I’m on another bus on the way to Livingston Alabama for another baseball road trip. I’m writing another article. I’m listening to another song.
There’s a country blues song I’m digging a lot right now by Sturgill Simpson and his moniker Johnny Blue Skies called “Scooter Blues.” Essentially, the easy-going blues ballad is about a man who ditches his renowned identity and disappears, becoming a leisure drifter who scoots along on a scooter which takes him to islands and bars before settling down and quietly retiring from the insanity of his life. It’s simple, deceivingly catchy, and a little melancholic because the song is nothing more than a batch of wishful thinking. Simpson’s melodic voice is almost whimsical as he sings about kicking off his flip flops to go for a run but hints a hair of regret in his voice as he begins the song “I’ve been feeling like a piece of rice paper.” He feels stretched, stressed, and downright thin.
Scooter Blues is the embodiment of how I’ve been feeling this last semester of college and baseball. I’m a senior relief pitcher for Union University. With the dice roll of weights, practices, games and road trips, throwing school into the mix of things makes me feel like I’m drowning a wave of assigned words, job applications and overcooked curveballs. After all, there’s something certainly attractive about scooting along on a scooter without a worry in the world as I coast into college retirement. Only, I would do away with the alcohol and checkers and replace it with cherry Coke and disc golf.
But It’s nearly April. I don’t feel that anymore. In a month, I’m never going to step onto the baseball field as a player ever again. In a month, my fellow seniors, the dudes I traversed this baseball journey with together since we were all wide-eyed freshmen, will move away and begin their own time in career limbo where they will have more free time than we ever had during the school/baseball season. I don’t think I’m ready for that. I don’t think I’m ready to “offer my heart up to the break and the sway” or “scooter my blues away.” Sturgill Simpson and I’s “scooter blues” are very different shades. While Simpson is ready for a change, I’m terrified of it. The point is, I think Sturgill Simpson has given my first existential crisis.
Of course, by college retirement, I’m referring to the transition period between the end of collegiate athlete life and regular work life. During this time, there may be a whole world of downtime that I have never been accustomed to during my time playing ball.
It was by the grace of God that I was given the opportunity to play this game into college in the first place. By all rights, it’s a miracle that I’m even here. I never played school ball, never played travel ball, and never was scouted. I only had “fall ball”, a two-month stint of weekend games to prep kids for their real school season. For me, that was my season. After a single bullpen at a Union showcase, there is no other explanation why I received a phone call by the former Union pitching coach Joe Fabre other than it being an inexplicable gift from God.
Sometimes I forget exactly who I am. It’s so easy putting my identity what I know the most, like baseball. But I also sometimes think that there’s been something I’ve been forgetting.
I’m afraid that once the game that I have played since I was 9 years old disappears, I’m going to feel idle, stuck and very lost. I may even find myself in a period of unexpected mourning. I’m not sure. The day’s not here yet, but it’s sure coming quickly.
I get up from my seat on the bus and stretch on the aisle. We have another hour or so until we reach the hotel in Livingston, Alabama. As I climb over a spider web of reclining legs stretched across the aisle, I make my way to the front of the bus to talk to the person who may have the answers to my first existential crisis. Sam “Poin” Poindexter, our GA and former Union starting pitcher asks what’s on my mind. I tell him everything I’m feeling. After all he experienced it all for himself after the heartbreaking season ending series at UAH last spring. The only acceptable time to cry in baseball is when you’re walking off the mound for the last time. And there were a lot of tears that day- even me, a bystander, who watched the end all unfold.
“I’d be lying to you if I said that I’m completely over it, Wig,” Poin said in the dim light of the bus.
We hit a bump in the road, which shakes a lot of guys awake from their half-dreaming sleep. He explains that the transition has been hard, but it was a necessary step to become closer to God.
“But all I know is that everyone here will have to walk off that field for the last time,” Poin says. “All good things come to an end. All I can tell you is soak it all up in this last month. Savor every practice, game, and lift. Every bus ride, tarp pull, and moment in the locker room.”
“Be where your feet are.”
We talk for a while before pulling into the hotel. It’s the same Hilton Inn that we stayed in two years ago. What used to be an ugly lobby under construction is now polished, clean and nearly complete. Tomorrow, we play a double header against The West Alabama Tigers followed by a single game on Saturday. I’ve been to that field once before as a sophomore. There I watched all our seniors walk off that baseball field as players for the last time in their lives. That seems like it was just yesterday, yet I’m about to do the inevitable exit myself. I wrote about that day too, but now, I’m back in Livingston and have become the subject of my own writing, like I’ve accidentally foreshadowed the end. Now, Livingston, Alabama seems to be waving the final lap flag, like a cruel callback to my past writings shouting, “Here it comes, you can’t stop it now!”
