Choice, not chance, determines one's destiny.......

[Al Doran]

Subject: Choice, not chance, determines one's destiny.......
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 22:37:20 -0500
From: "Mike Groves" <MG(at)fedlock.com>
To: "Al Doran" <fastball(at)pmihrm.com>



"Choice, not chance, determines one's destiny....."
--unknown

I'm looking forward to joining forces with classy Kyle Beane (and one of 
the Major game's top sluggers) & The Midland Men in Orlando at Disney in 
January of 2006.  Alex Linares & Ken Hackmeister truly put on one of the 
finest men's open fastball tourneys known to the sport.  Disney, known for 
its kooky fantastical characters, clears the decks for some hard-core 
spikes-up reality action when the men's fastball teams come to town from 
all over the hemisphere.

Quality always speaks for itself, doesn't it?  Witness the fact that Disney 
has become the second-largest men's open fastball tourney in the 
world.  Some of the finest umpires in the game, such as Brian Sharples all 
the way down from Canada, make it a point to journey to Orlando, often at 
their own expense, in order to "see the good stuff" and fine-tune their 
game before the Major circuit commences.   The reality, the truth.

"En su equipo de beisbol es la verdad."
-- roughly translated, from the Spanish:  within your baseball team you 
will find the truth.

One of my finest memories is of our initial foray into the Dominican 
Republic.  Courtesy of Frankie Perez, one of the classiest ballplayers 
ever, FedLock had the opportunity to compete against the Dominican National 
Team.  Frankie took care of us, and I will always remember his actions as 
one of the true statesmen of the game.  My original report may still be on 
the superb fastpitch site, <http://www.fastpitchwest.com>www.fastpitchwest.com.

Ball teams from around North America and the Carribbean and Latin America 
and South America will present a spicy international flavor to the AAU 
gig.  It's always a classic match-up to see a steely-eyed, grimly quiet 
Canada-based team square off against one of the chatty, boisterous South 
American teams with their raucous, drum-beating South American fans.  The 
game is always intense & beautiful.  The opponents have completely 
different styles of play that make for a fascinating war of cultures, a 
strong-arm contest of the minds, the game within the game, and yet each is 
playing the game as they know how, with all that they have.  "Leave 
everything that you've got on the field" rings crystal clear.

Several FedLock vets, and previous Orlando champions with FedLock, will be 
joining up with our "conglomerate" in Orlando.  Paul Walford and Kenny 
Coles are making the trek, specifically to be with the fellas 
again.  Walford and Coles, two of the most passionate ballplayers ever to 
lace 'em up & run rampant in a ballyard.  And I'm fortunate indeed to see 
'em staring hard at me from the batter's box, waiting for a sign, then 
stepping in and swingin' some serious metal.

In a tourney now in the past, FedLock won the Orlando event with a similar 
motley crew of ballplayers.  Lineup cards were sent in on the backs of 
ripped up softball boxes.  Caps were $ 3.00 models of tackiness with 
disco-gold initials emblazoned on the front.  Jerseys?  Oh, no:  tee shirts 
that didn't make it through the weekend.  And a 55 year old pitcher with 10 
stitches in his chin gutted it out to pitch the final game to win it.  I 
recall that team with great fondness, because it exemplified what the game 
is about.  Great FedLock pitching in the form of Gerald Muizelaar, Brian 
Urquhart, and Ricky Plangger.  Wild & effective coaching from Nick 
McCurry.  Great defense.  And a mixed motley lineup that went out there & 
played the game.


"Problems can not be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."
--  Albert Einstein

Ah, the game of fastball.  You think you're playing a game.  And one day 
you look around and you realize the thing is inside you.  Sometimes, it's 
not only inside you, hell, you realize that it has become you.

It can be unnerving that way.  One wonders what has happened, what has 
changed, has anything changed at all, what matters other than one's team, 
the dedication the passion, the fear and the glory.  That glory that is so 
rare.  Doesn't matter that crowds have diminished, doesn't matter that the 
game's caretakers have fumbled the legacy so badly, doesn't matter that the 
media doesn't even know about these superb ballplayers on several continents.

It's all about your guys, really, the ones who take up the cudgels of the 
sport, who take the ball, exhausted, again and again.  Because it ain't 
about all that hype & beer tent yakkety yak.  It's about your mates and 
that's it.  And very, very few people understand that.  Your wife, as much 
as she claims to know you, may not understand the powerful forces that the 
team will always be in your life.

