The Arizona Diamondbacks’ Jose Fernandez just became only the 8th player in Major League Baseball history to debut with multiple home runs. He stepped up to the plate on the biggest stage of his life and hit two balls into the stratosphere. When I debuted at my first high school part-time job at a local movie theater, I spilled a 64-ounce tub of butter-flavored topping directly onto my manager’s shoes. We are not the same.
The Burden of Historic Greatness
Why do these rookies have to be so good immediately? It takes me three weeks just to figure out the settings on a new microwave. Fernandez is out here deciphering 98-mph sinking fastballs on his first day at work. The sheer confidence required to swing a wooden bat that hard in front of 40,000 screaming people is something I cannot comprehend. If 40 people even look in my general direction, my throat closes up and I forget how to swallow.
A Monument to My Failures
Every time a young athlete breaks a historic record, it serves as a glaring neon sign pointing out my own inadequacies. I am going to log off the internet, eat a sleeve of saltine crackers, and stare at the ceiling until the feeling of intense inferiority passes. (It won’t pass.)
