⚾️ FIELD GUIDE 48: Throwing Gas

One random day I found myself the admin of an… interesting… Facebook group. Landen Kovar joined the group and we’ve been cutting up ever since. Joining us this week from Texas, Landen shares the love of his life with us—Baseball.

I will admit, theres nothing quite like a ball field hot dog and beer or your favorite team rallying for a major comeback win. But Landen lives and breathes baseball and heavy metal music… and hilarious memes. But mostly baseball.

This weekend, I encourage you to remember it’s not always about winning, but focusing on something that can be improved, even if it’s in small steps. No matter the magnitude of your chosen improvement, you’ll walk away feeling like you just hit the game-winning home run ⚾️.

Name

Landen Kovar

Occupation

Baseball player

Habitat

Texas

Soundtrack

(Spotify)

“It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball” - Billy Beane, VP and former GM of the Oakland Athletics

Baseball is one of the most unique sports there is, that’s part of the reason I fell in love with it all those years ago.

It is a complex game of strategy, coming down to the finest of movements and split second decisions that don’t even seem humanly possible. It is said that the rule book of baseball is so big that no one player ever stops learning about the game. Even with the rules set aside, there’s still so much to learn.

Everything that you know as a ball player mainly depends on the position that you play on the field, different plays, different strategies, even different ways of communicating with your teammates.

I don’t think any of that is why I got into baseball though. I played T-ball when I was 5 years old by the decision of my parents to get me to try out sports. Needless to say I hated it, I only showed up because I got snacks afterwards. I would just sit in right field picking the grass until the game was over. Same result when I stepped up to the plate, I didn’t really care, I could’ve thought of 100 different things I’d rather be doing instead of that.

So, after that I didn’t go back to T-ball. I didn’t like it and my parents were paying for it, so what was the point?

It wasn’t until I was about 9 years old when I was first starting to get into the internet that I began watching baseball clips on YouTube . This is when I became obsessed with throwing a ball faster than anyone I knew. So I asked my step dad, who had been an all-star pitcher when he was my age, to teach me how to play baseball. I could throw decently hard and I could run pretty fast so my dad took it upon himself to teach me to play the outfield.

We played catch every so often when he was home and I would throw to the fence in my backyard a few times a week but I wasn't really getting any better. It wouldn’t be until a few years later when I was 12 that I would play in my first organized baseball league.

I tried out and I absolutely sucked. Everyone threw harder than me and with more accuracy, and kids half my size were crushing the ball when I could barely make contact.

Against all odds, I got picked by one of the coaches and I was playing for the Katy American little league Astros. We lost every game that season. The next season we won one single game and lost the rest. By now, I was about to go to high school, a much more competitive playing field. I knew I had to step up my game if I wanted to compete. I tried out for the high school summer league program, and it was the same as little league. I still sucked and everyone else was insanely good, there was a lefty on that team throwing 85 mph at age 14!

I made it through summer league once again not winning a single game, and I advanced into High school. All throughout my 4 years in High School we won maybe 20 games in total, but I had gotten used to losing at that point so it didn't bother me anymore.

Even though I played on a notoriously bad team in our district, I still made progress, I went from throwing 66 as a freshman, to topping out at 89 my senior year, I also figured out that I sucked at hitting, so I became a full time pitcher. By senior year, I was one of the top in the district for throwing velocity.

Even though all that is great, the main thing I will always cherish are my teammates, and the coaches, and everyone who helped me along the way. I don’t talk to many of them now, but my current team mates might as well be my family.

Baseball teaches you many lessons. It makes you come together as friends to win a game that you all love. It leaves you with lifelong memories and lifelong friends; that is why I fell in love with baseball. It truly is one of the most unique sports out there.