Rehabbing my shoulder was a long and monotonous process. Everyday the same exercises, the trainers bearing down on you making sure nothing is sore or hurting, and everything that you do is watched and controlled. 95 degrees and 100% humidity everyday gets old, and the way that the Gulf Coast League is, makes you want to work that much harder to get healthy as soon as possible. Everyday the up at 6:30 and rehabbing, throwing, lifting, conditioning, usually doing extra of each just to try to speed up the entire process of getting healthy, until about 3 gets tiring. I began to throw and it felt good for the first week so I got to pitch off a mound to a catcher. I did that 2 times and then my third day I was told that I was going to throw to hitters. That went very well, my pitches were fast and moving a lot. The pitching coordinator was there to watch and told me after that I would either throw another simulated game like the one I just had or throw in a game, which to me meant that I would throw a game down in Florida...in other words he would get back to me. Meanwhile, my 3 roommates were all doing fine, the cultural differences are pretty interesting. I watched a lot of the spanish channel, and for some reason when not watching the spanish channel those guys all love watching Nickelodeon, literally I watched 3-4 episodes of Spongebob everyday.
While I was down there, the Blue Jays came down to play the Tampa Bay Rays, a bunch of us got our free tickets and went to the game at Tropicana Field. The field is weird, the dome is an interesting place to watch a baseball game, nonetheless it was a good stadium to check off the list of places to see. My night life was limited the second half of my stay in Florida, the early mornings and long days kinda get to you and you just want to relax on your day off on Sunday.
2 days went by and at about 6 o'clock on Friday night right after dinner I got a call from the manager of the GCL team telling me to pack my bags, I was going to Vancouver the next day. Without a second to waste, I said thank you and got off the phone before I could hear anything else telling me otherwise. The next day I showed up to the field and had a plane ticket waiting for me and left for the airport for my 3 o'clock flight. I had a brief layover in Dallas, and got to Vancouver at 8 west coast time. My host family picked me up at the airport and took me right to the field so that I could catch the end of the team's game that was already going on. It was great to be able to see all the guys again, I walked in to a bunch of hugs and high fives, welcome backs and just a lot of catching up with everyone about the month that I had been away. I walked into a stadium of a sellout crowd of over 5,000 and really just took it in realizing what I had been missing and how good it felt to be back in the clubhouse with my team...healthy. I was informed that I would be pitching the next day so after the game I went back to my house, unpacked and got a good nights sleep anticipating my return to action in uniform, in Everett, Washington. I threw 1.2 innings because I am on a pitch count and they don't want to rush me back right away, but I felt good, my arm felt good and that was the most important thing for my first outing. We then finished our series in Everett and left for Yakima, Washington where we are currently for a 5 game series. The drive through the country out here is unreal. Mountains, forests, its beautiful and then out of nowhere it all stops and you are in a desert, that desert being Yakima, Washington, really the armpit of the state. I pitched again last night in the 3rd game of the series, this time going 2.1 innings, feeling great, the best I had felt in months. I was sharp with my pitches and located well, just caught a stroke of bad luck along with the rest of the team. A couple of hits in the infield that you couldn't have rolled out into the field any better with your hand and a ball that took a bad hop off the wall, resulted in a couple runs but hey I felt good and next time out I'm sure they will go my way. We are in the middle of a rough patch right now, losing our last 6 for the first time ever, but with every skid a win streak usually follows so when it does, the rest of this league will have 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag, and won't know what hit them. I don't pitch again until next Wednesday but the cool thing is that my family and Kelsey will be in town in Vancouver to watch it, something that I have been looking forward to for a long time. I will be great to see them. They actually fly out today and get in late tonight so I won't see them until tomorrow but it's all good. Pretty much life is great right now, no complaints and really just doing what I've always wanted to do. Going to keep bringing the heat and living it up. Keep looking up.
-Ben
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