Ah, yeah, riding into Fargo, North Dakota on a late summer's night, a van 
load full of Americans, Kiwis, Canadians, black guys, white dudes, 
Christian, Jewish, you name it, something on the sound system that everyone 
is singing along with, happy to be alive, happy to be together with men who 
they know they can depend on, going to the Worlds.  For many fastball 
players the ultimate achievement just to take the field at The Show.

A sidelight:  For years, two of my guys on FedLock were Kenny Coles (2b) & 
Chop Brewer (book).  Both originally from inner-city Washington, DC.  And I 
had a couple guys from New Zealand on my team, Darren "The Chicken" 
Davies  and Gareth Cook.  All four cats, total class guys.  And when these 
guys first encountered each other , they literally could not understand 
each other.

All of them spoke English, sure, but black American English and Kiwi 
English were from different zones.   But.  These guys found their own 
solutions.  Until they could figure out what the other was saying, which 
took weeks, they just smiled at each other & said "ok, bro!" or "yah, 
mate!"  It was quite an interesting experience to see the American guys 
explaining the meaning of "bro" and the Kiwis in turn explaining "mate."

Watching a bunch of guys from different cultures, as vastly different as 
you could possibly imagine, start to work it out with each other in the 
course of a season, forging bonds that will last lifetimes, knowing in 
their gut the power of it all............. but not ever acknowledging what 
it really means................ probably not realizing what it all meant 
until they get older someday......

............later, sitting, in the quiet moments......... you may think 
about that guy you were teammates with long ago, and how powerful that was, 
how it was the truth, the most valid thing you'd ever encountered in a 
lifetime spent struggling to make it, to be who you are, in a world where 
you never really know who you can count on.  Nowadays, you just never 
really know, do you?  Yet, there was a time when you did.  In a 
ballyard.  And only you know it, only you know what that truly meant.

Life.

And all of its heartbreaks.  And disappointments.  And quiet joy.

You always discover a man's true character on something that provokes 
extremes.  On a ballfield one can always see heart.  Or lack 
thereof.  Players who play "through" pain.  Ah, what a crock, no one ever 
plays through pain, it's breaking the guy down every minute, and yet he 
wants so badly to keep going, until he has to be dragged from the 
field.  What defines incredible champions when the mind & the heart 
overwhelm the body's pain ?  Jody Hennigar in St Joe, 2001, inning after 
inning in 110 degree plus heat until he literally had to be carted off in 
an ambulance.  Gareth Cook, ignoring a severe quadriceps tear to go 11 for 
11 in Waterloo with 3 home runs, and play the field without uttering a word 
of complaint.  The list of warrior / ballplayers is endless.  "Just tape me 
up, I ain't sitting out, get me out there with the fellas."  These are the 
warriors.

Ah, yes.  I've always been impressed with the intangibles of the game.  We 
(FedLock) were in Orillia one year when one of our American outfielders 
just tore up his back.  Couldn't play, could barely walk, in extreme 
pain.  Paul Barnetson, the Orillia Gem, asked a local doctor to look at our 
guy.  It turns out that the doc was not your average bones.  He was advisor 
to the Canadian Olympic Team.  And he not only takes care of our guy, he 
stops by the hotel to see how our guy is doing.  And provides extra 
treatments for the entire weekend that we are in Orillia.  What I've come 
to tell people is typical Canadian hospitality for guests.  Stunning for an 
American observer, I must say.

Another intangible:  Matt Birmingham, broadcasting game after game for 
Porcelli's teams.  Thankless, endless tasks.  Putting his words out into 
the air, not knowing if 10 or 10,000 are listening.  Doing it every time, 
for the love of it and because he believes in what he is doing.  The 
intangibles of the game.  Endless.........

Endless.  One hopes, eh?  One hopes for endless memories...

Fastball.  Fastpitch.  It's hard to explain, some people say, how the game 
gets hold of you. But I always say, nah mon......it's not hard to explain 
at all.  Anyone who has a competitive bone in his body, and passion, and an 
understanding of this thing called Life........they get it.  They 
know.  Deep down, in the gut, they know.  Even as winter sweeps over the 
North American landscape, they intuitively understand.  You step back and 
you close your eyes and you remember and you know........you do know..........

So there you have it, something that I've been mulling over for a long 
time.  Many more thoughts, but perhaps another time, eh, somewhere down the 
road?

If you've read this far, I commend you.......

Regards,

Mike
Always FedLock

Michael Groves
Vice President
Federal Lock & Safe, Inc.
5130 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22205
USA
<mailto:falcon at fedlock.com>falcon(at)fedlock.com





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