Baseball: A Metaphor for my Writing Life

You start out as a little T-ball player, just out there for fun.  You don’t care whether you win or lose, you are just there for the snacks after the game.  Whether you realize it or not your attendance at the practices and games, either you attend because you enjoy baseball or just the snacks, you become a little better every time.  After all, practice makes perfect.

Throughout my academic career I  have written countless papers and articles.  This practice has not made me perfect, but has gotten me closer to where I want to be as a writer.

Along my baseball career I have learned many valuable lessons.  But maybe none greater than patience and persistence.  Baseball is a hard sport.  It takes a lot of practice to progress; you cannot get by with just athleticism.  I learned that the hard way as I got older and started to play against much better competition than what I was seeing in T-ball.

In my writing I must be patient.  If I get too impatient I start babbling and not making sense.  I also have to be very persistent in my writing.  I cannot give up in the middle of a paper and expect to get a good grade, obviously. I usually have to sit down, knowing that I will be there for a while, and write until I can’t anymore. 

As I progressed my baseball career in high school, I did not improve as much day-to-day like I did when I was in T-ball and Pee-Wee.  In high school I had to rely more on not loosing my past skills, and refining them.  I would practice so much more in high school, but not get much better.  I had to constantly refine and review my skills to make sure I did not lose them.

Revising and reviewing my papers are always an important step for me.  I admittedly don’t always catch my mistakes while revising, but I do catch several things that could have been embarrassing.  I usually attempt to complete a paper a week ahead of the due date so I have at least a week to revise it.  

(All photos in post were taken of me by my mother)