It's Here

First off I want to thank everyone on the message boards and people who have sent me emails for wishing me good luck and get well wishes. I try to respond to them as much as possible so if I have forgotten you, I apologize. So I'm finally close to being 100% and will be ready to go by opening night.

Bottom line is the season officially starts tomorrow out in Battle Creek, we have a meeting at 5pm to open up camp. I don't know what to expect to be honest with you, I'm very excited to start playing again and I'm anxious to see how the body responds. Hopefully everything will check out alright and I won't have any problems. The long journey starts later tonight, it will take about 14 hours to get from Boston to Battle Creek. I don't know how far I'll get tonight driving, I'm hoping to get a good 8 or 9 hours of the trip behind me.

A lot of times in this world I take things for granted, complain about long bus trips or playing in the low minors. It takes a lot to deal with the adversity we as players go thru, but our lives are still pretty good; we get paid to play a game, our housing is paid for, we get meal deals around the city and we get equipment for free. All in all it's a pretty good deal. I'm a country music fan so every song tells a story, some are happy and fun but others tell stories of struggle. Driving home the other night I saw a man living out of his car next to a laundrymat. I read a story in a magazine about a guy in a car wreck who crushed his pelvis, his heart was moved to the right side of his chest, both lungs collapsed, lost 60% of his blood, died 8 times on the operating table and lost 100 pounds...Three years later after learning how to walk and blink again he finished the Ford Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. Those are problems, that's having a rough life. It put everything back into perspective for me, whether this is my last season before I move onto the rest of my life or just a stepping stone to the next couple of seasons I might as well have fun doing it. Some people aren't so lucky.

Stay tuned over the next couple days I will have daily updates from training camp.