The summer ended and I thought that was where my baseball adventure would come to a screeching halt until spring. Unknown to me at the time, you can watch baseball in Arizona almost 12 months out of the year. I had heard about “Fall Ball” in Phoenix but had no details about where to get information about it or if it was even accessible for fans. I remember searching the internet for several days until I stumbled across Arizona Fall League (AFL), an off-season league owned and operated by Major League Baseball which operates during the fall in Arizona.
The first league game kicked off on Tuesday, October 12, 2010, just 6 weeks after the Tucson Toros season ended. Six teams made up the league and I was enthusiastic about the opportunity to see these players at the start of their careers. As I was still only 6 months into learning about baseball, I thought AFL was a great way to learn about baseball as I call it “from the beginning.” In a way, I was also starting from the beginning, with a new outlook on my personal life following my divorce 7 months earlier.
I made it to 15 AFL games over the 6 weeks including several mid week night games in which I was like a rock in a sling shot up the I-10 on the 2 hour drive each way. Making it to work at 8am at times was difficult, but as the days progressed and I attended more games, baseball was affecting my work in a very positive way. Watching the guys play ball and imaging each of them had a dream of making a name for themselves was starting to rub off on me. I was starting to dream big too and I was getting more clarity around my work goals and my work started to become more meaningful.
The managers and coaches at AFL intrigued me. With one year of managerial experience and 5 years in supervision, I was constantly thinking about what these guys were telling their own teams and I was starting to see some parallels. How were they winning and was that the most important thing? Don Mattingly coached a team named the Phoenix Desert Dogs. During one of the games, he had to forfeit in the 7th inning because he ran out of pitchers. He caught a lot of slack as you can imagine. Forgive me, I don’t know the exact details, however I do remember hearing that pitchers in this league can only throw a certain number of pitches or should only throw a certain number of pitches so they don’t get injured. The number of pitches had been exceeded in the game and Mattingly was not going to entertain getting a guy hurt by continuing to let him throw the ball – check out this link for more specifics http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/dodger-thoughts/post/_/id/9199/the-don-mattingly-non-incident
Don Mattingly's experience forced me think more about my leadership skills and the impact I was having on my claim adjusters. I wondered if I always put their needs first as Mattingly had for his guys during that game. I questioned if winning was the most important thing and what was considered a win.
Speaking of Mattingly, this is one of my favorite pictures that I took during AFL at the Scottsdale Stadium.
 |
Photo by Tamara Swindler
|