We arrive at Tratt Field. It’s overcast and warm, but a cool, welcoming breeze passes through the woods and across the small lake that sits behind the ballfield where a couple of carefree people fish along its quiet banks. Some things have changed since the last time we were here. West Alabama completely renovated the field, replacing the grass and dirt with artificial turf, an unwelcome surprise for someone who (you guessed it) doesn’t like change. By game time, rain threatens in the distance, but it holds off for game 1. Union is only 1.5 games behind AUM in the GSC standings, where we sit one spot out from qualifying for the conference tournament, a stage where I have yet to play. This year is my last chance to see the Dawgs in a playoff game.
In game one, The Tigers took an early 1-0 lead in the first, but freshman history education major Carter Daniel bore down for 7 innings of one run ball, giving our offense time to scratch runs in the 4th and 7th inning, making it a 4-1 Union lead. I take the mound in the eighth for a potential long save and I’m immediately uncomfortable. My heartrate refuses to lower, and breathing, which is a naturally easy thing, suddenly becomes an arduous task I have to remember to do.
It’s a short-lived outing where walks kill. After a four-pitch walk, my unsure fastballs are scattered for three hits in a row, scoring the runner who walked. I record only one out before Skip rightfully pulls me. I bury my frustration and get behind my fellow reliever, junior finance major Lane Evans, a skinny flamethrowing righty. He gets out of his inherited jam and closes the game in the ninth, giving Union the 6-2 victory.
In game two (7 innings), senior electrical engineering major Eli Snelson pitches a masterclass, who nearly pitches a complete game shutout before getting traffic in the seventh. But the grand slam by West Alabama couldn’t top Union’s five runs, granting us our first series win by a final score of 5-4.
Back at the hotel, spirits are high. Maybe this is the beginning of the push we’ve been looking for to launch us into the conference tournament. After dinner, I joined some guys in Room 325 to get my shoulder treated by my roommate, senior submarine specialist pitcher and athletic training major Sam Galbraith. Twelve or so of us are crammed into one hotel room to watch March Madness. Later, as I lay in bed, I replay my outing over and over in my head. What made me so nervous? Today the ball felt almost slick and uncomfortable; it was almost foreign. I felt like it was my first college outing where I was a freshman in the ninth inning against AUM at home, and I felt like my heart was going to leap from my throat.
I had a feeling that I knew what the problem was. I had committed the most self-inflicting mental mistake you could make when preparing to perform on a baseball field. It didn’t happen when we arrived at Tratt Field, or even this morning at the breakfast table. It had started at an unsure time during the busy week where I kept playing that song, “Scooter Blues” on repeat. Listening to the song made me think of a life where baseball was over, which made me resent the wishful leisure drifting it romanticized. It got me in my feelings and filled me with a clouded vision of the unknown future which sent me into a state of early mourning. I brought those feelings with me on the field, which weighed me down so much that I lost connection to where I was, on a mound playing a kid’s game with some of my best friends.
I remember what Poin told me on the bus. Savor every moment. Be where your feet are.
The next morning, my feet are in the bullpen before game three. It’s overcast and windy, and late afternoon heat from yesterday is washed away with a slight chill across the lake that hugs the ballfield. During batting practice, I shag flyballs and what seemed like the twenty-sixth time, Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band plays on the loud speaker. During catch play, like something straight out of National Geographic, I see a bald eagle swoop down across the pond and duck under the shady branches of the row of trees beyond the water. It nestles into the foliage and vanishes. I watch for a while, but no one seemed to notice the stunning bird like I have.
The incomprehensible and downright beauty of the place reminds me of how large God is and how small I am. “How great are you, Lord?” I ask. I know how great He is. He was the one who granted feeling in my fingers, and who breathed movement in my limbs to allow me to throw this ball of cork, leather and thread. After all, the God who gave me this opportunity and ability to me a chance to play a kid’s game at this level has every right to take it away. I realized that I had forgotten the most important part. My identity isn’t in this game, and my identity won’t end when the game ends. My identity is in Christ. I’m not playing for myself but for God.
Something has changed. The leather and stitching of the ball no longer feel slick and foreign to my callused fingers as I toss along the left field foul line. The immaculate echoes and pops of leather on leather from catch play fill the air. Shoulder to shoulder with my brethren, we line up for the National Anthem. I may still feel thin like a piece of rice paper, but I have no more scooter blues.
Four weekends left. A few more outings. Two or three more bus trips. Probably a handful of tarp pulls. Twenty or so practices. A dozen or so morning lifts. Forty to fifty pieces of Dubble Bubble. One more month. One last ride.
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