Ben Orlando

But I feel like I struck out just about every time I came to the plate.

And so I don't know what it was exactly.

But then my dad was pretty typical.

You know, yelling from the fence, getting into fights with the coach.

And like it didn't make for a very pleasant experience a lot of the time.

And then practice too.

Like there's a lot of pressure there.

There's a lot of yelling.

And so, you know, you're talking about kids having fun and giving their best.

It's hard to have fun when it feels like there's that pressure and there's going to be some kind of consequence to not doing it right, to making mistakes.

So all that was there and I got out of baseball as a player.

probably at the age of 13, 12 or 13.

And then I played tennis.

But I continued to follow it.

And I collected baseball cards, just got to know all the different players.

And when I went to the Peace Corps, I disconnected again from all sports.

So when I came back, I didn't follow any sports for years.

And it was actually reading.

I'm a writer.

I read a lot and just getting back into baseball novels.