A Special Thank You

I missed the boat on writing this blog post while I was experiencing it mostly because I didn't have Internet access at the time. I want to write about one of my good friends, a beloved college teammate, co captain and also one of my coaches my senior year. I owe an enormous thank you to my boy Matt McColgan (that's us back in the day during my senior year when he went from being my teammate to my coach). I could write a book about him and the exceptional type of guy he is, but I'm sure he would kill me if I rambled on about him more than I'm already about to. Matt, affectionately known as "Chuck" by friends and teammates, made it possible for me to come out to Florida a month early and get some extremely important work in at the complex before the start of camp. Since college finished for him he has landed a great job with the company Vology Data Systems (vds.com) that has brought him to the Tampa area and coincidentally, its actually close to our complex so we get to hang out and he gets to come watch me play whenever he wants.

As he settled in to his place here, he made it clear to me that any time I needed a place to stay or if I wanted to come out early to workout at the complex, that I could stay with him at no cost in his extra room, well I take that back, the only thing he asked for was some phillies gear which I was happy to give him. He is a big baseball guy and understands how important it is to have a strong, productive offseason so he made it clear that it was no hassle if I wanted to crash with him. Unannounced to me, he completely went above and beyond my expectations and proceeded to let me use his car every day to drive to and from the complex while he hitched rides to work each morning with various co workers AND he spoiled me with great cooking and took me out to dinner quite a bit.

On top of being thankful for the room and board that he provided me and everything else, I also got to see how hard my buddy works and was more inspired than he probably realizes watching him take the same attitude he had when he played baseball, of being the first to the field and the last one to leave, into the work place. In a short amount of time in his new job, his work ethic and drive have led him to become one of the top performers in his company and he is being rewarded nicely. Watching this guy bring the level of work ethic and drive that he does to his job every day (a technology sales job that he admits is way more boring than my job) has been a real treat and stands as another valuable example of how hard work and ambition leads to success.  It was also a solid and constant reminder of how lucky I am to get to do what I do. For example, this was one of my favorite text conversations I had with him while I was leaving the complex one day and he was at the office, it went something like this...

Me: Hey Chuck hows your day at the office going?
Chuck: Just got hung up on like 5 times in a row. How was your day at "the office"?
Me: It was really rough. Got a good lift in, did some running, and took batting practice with Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rolllins, Dom Brown and some of my teammates... 
Chuck: haha you're such an a&*hole

See what I mean when I say solid reminder.

Anyways, its always nice to have a familiar face or two around when you are on the opposite coast from your family. This is one of the reasons I wanted to share this story, to give an example of how lucky I am to have met, befriended and added people like Chuck to my extended family because of baseball. It is also an example of how tight of a family a baseball team can become even years beyond when you play together, especially the UCSB Gauchos. I also want to point out once again that ball players don't make it to where they are by themselves, just like it takes a village to raise a child, I would argue the same holds true for a ball player and I'm lucky to have been surrounded by a hell of a lot of great people throughout my life and career.

Chuck, I can't thank you enough for all you've done for me this offseason. I'm looking forward to paying it back by putting together a great season.

*GFY*