out for the past two months wouldn’t help, but can it really have hurt that much? I don’t know if it was my Crohn’s acting up or what (it hasn’t been playing nice lately) but after doing remarkably little physical activity at the tryout I was INCREDIBLY sore afterwards, and the day afterwards, and two days afterwards. We’re talking full body pain. Standing up and sitting down could take upwards of two minutes (unless my muscles gave out and I simply fell over). Personally, I think my brain was so hyped up for the tryout that it psychosomatically made my muscles sore.

2) I don’t have a strong arm. I used to have one, but apparently I left it behind in my youth. It’s weird when something is ingrained in your psyche and then you find out that it isn’t really true. I don’t know if my muscles simply degenerated but I swear my arm used to be above average. I guess that was when I was above average height and weight and not 5’5”. That’s also around the time that I stopped receiving coaching so I’m sure my technique remains that of a 12 year old. You know what they say. Old dreams and identity defining traits die hard.