Everyone I've Ever Wanted to be was in a Baseball Movie

Another favorite post from a site long gone. I hope y'all enjoy!

When you’re a kid people like to ask you what you want to do when you grow up. They tend to think it’s cute when you look back at them with a big grin and say something cute like “I wanna be a fireman!” or “I wanna be a really, really, really, really rich guy so I can take care of my parents and they never have to work again!”

Okay, the last one is not so common, but as a new Dad I can dream right?

Typically the people or professions that kids state are ones that they look up to. The reasons they look up to them are many and varied, but often times it is because of the respect that is given to people in that position (i.e. soldiers, firemen, policemen), the adulation (like what professional athletes get), or simply because they want to be like Daddy.

I, personally, always had a real hard time answering this question whenever teachers asked it. Should someone as me now I think I would have to say a baseball player. It’s now because of any particular guy that is taking the field now or even in recent years. 

Some of my favorite people have been baseball players in movies.

Who would not want to be like Bull Durham’s Crash Davis? The man played the game he loved because he loved it. He didn’t make crap in the minors, but year in and year out there was someone willing to give him a chance to play and he took it. It may be because they want him to impart his wisdom on a young player, but that’s okay by him.

I dig Ricky Vaughn from Major League. Vaughn’s devil may care attitude may have been what landed him in prison, but it also allowed him to give his all to playing baseball. What people thought about him mattered nothing. That sort of freedom would be liberating.

Ray Kinsella’s faith in Field of Dreams is inspiring. Who in their right mind would have actually built a baseball field in the middle of their farm—without getting drug tested or having an MRI scan one’s head for a tumor first? This guy didn’t. Instead he acted solely on faith. In case you never saw the movie, his faith paid off in the end.

Finally, there are two guys that I have always looked up to, largely for the same reason. I am talking about Roy Hobbs (The Natural) and Billy Chapel (For the Love of the Game). Both guys are fallible; flashbacks in both movies prove that. You got to love that Hobbs just wanted to play baseball and was willing to give it a try even though his age would have said otherwise. 

While Hobbs got back in the game for the love of it, Chapel left because of it. He could have kept playing; heck, after a perfect game there would have been countless teams that would have been able to give a shot even though he was 40. Instead, he walks away—as the title of the movie says—for the love of the game.

I know that these guys are all fictional movie characters. They are the figments of someone’s imagination. However, when it comes to things that aren’t supernatural I have always believed that if we can think of it we can become it if we really want to.

Who among us would not want to have the faith that Ray Kinsella has, the devil may care attitude and confidence of Ricky Vaughn, the wisdom of a Crash Davis, the determination of a Roy Hobbs, or the maturity of a Billy Chapel?

I know I would.