Chapter 1

January 4^th 2002 10:00 am

Dear Diary;

I woke up this morning, my 23^rd birthday (hooray) and decided to start using this as a way of keeping my thoughts in order, and to allow me to feel semi- normal.

As I mentioned today is my 23^rd birthday and well ever since last night I've been having feelings that I would imagine resemble a mid-life crisis.

Would you like to know why I think I'm having a mid-life crisis at the age of 23? Well I went to sleep with three questions on my mind,

should I retire? Why should I not is actually how I phrased it.

Where's ms right and why haven't I met her, and is it because of my job that I'm alone?( probably)

How do all of these people get my phone number and what do they want from me, ( well want is really easy to answer, money)

So what is it that I do that causes all these problems?

I am a major league baseball player, for the moment any ways.

So let me start reviewing the "High Light Reel" that is my life.

We'll before I was even a week old my parents were separated, don't feel sorry for me, its not something that bothers me. It wasn't like I was fifteen where I would've seen them as my parents together in marriage. They were just always divorced as far back as I can remember.

My father got remarried some years later to a woman whom I love very much. They then had a child, Zach, my half-brother who is seven years younger than I.

I led an athletic, but vaguely normal childhood, I say vaguely because I was generally in the smarter classes and had an gained an appreciation for reading that I've really yet to find a match in my generation, especially my profession. All this was matched by my also playing many sports at a time, basketball, football, but especially baseball.

I was always small(until high school when I had a 10 inch 50 lb growth spurt to make it up to 5'11 196lbs within the course of 2 summers), misunderstood by the geeks, freaked out most of the jocks, in my junior high school. Still I played sports, especially baseball.

In high school I found myself truly lost. On the one hand here I was playing varsity baseball for a school, but I also was in a school which offered way too much freedom to allow me to learn, because while I never truly broke rules, I would always push the limits, and unfortunately there were very few limits in my school.

I even managed to be suspended(as in not allowed to play baseball) by the school twice for academic failure. Which I can say is a rarity because normally my school was very accommodating to those with athletic gifts, I.E. they would pass you if you showed up to class, but I rarely went so failed I was.

The worst part of being suspended was they would announce it on the loudspeaker every time I was suspended so the entire school would be on my back, and this led to many people really disliking me because they had "school spirit".

My date life in high school was sporadic at best, because I hate airheads, (part of my frustration with my job) and well most girls who want to go out with the star catcher, are nothing but, and any intelligent girl who might have a figure that interested me, would tend to be put off by the fact that I was what they believed to be a "jock".

However throughout all four years in high school I managed to make a few friends they are people who have some interest in sports, and are also decently intelligent.

After graduation several things happened that changed my life completely.

I was drafted by a MLB team

The team that drafted me, their catcher broke his tibia in 5 places after a nasty slide/collision and was forced to retire.

And I made my first Major league start on September 2, 1997.

The decision by the club angered many, many players in the majors because they felt that since they were brought up slowly that its not right, and when baseball players don't like some one they try and make you look bad, and boy did they try. Pitchers threw curveballs on slider signs, fastballs on change signs, and then came the worst, other catchers would let umpires know I was bad mouthing them, so that not only was I getting disrespected from players but I wasn't getting my courtesies from the home plate umpire which made my job about 50 times harder.

But for all the torture I went through in my first 2 seasons ( I wasn't even close to rookie of the year by the way, something about players/and managers voting) the old expression that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger, was very close to the truth.

My next off season not only did I not play any baseball, but I spent the entire winter playing hockey, that's right good old fashioned puck. I would love to give credit to those who play in the NHL because frankly I would never take stitches during a game and never miss playing, neither would anyone I know in baseball.

That winter not only made the next year so much easier on me physically but I didn't care anymore about the other players, and so I developed this reputation as a player who was selfish and egotistical, and was only trying to improve my stats and make more money.

Though the last part was true, I had hired a very vicious agent, who I told screw any team loyalties I want the most money I could get out of a team.

The thing was though that very quietly I had donated 45% of my salary to certain charities (make-a-wish, diabetes, my favorite though was the policeman's widows foundation) all of these donations were followed by assurances that they would get the same amount next year as long as not a word was mentioned where they got it.

The other 65% my stock broker was making killings for me in the Internet and I.P.O.'s, I ended up not only recovering the other percentage but doubling it within a few months.

The first thing I did when I made a little money, was have a house built for my mother. Which was the least I could do to repay her for all the trouble I've put her through over the years.

To which I got the normal Jewish mothers concern.

"when are you going to get married? I want you to settle down with a nice Jewish girl, I also have some nice girls I want you to meet." My mother told me. And as much as I love my mother, I don't want her meddling in my love life.

My love life was something else once I got into the majors. It seems no matter how bad, small a part of a team, basically anybody on a pro baseball team can get women(and not dogs either I'm talking like 9's and 10's easy) unfortunately most of them tend to be either gold diggers, which are easy enough to spot out, or just groupies along for the ride, which does exactly allow for much of a relationship.