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January 11, 2010 10:32:59
Posted By gregwagner
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I started playing baseball when I was 9. At the time, Jim Abbott was pitching for the NY Yankees. He pitched without a right hand. I couldn’t use my right hand, so I figured if he could do it, why can't I? I taught myself how to catch and throw with my left hand, and I taught myself how to field too. After catching the ball, I'd toss it out of my glove in the air, drop my glove to the ground, catch the ball with my bare left hand, plant my foot and throw to the base. Sure, I was disabled, but I could do everything that a pitcher is required to do to perform his job. So, can you really say that I was disabled?
I didn’t. My teammates didn’t, but every coach I encountered did. Without outside support at some point across your life, it is very difficult for a dream to become reality. I started playing ball because it was the one activity I could do that put me on an equal playing field with my peers. When I realized how dominant of a pitcher I was, my entire life revolved around baseball. It was the one part of my life where I felt equal to everyone else. Baseball empowered me, which is exactly why I dreamed of playing in the MLB since I was 9.
I relied on myself to make this dream happen. When coach after coach wouldn’t play me because they felt I couldn’t “keep up in the program” or “didn’t have the experience” I needed to be able to play instead of helping me cultivate the talent I had for the one sport I could actually play, I made the personal decision to stop trying to play organized baseball, but I was still determined to see my dream of playing in the MLB through until the end…and that is exactly what I did.
The only coach who believed in me across my life has been my Dad. When I was 12, he built a mound in my backyard and I pitched after school 3 days a week until I left baseball when I was 22.
I quit my college team when I was 20 because I was the only player the coach wouldn’t play. At the time I was overweight. I have been overweight my whole life due to the physical limitations caused from my disability. I started running a year or so later. A quarter mile quickly progressed to a mile, and before I knew it I was running 5 miles a day and trimming down very nicely in the process.
Realizing my physical improvements, I began filming my pitching sessions with my Dad. I compiled segments from these sessions and created a DVD that I sent to all 30 MLB teams. The DVD showed bits from all my pitching sessions to show how I transformed as I lost weight.
No coach ever believed in me, but I always believed in myself. I handwrote letters to all the scouting directors and attached my DVD with the letter. No one was going to help me, so it was my responsibility to see my dream through until the end.
Two days after sending out my DVD, I heard from the Milwaukee Brewers, and from 4 teams in total who wanted to scout me that coming summer. I did everything I could to find a team to play on that summer, but guess what happened when I found a team?
They wouldn’t play me. I had to tell the scouts I wasn’t ready…POOF—dream gone! At least that is what you think. Truth is I smile at what I accomplished because no one believed I could do it. It’s not that I got attention from Major League scouts, it’s that I did not give up on my dream and I discovered the determination that has marked how I live every day. I discovered how to live and what I live for.
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Categories:
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January 10, 2010 10:36:00
Posted By gregwagner
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The life you lead dictates the events you encounter across your life, but it’s the perspective that you embrace which dictates the determination that carries you through your life. That is ultimately what determines the path you take.
Each of us will be successful in our own way. We always strive for something. That is our innate motivation for living, our perpetual drive for continuing each and every day. We will always find reason to be successful. So does that mean we find satisfaction in the challenges we took or solace in taking the conservative route? That’s an individual choice, but I think the way I live my life is pretty clear.
There are triggers in each stage of our lives that spark our determination. Again, it’s how we embrace each catalyst that determines how long the spark lasts. Does it gain momentum and fuel a flame of desire? Or does it flicker away and get snuffed out?
My life has been marked by an intensely powerful catalyst…so powerful, in fact, that it left me completely immobilized when it struck. I was 3 years old and I was stricken by a ruptured brain aneurysm and a stroke. I survived, but my parents and my doctors had no idea how significantly I would be impaired. Even though it was their decision to put me through physical therapy, it was my choice whether I overcome my disability or let it paralyze me.
My right side is physically and neurologically damaged. It’s permanent, and the nerve damage causes a streaming numbness across the right side of my body very similar to when your foot is falling asleep or coming out of that state. My motor control and dexterity cannot move with fluid movement. Given this, my balance and physical strength has always been impaired on my right side. The cerebral hemorrhage caused me to lose peripheral vision in my right eye and left me with a propensity for stuttering due to the location of the bleed.
As devastating as this sounds, it’s the only way I have known my body to be. A disability is an individual limitation. Some people live with seasonal allergies. Others may have to wear glasses or contacts. This is simply my challenge to overcome, and that’s exactly what I did.
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Categories:
aneurysm,
surgery,
marathon,
running,
survivor,
determination,
greg wagner,
motivation,
baseball,
success,
moving forward
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