This blog will not come out until after Opening Day has come and gone for the Milwaukee Brewers, but nothing says Spring like Baseball. Baseball is my family’s language. We talk baseball everyday, every night. No matter if it’s 85 degrees with a little cross wind or if it is negative 10 degrees with ferocious wind, we are talking Brewers baseball. Do not get me wrong, we talk about other sports, we talk about politics and we talk about each other, but Brewers baseball is our language. I would think the Brewer’s star outfielder Christian Yelich also has a family where baseball is their language. In fact, he discussed how much baseball means to him in a podcast a few months ago. He talked about when he was a kid, he woke up to play baseball and fell asleep thinking about playing baseball. He also talked about the mindset of becoming a star player. It was very interesting.

We do not hear much about the mindset of players going through this very unusual situation of becoming a star. Yelich who was traded from Miami to come to Milwaukee was a good player but was not the star he would soon be. He said when he first came to Milwaukee, he could go down to downtown without anyone asking him a question, he felt truly comfortable in his first year. In that year, his success on the field was incredible. He was named the NL MVP and his life changed from being a good player on a small market team, to being the best player in the league and one of the faces of the MLB. In the podcast he discussed his naiveness to stardom. He wanted to go to the grocery store but now he felt he cannot because he feels everyone is watching what he does and judges him for what food he gets. Could you imagine not feeling comfortable to leave your house to get groceries because everyone will look at you, I cannot. The amount of mental focus you need to have to stay grounded as a person, succeed on the field and yet still have a meaningful life is truly unthinkable to me.

He also talked about something else, and that is when the 2018 season was ending and Yelich was the best player on the field. When he came to bat the whole Milwaukee Crowd would yell in unison “MVP!” When he discussed this with the podcast host, he said “I wish every person could experience that feeling.” Yelich is not saying he wishes everyone could be a great athlete but rather he is saying, to have 40,000+ people cheering for you is an experience of euphoria. Just thinking about that experience gives me chills. I think during the pandemic we did better about spotlighting the unsung heroes in our community, and hopefully as a society we continue to do that after the pandemic is over. As far as Yelich on the Brewers, I hope my family is cheering often this year, but if I am upset at a player, I will be reminded they are a person just like me trying to get some groceries.

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