stay positive.

saw this commercial last night during the home run derby. gives me chills.

ken griffey jr was definitely one of my favorites growing up. being a left handed hitter myself, i used to imitate his swing all the time in the batting cages. you could always tell he had so much fun playing baseball and in a time when a lot of the “best” players were experimenting with steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, griffey never needed to. his pure talent was all he need to be, quite literally, leaps and bounds better than almost anyone else.

this commercial also brings back a lot of memories for me. this was my “golden age” of baseball. the mid-90s. griffey on the mariners. cal ripken’s streak. the braves’ absolute dominance of the national league east. the feeling as a little kid that these guys were superheroes who were capable of doing things regular people just couldn’t. i used to spend HOURS in my basement just throwing a little ball at the wall and practicing making diving catches, hoping that one day i could grow up to be one of those superheroes.

while that’s obviously not the path i eventually took and my dreams may have changed, i love that all it takes is a simple tv commercial to bring all those feelings flooding back. and that all i want to do right now this second is practice making diving catches.

i spent a few years away from baseball, whether touring the country or just focusing on other things, but this year i’ve gotten back into it in a big way. and it feels really good. the braves are in first place again and i’m really excited to see what the second half of the season brings. not to mention the braves have a new and exciting young (REALLY young) player that reminds me a lot of griffey…

i definitely didn’t mean to write this much about that commercial, but it just kind of came out, haha. baseball!!