Never Give Up

by Paul Semendinger

April 29, 2026

***

NOTE - The following first appeared in the IBWAA's daily newsletter Here's The Pitch on April 25, 2026

***

As a child, I used to constantly dream of being a major league baseball player. In the years since, as I realized that I was not nearly good enough, I only thought about reaching the big leagues about 100 times a day. (Why the Yankees would want an old bald guy who can’t break 70 MPH with his fastball is beyond me, but I still sit in impatient anticipation of the call from the Yankees indicating that they want to sign me.)

My dad is 87 years old. He is still hopeful that the Red Sox call him. Old dreams die hard.

I was never a great baseball player. I was always the smallest kid in my grade. I had big-league dreams, but less than Little League talent.

When I was 16 years old and a junior in high school, I was the ace starting pitcher for the school’s team. There was only one problem. I wasn’t the ace on the varsity staff. I was the ace of the JV squad. But even that wasn’t the worst of it.

All of the other juniors (except me) made varsity. But even that wasn’t the worst of it. All of the sophomores, save for one other kid, also made varsity. As such, I was the ace of the JV team along with a bunch of freshmen. It was then that I realized (or began to realize) that my big-league dreams weren’t all that realistic.

By my senior year, my baseball career was over. I had a car. I had a girlfriend. I needed a job to pay for all of that. (I no longer have the car, a red 1976 Chevelle, but the girl stuck with me. She is my wife of 35 years.)

Eight years ago, I was asked to join a baseball team. Baseball. Not softball. I explained that even though I played a lot of softball, I could no longer hit a baseball. There is a wide gulf between slow pitch softball and even a slowly pitched baseball. The people wouldn’t relent. I eventually asked if the league had a designated hitter for the pitcher — and since it did, even though I hadn’t played baseball since I was a sixteen-year-old high school junior (this was the summer I turned fifty-years-old), I would give pitching a try.

Speaking much less to my talent than the skills of the players on that inaugural squad, I was soon the starting pitcher for our Opening Day.

We went winless that season. (No surprise there.)

Over the years, I have figured out a little bit more about pitching. I even took pitching lessons one winter. (At those lessons, it was me and a bunch of teenage boys at the facility. (I had my own instructor.) One kid there said I looked like Nolan Ryan. I took that as a compliment until I realized that Nolan Ryan was in his late 70’s at the time.)

A few weeks ago, our new season began again. I was again the Opening Day starter.

And I pitched the game of my life. I went 5 innings. I allowed only one hit. I walked one and struck out two. No runners scored. We won.

Every winter for the past many years, since I started playing baseball again, I wonder if I can still stand on the mound and throw strikes and get guys almost half my age out. (I pitch in a 35+ wood bat league.) For one more week, I did.

(I begin my winter throwing program in my basement in January and throw every week, getting to over 100 pitches at a time, to prepare my arm for the season. I didn’t go into the game cold and not ready. I am always ready...)

As the weather warms and the weeks go by, I will still wonder each week if I can throw strikes and get guys out. But for one more week, at least, I did.

Never, ever, give up on your dreams. Never believe you are too old or too slow. You can do more, today, and tomorrow, then you ever imagined.

Age is just a number.

***

Paul Semendinger is a frequent contributor for Here’s the Pitch. His newest Yankees book, The Greatest New York Yankees By Uniform Number, is getting rave reviews. Paul runs the Yankees’ site “Start Spreading the News.”