“I've seen champions come and go…”
Dateline: DeGray Lake
I see them zoom by.
I see them stop.
I see them troll a bank.
I see them cast to a point.
And as I watch the first day of practice unfold outside my lakeside window, all I can think, is simply…
…why not you.
“…so if you got the guts mister…”
Where, comes, Next.
The beauty of, Next, is that we don’t know where, Next, will come from, or who will be, Next, but Next this way always comes.
It was a cool, early Saturday afternoon, March 7, 1914. Fayetteville, North Carolina.
A young 18-year-old was playing his first game of baseball as a professional, was standing in the batter’s box thinking about his first at bat…one, two, three…gone.
He was just 18, first time ever out of the state of his birth, the ump looked at him and waved him up to the plate, his second at bat.
I cover the people who play sports, and I think many of us watch the people who play sports, so that at some moment in time, we can witness, we can tell our children, we saw, Next.
In my mind I see this 18-year-old, his hands wringing the bat just above the nob at the bottom, I see his nervous feet, toe and heel moving up and down as he fidgets to get set. If there are any people in the stand, most are not watching.
We have here at the Toyota Bonus Bucks Bassmaster Team Championship shindig 157 registered teams, 314 anglers from 22 states and one Canadian Province, and as I sit at a folding card table that I have shoved over by my hotel window, as I sit here and watch the their boats go by on this first day of practice, in my mind I think…
…why not…
…Next.
No one back on that spring Saturday remember what pitch it was, first throw, second throw, don’t remember if it was inside heat, outside curve, but they do remember the funny swing, they do remember the sound of bat on ball, they do remember watching how fast the ball climbed and how far it went, some said, almost in a whisper, that it went farther than the ball hit by that guy, Jim Thorpe.
I’m not saying it will happen, I’m not saying it could even happen here that the Next star of the game is out there on the lake I face. But I do know this, on his first ever game as a professional baseball player they sent in a young rookie from Baltimore who took his first swing named, George, and who took his last professional swing named, “The Babe.”
Why, not…
“…yeah if you've got the balls…”
I don’t do things for the hell of it.
I’m either all in every play, or I just stay home and nap a lot.
I couldn’t go through the motions if my life depended on it.
Hey, you 314 anglers here, you may have taken vacation days from work to be here, but treat this as a vacation and you’ll go home with a little cash and a bunch of gas charges on the family Visa.
Understand this, all of you have the opportunity to be the one that crosses the biggest stage this sport has…the Bassmaster Classic.
One of you will go from Pop Warner to the Super Bowl. These next few days on the water could change your life.
For the sport.
For when you are old and gray with nothing but dentures and dreams.
For all those out there who wish they were you.
Dear 314 anglers, go, balls out.
“…if you think it's your time, then step to the line…”
Why Not You.
Sports, I fear, have gotten away from us all.
Myself, and the seemingly thousands out there doing what I do, are to blame.
We cover sports, we cover those who play the games, as if we are accountants.
We cover sports, we cover those who cover the games, as if we are Inquisitors.
And as accountants, and as Inquisitors, we would never have paid attention to the nervous 18-year-old’s second at bat.
It happens when we stick to chasing the glitz, and not the game.
Will there be another Babe Ruth out there on the waters of DeGray Lake? Probably not.
But the fact that there could be, COULD BE, is why the game is played.
Could be, is the soul of sports.
And to you 314, the plate, the at bat, the lake, is yours.
The game waits for you, the stage waits for you.
Why, Not, You.
“…and bring on your wrecking ball.”
Wrecking Ball
Bruce Springsteen