"The Final Inning - My View From the Stands" (4/8)

Coach Mark gave me Shawn Nottingham’s phone number. Shawn gave pitching lessons to some of the pitchers in the area. So, I did a little investigation.

Shawn Nottingham was a local product out of Jackson High School in Massillon, Ohio and was quite the star. He was a left-handed pitcher, drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the 13^th round of the 2003 Amateur Baseball Draft. He bounced around the minors for four or five years, pitching in the minor league affiliates of the Mariners, the Cleveland Indians and finally, the Pittsburgh Pirates. 

Eventually, a torn labrum stole 10 miles per hour off his fastball and never quite gave it back and Shawn was out of the game.

Shawn started giving Bryce pitching lessons in the summer of 2014 and was his pitching coach through his senior season of high school in 2018. Bryce built quite a bond with Shawn during those four years and the two shared a genuine friendship that actually made the lessons fun for them both. The cash I handed Shawn at the end of each lesson made it that much MORE fun for him. 😉

Going to Shawn was the fourth critical decision in Bryce’s baseball career.

Bryce learned how to pitch from the ground up with Shawn and any success that he had as a pitcher, was due in large part to the tutelage of Shawn Nottingham. The mechanics, the leg kick, the balance, the stride, the stretch, the arm slot, the vast array of pitches, the pick-off moves, the mindset, the strategy, the demeanor… everything about the art of pitching… Shawn did a tremendous job of transferring into the mind and body of his young pupil. And I will be forever thankful to him for that.

In the fall of 2014, Bryce entered high school. Freshman year.

Around November, the high school baseball team started meeting on Sunday nights at the high school for “open gym” where they would throw and hit in the drop-down batting cages. It was one of those “non-mandatory but really mandatory” type things. Bottom line… if you were trying to make a team, you’d better make every effort to be present. Perfectly reasonable expectation, by the way.

Much to Bryce’s chagrin, a few times when I dropped him off for Sunday night hitting, I’d hang around and watch. I needed to size up the competition. The first thing that jumped out at me was the number of freshmen that were going out for baseball.

Twenty-two! There were 22 freshmen alone!

That was and is the largest single class representation in Northwest High School baseball program history. At least I’m 99% sure of that.

There were about 50 kids in the program that season. They would have three squads… varsity, junior varsity and freshman… with no more than 15 or 16 per roster. That meant there would be cuts.

Bryce attended every hitting session, every conditioning session after Christmas break and continued working with Shawn throughout the winter. Bryce and I also started a weekly routine that would continue for years. Every Thursday night, we would drive to Canton and buy batting cage tokens at the “Grand Slam” indoor facility, where Bryce would take 96 swings (6 tokens x 16 balls per token). After the hitting, we’d go across the street and eat at Chick Fil A. This was our “guy time.”

Bryce prepared himself with as much gusto as he could muster and that I could encourage. He never once complained about this regimen. He just worked.

When they posted the rosters, Bryce was one of only four freshmen that made the junior varsity team. It was a proud moment. His work was paying off.

16 ninth graders were assigned to the freshmen team and two were cut.

It was a fun first year of high school ball for Bryce. The JV team had a winning record and Bryce performed well in all facets of the game… hitting, defense and pitching.

Coach Mac was Bryce’s JV coach and he was excited about this freshman class. After the high school season, Coach Mac put together a summer team made up of Northwest kids from various grades. Bryce was excited to play on that team and Coach Mac batted him second in the line-up, just as he had during the regular season.

I was in hog heaven. There were games almost every night and I was thoroughly enjoying the development of my son into a confident, competent young baseball player. He had come so far.

I got to work early one day during that summer season and checked my calendar for the game location for that night. Good… it was a home game.

As I started my tasks, I noticed a burning sensation in my upper chest area. I did what all men do… I tried to ignore it. But it persisted.

I had also noticed, that since spring, when I exerted myself mowing my lawn or some other task… that I’d get a similar burning sensation. But this was the first time it came on with no physical exertion.

After about 30 minutes with no relief, I walked down to my wife’s office (yes, we work at the same company) and told her that we better head to the emergency room.

Why am I telling this story in the middle of Bryce’s baseball career re-cap? Ha ha… stay tuned.

We got to the ER and they ran a battery of tests, focusing primarily on my heart function. The doc walks in with my chart and tells me that my EKG and blood tests come back normal. No evidence of a heart attack.

“Great! Can I go now?”

Not so fast. The doctor explained to me that about half of the ER doctors would discharge me at this point and the other half would not. He was a member of the latter half of doctors. His recommendation was that I check into their “Chest Pain Center” and allow them to monitor me for the next 12 hours and run some more extensive tests. He said that he takes any chest discomfort very seriously.

I, of course, favored the first half of the doctors and told him that I was leaving.  When pressed as to “why” I insisted on ignoring his recommendation, I told him the truth, “My son has a baseball game tonight.”

That was met with a cold, icy stare from the doc as well as my wife.

Needless to say, I stayed. And as fate would have it, at about 9PM that night, they discovered a 95% blockage in the main artery leading to my heart. The next morning, they installed a stent.

The doctor who put in the stent told me that had I waited any longer, I may not have made it more than a few days.

I was discharged two days after my visit to the ER and was at Bryce’s game the same day of my discharge.

I loved watching my kid play baseball. Can you tell?

To be continued...