Most Important Day || Dudes Baseball LLC

The most important day in my career:

April 23, 2003

The game gives me a lot of special memorable moments but looking back there is one day, one event that changes everything for me. I did not know at that time but today will be the beginning of the best phase in my athletic career.
Our first child was born. A baby boy comes into our lives. Watching his birth is one, if not, the most amazing things I have ever witnessed.

Since that day my life has a different meaning. I have a greater, stronger, and more important goal. I’m not just a baseball player anymore. This little person forced me to grow from the field that was carried to the field.

Identity is something that must be fought for by many soccer players. Many see themselves (as I do) as baseball players and they become themselves. If everything is good with their game, life is good. If their game is not positive right now, there is no their lives. I remember bringing emotions from my performance to life outside the field. I was fussy if everything went well that day but was calm and grim if not.

As a new father, I immediately realized that when I came home after the match, whatever happened on the field that day was no problem. My wife and children need me. A father and husband, not emotional roller coaster. I learned very fast what it means “leaving it on the field.”

Incidentally, maybe, but I now see the level of maturity that hit me that year. I am 25 years old, in my 7th full season, in a new organization for the first time and in front of a new coach who helped me learn how to use my goods. I really believe the time of everything above is combined with a new purpose in life (and new identity) is a decisive moment in my career.

As a coach now, I see it in these children. All their attitudes fluctuate depending on how they practice, their last representative, their last in the bat, their last inning, or how their last match was running. They brought him with them. We want athletes who struggle for greatness (very important in life) but also mentally stable and able to remain clear when everything does not go well. This is a process (I don’t know until the mid 20s) but one of our missions as adults in their lives is to help them get to this place (hopefully faster than later). Help them learn how to process failure. Help them learn how to become strong competitors.

Let’s also help them realize and know that they are not only baseball players (athletes), that they as personal, friends, children, students, and adults in the future are as important, if not more. And let’s teach and show them how they can use our great games to help become that type of person.

Chris Gissell (179 posts)

Founder of Baseball Dudes. Blessed with three beautiful children and an extraordinary wife. Baseball is my life, after my family, and I like to share what I have learned from him. Thank you for taking the time to see what we offer here at Baseball Dudes.