Everybody wants to be a professional baseball player and, sure, as a kid, I wanted to do that. But once I got cut from my high school team, I figured there wasn't much chance of that ever happening. I'm still in awe of it.
Up until the time I was 14 years old, I was sure that I was going to be a big-league baseball player. But that dream came to a rude awakening when I got cut from my high school baseball team.
I don't think I've changed very much. I think I'm the same kid that I was when I got here. When I came here all I wanted to do was win games. I wanted to play baseball for LSU and be the ultimate team player. That's all I want to do. If we don't end up being the last team to win the game at the end of the year then I won't be happy. That's all I'm worried about this year.
Since I was in high school, I wanted to play professional football and professional baseball, be a two-sport star.
I was still playing basketball and baseball - everything else I wanted to do as a kid. Modeling was a chance to get out of school early and go into the city.
The professional game, in a lot of ways, sucks. It's not fun like 11-year-old baseball was or college baseball or high school baseball.
I was a professional baseball player from the time I was drafted out of high school in 1981 until the time I retired in 2003.
When I got cut from the varsity team as a sophomore in high school, I learned something. I knew I never wanted to feel that bad again. I never wanted to have that taste in my mouth, that hole in my stomach. So I set a goal of becoming a starter on the varsity.
When I went to high school, my most passionate desire was to be a professional baseball player. But something within me told me that was not going to happen.
It was hard because every kid from high school wants a chance to make the jump to the minors to see what they can do. But in the end, it wasn't difficult for me because I wanted to come to Rice. I could learn a lot more by coming here.
If you're a kid who was not especially a star in your high school, I recommend going to a college in the middle of nowhere. I got all the attention I could ever have wanted.
I love to play baseball. I'm a baseball player. I've always been a baseball player. I'm still a baseball player. That's who I am.
My goal was just to try and be the best player on my high school team, and look where I am now. And that was still my goal as a young kid, just to try and be a little better than my brother was.
I wanted to be a professional baseball player.
The thing is, everybody wants to be famous. Everybody wants to be successful. Everybody wants to be that dude, but not everybody wants to do the work for it. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why there's so many juniors and only a couple that make it. Because I really wanted it. I wanted it real bad.
I always thought that if I ever got good reviews I'd be happy. It's so empty. It's never what I wanted, ever. All I wanted was just what everybody else wants - to be loved.
I wound up going to the Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick, which was a really life-changing experience that's still the most intense working environment I've ever been part of. Even now, as a professional actor, I've never once been held to the standards I was held to at my high school.