I went to the same high school as Brad Pitt. He starred in the baseball movie Moneyball, which has a horribly depressing scene about the Kansas City Royals. I remember listening to that game on the radio while playing spades.
I went to the same college as John Goodman. He starred in the baseball movies The Babe and Trouble with the Curve. Thanks to my daughters, one of my favorite Goodman characters is Sulley from Monsters, Inc.
Both of these men had big-screen dreams and have been incredibly successful in their Hollywood careers. I had no such aspirations.
When I walked the halls where Brad Pitt walked, I dreamed of playing baseball for the Royals.
When I walked the halls where John Goodman walked, I was trying to figure out what my dreams were.
I have been an extra in two baseball documentaries. My total screen time is less than 60 seconds. I am perfectly comfortable being a smiling face in the background.
When John Murphy emailed me, “I’d like to make a documentary about playing catch,” my first response was equal parts excitement and unbelief.
“That sounds awesome,” I replied.
It took about five minutes for the initial excitement to be paired with sheer panic when I realized I would no longer be a face in the background, but was receiving a promotion to be a main character.
I do not have main character confidence.
One of my favorite words in the English language is courage. Courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means heart.
My personal definition of courage is, “Putting your heart into the world.” The biggest problem with putting your heart into the world is the chance that something might go wrong. The second biggest problem with putting your heart into the world is you can’t control how others respond to it.
Courage is simply vulnerability in action.
You don’t feel courageous in the moment. You feel like you want to throw up and you can’t sit still and you can’t stand up straight. That’s exactly how I felt on the first day of filming the documentary. Multiple times I asked Matt, the sound genius and Disney fan, if he could hear my heart in the microphone.
I think it was John, the producer, who replied, “We can hear your heart in your words.”
When John pulled up to the location of the first shoot, he grabbed his glove and we were playing catch while the crew did the glorious work of unloading vehicles and setting up the equipment.
We filmed over the course of four days, and I spent quality time with Mountain Biker Cody and Cool Tattoo Story Jeremy and volunteered my muscles over and over again to Minnesota Matt from St. Louis. We shared meals and played catch on breaks, which were my favorite moments.
We filmed in the spot where Dad first taught me how to catch a pop up.
We filmed in the spot where I had my last high school at bat.
We filmed on the campus where I met Jamie and in the church where we were married.
We filmed the first game of catch with my new Catching Leadership mentees and a Catching Community clinic with a middle school team.
And we finished the week filming in the coffee shop where I wrote A Year of Playing Catch.
While the crew interviewed my family and friends and other catch experts, there was quite a bit of time sitting silently and reflecting on the arc of the last eight years.
On January 1, 2018, when my daughters asked me, “Dad, what would happen if you played catch every day for a year?”, I never could have imagined it would lead to the surreal experiences of the past week.
Borrowing from Dr. Seuss, “Oh, the places you’ll go!”
And from Spencer Durham, “Oh, the people you’ll meet!”
Playing catch has become a “metaphor for life,” as luthier Martin Schleske wrote, teaching me how to pay attention to the good in the world right here, right now.
And in the life-changing words of Steven Pressfield, I think playing catch is “nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.”
There’s still a lot of filming to do, and then all the hours of editing and shaping it into a final story. When the film is finished, I know I’ll again be excited and embarrassed and all-the-emotions at seeing myself on the big screen.
But I’m putting my heart into the world exactly how 10-year-old me would have wanted me to, playing ball and making friends.
Maybe Brad Pitt said it best in Moneyball, “How can you not be romantic about baseball?”
