Have you ever looked up the odds of a person playing baseball at the professional level? Let alone the odds of making it to Major League Baseball? WHEW, those numbers are insane. I read that a high school baseball player has about .5% chance of playing pro baseball – and that does not mean making it to the bigs. Of course the percentage of college ballplayers who go on to play pro is much higher (around 10%), but only because the pool of college players is a lot smaller than the pool of high school players. With each level advanced in the minor leagues these men are defying incredible odds, although, some do have better odds than others. I found an interesting article by Mike Rosenbaum from 2012 that looks at percentages of players who make it to MLB based on what round they were drafted in. First round draft picks reach the big leagues at a whopping 66%, and as you might have guessed the percentage drops rapidly from there. Addison was drafted in the 17th round, where only about 11% make it to the show. Any normal person would look at these numbers and feel defeated just seeing how unlikely it is to fulfill their lifelong dream, but if there is one thing I have learned in this whole baseball process it’s that these athletes are some of the most resilient and determined people on the planet.
Thinking about all these numbers doesn’t scare me one bit, they actually give me hope. Addison has already overcome tremendous odds to get to where he is at this very moment. I can’t even express the amount of pride I have for him every single day he goes out on that field and literally battles to make that childhood dream of his a reality. Only God knows where we are going to land in our baseball journey. Maybe it’s MLB, maybe it’s not. Truthfully it doesn’t even matter, because we will always know that he gave it his all.
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. And I’ve been trying to do some meal planning so that during the season I can make it as easy as possible on myself to ensure that we eat well and don’t have to resort to eating out. About a week before we leave I will get the boxes labeled “baseball” out of storage and go through them to 1) make sure I have what we need 2) make sure to leave behind things we don’t need 3) pack up the car…eeeek!! I have really, really NOT been looking forward to this part of the adventure. Thankfully there are a lot of really smart baseball wives and girlfriends out there who have been through this very same predicament and who have blogs/have left posts on the MiLB ladies facebook page on the how to’s of moving multiple times in a year. I have picked up so many helpful tips on things to bring and how to pack it all into one little ol’ car. Another thing that my brain has been working hard at, is NOT thinking about being so far away from my family. I have never lived more than 2 hours away from them, and in a few short weeks I will be around 18-20 hours away from them for the next 6 months! Thank goodness for telephones and skype so we can somewhat fill the void (and of course they can always come and visit us!!…Hint-Hint: Mom & Brian, Dad & Anna, John & Karen). So yeah, even though traveling with Addison is what I want more than anything, I have no doubt that it’s going to be anything but easy…in the words of A League of their Own, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great”.