In August 2017, I was traded to the @Mets AAA team and back in my old stomping grounds of Las Vegas. Their MLB team was very thin on outfielders and I had put together a solid bounce back season. I was told by a club employee I had made a short list for potential September call-ups as we hit the road to finish out the month. After the game on August 30th, I sat at my locker in the Sacramento clubhouse anxiously waiting to get pulled into the managers office. I had worked so hard to overcome a brutal 2016 season and felt I had finally earned my shot at redemption. I checked @mlbtraderumors for the latest news and saw the Mets had claimed another MLB OF off waivers that day. I watched as a handful of guys funneled into the managers office, but my name was never called. A flurry of emotions hit me as I showered, changed into my clothes, and loaded into the van back to the hotel. My dream had been crushed, and rage started to set in. After an early morning team flight back to vegas, I had arrived back at my hotel. I did what most players do in this situation. I immediately picked up the phone to call my agent @joe_urbon to give him a piece of my mind. I bitched and complained about why I deserved to get called up, and finished the rant by saying I’m going to pack my bags and fly home that day. If they didn’t want to call me up, I wasn’t going to stick it out for the handful of games left on the AAA schedule. Prior to the 2017 season, I had made a pact with him that I wasn’t going to play the victim. No more bitching and whining about being in AAA. No more excuses and blaming other people as to why I wasn’t back in the show. That mindset had absolutely consumed me in 2016, and it led to the worst season of my career. Up until that point, I had held strong and been a great leader and teammate in the clubhouse. But, when the game ultimately punches you in the mouth, it’s easy to fall back into that victim mindset. He paused and asked “Are you done?” Then he proceeded to absolutely lay into me. I have never been so grateful to get yelled at. I listened quietly as he delivered hard truth after hard truth. My ego had been deflated. Reality had been delivered. As the old saying goes, you can’t control what happens to you, you can only control how you respond. And as my old skipper @ClintHurdle13 used to say, BE WHERE YOUR FEET ARE. Baseball (life) is guaranteed to deliver some hay makers. Often times it’s when WE FEEL as if we have it all figured out, or we have earned that next opportunity. When it doesn’t happen the way WE EXPECTED, it’s easy to feel sorry for yourself, pack your things, and quit. One of the proudest moments of my career was taking that conversation to heart and deciding to be a pro. To stick it out and honor what I had committed to before the start of the season. I’m sure a lot of people reading this can relate this to a similar experience in their life. It’s not always easy to do the right thing in the moment, which makes it important to surround yourself with people who aren’t afraid to hold you accountable. It’s not always easy to recognize when your emotions are causing you to self-destruct in a moment where there is a greater lesson to be learned. Leaning into hard things is the catalyst for self-growth. #mlb #septembercallups #baseball #life