Derek McGowan threw a 97 mph fastball as a young pitcher and chased that high for six years, neglecting the fundamentals that made him good. The rush of that one moment cost him his career.
10 times, your whole baseball career relies on how you throw a baseball 10 times. Crazy how they do it. And I feel like I was at the cut, the beginning cusp of kind of the radar gun era of baseball where, you know, it was all about how fast you threw. So I can remember vividly that day I threw the first 7 pitches, maybe like 90, 93 miles an hour, which is respectable. But also the scouts weren't jumping outta their seats. They were, eh, fine, whatever, great. And I'm like, I gotta make a difference. I got 3 pitches left. So I just reared back and threw it as hard as I could. And 97, everybody got out of their seats, spilling their sunflower seeds and crap all over the place. And like, oh, that was good. I got a reaction. I've never seen that before. How do we do that? So then it was 97, 96, the last two pitches. And I got some attention from the professional scouts. I chased that euphoria, that feeling, that moment for the next 6 years of my baseball career. And I never quite found it because I lost my foundation. I was going for the shiny object. Mm-hmm.
