Running Down a Dream: Marion, Illinois

Instead of “Running Down a Dream,” today’s blog should be called “Running Down a Coach.”

First of all, if you were to tell me I’d be cleaning horse stalls on this tour, I’d call you crazy. So guess what, for all you saying “I told you so,” you’re crazy. I cleaned horse stalls yesterday. I’m staying on a farm, in a little farm house, on 153 acres, and I’ve got a cat pawing at me, making it really difficult to get past this fourth sentence.

The horse back riding has to wait; I can’t get sore for these workouts, but riding around in the golf cart through the corn fields is making up for it.

I’ve got a few workouts lined up, all moving pretty much west to east, all confirmed except for today’s in Marion, Illinois with the Southern IL Miners. One of their coaches knew I was coming, it was just a matter of communicating that had been tough.

Bridget and I drove from her farm in Sparta to Marion, got there five hours before game time, only to find no coach on the premises.  Twenty minutes later I’m told the team got back at 4 AM, “no pregame today, come back tomorrow for a workout.” But I can’t come back tomorrow, I’m working out with Gateway tomorrow.

I call again and leave a message saying I’ll wait around the area for an hour before I leave and hope today’s trip wasn’t in vain.

Bridget tells me we need to eat at 17th Street, the best BBQ in town. I’d never heard of it. This place is like Mars to me. I grew up in a city.  Everywhere I turn I see corn.

Nevertheless, we have some grub.  We’re wrapping up, and I hear some people at the table next to us talking baseball. A minute later I turn and see someone I recognize.

Let me give you a little back story. One of the coaches on the Miners is from Hawaii, the same island I live on. He writes a weekly column that gets published in the Hawaii newspaper. I thought to myself, what a great in. I tried every day for three weeks to find a way to reach this guy!! Nothing. Nothing!! I found a local number. I left messages. Couldn’t find an e-mail. The team office has no contact info for this coach. But I knew what he looked like from a picture of him in his weekly column, and you guessed it, he was sitting right next to me.

I said “coach, are you who I think you are?” He said “yeah, who are you?!”

I said “let’s do a workout today, ’cause I can’t tomorrow.” He said “lemme see what I can do, we’ll talk in an hour.”

So we kill an hour while Bridget goes shopping for some boots, then I decide, “let’s go play catch in front of the clubhouse and wait for a coach to show up.”

Now, you have to know, she’s a phenomenal softball player. This girl has an arm, and I kid you not, her favorite thing to do is go to the park and throw me baseballs. I have no qualms about throwing as hard as I can to her. I don’t even think about it anymore, I just throw her the heat. And she throws it harder right back at me.

Anyway, we’re throwing outside the press box, someone walks out and says he ought to sign her to a contract. Turns out, he was the manager of the Otters, a team I’m going to work out with next week. He said, “well hell, let’s do it now.” Well, hell, isn’t that what I came here for?

The rest is just baseball pregame stuff. Afterward, he welcomed me back for another workout.

To be continued…