By Luke Melms
Maybe you are still chasing the dream. Maybe your days on a baseball field are behind you. Wherever you find yourself, the lessons you’ve learned from baseball can never be taken away from you.
Part of the purpose of this community is to be a platform to share stories of players who have already made decisions you may be facing when it comes to on the field and off the field life events.
Here’s a recent email we received from former St. Louis Cardinals minor leaguer and now IT Project Manager Steve Sabatino…
When I went away to college, I had one thing on my mind. Baseball. After I received Tommy John surgery I started to let my school work slip. If I couldn’t play baseball, what was the point of being in school? I got to a tipping point where I felt like I was failing across the board so I made the decision to dedicate myself to my classwork the way I’d dedicated myself to baseball. The feeling of “winning” was back.
Fast forward 3 years and I am about to come home for my first professional off-season. I knew that one day, my baseball career would be over. On top of that my parents were going through a divorce that had the house in limbo so I needed to fend for myself. I reached out to 50+ companies trying to sell myself as a temporary hire for our 6 month off-season. One company gave me a chance and worked my tail off not only to pay the bills but to compete with my team.
Fast forward another 3 years and I received the dreaded call. I’d been released by the St. Louis Cardinals. Fortunately, at this point I wasn’t at square one looking for an entry level job and starting a completely new career. I was able to just switch gears and focus 100% of my efforts on my professional career.
One thing I’ve learned is that in baseball we all have so much in common that it is truly a brotherhood. I’d love to share the details of my story from the good decisions to the bad to hopefully help impact the next guy coming out of the game. I’m excited to hear how others have made the transition.
If you are interested in sharing your story through the Baseball and Business website, please click here to send a message through the website. All you need to do is share a brief story like Steve to start with. We will coordinate in building it out with more detail to be a published article on the Baseball and Business website in the future. All of the editing will be taken care of for you so don’t be shy if you aren’t the best proofreader in the world.
