This is me as a two-year-old slugger.

This is my brother Dwin on his first day of tee-ball - he got the full uni, I only got a cap.

This is me, my brothers Dwin and Ben, our friend Mal, and Hall of Fame legend Johnny Bench.

This is my brother Ben and Hall of Fame legend Nolan Ryan.

This is my brother Ben and Hall of Fame legend Wade Boggs.

This is me the moment I realized I was never going to play baseball again.

This is me, Lisa, and Survivor Africa winner Ethan Zohn at the 2002 World Cup in Korea.

This is me and my niece Cayden caught in a blizzard at Cinderella's castle in Neuschwanstein, Germany - she lived in Tampa at the time and had never seen snow, and I promised her if she came to Germany it would snow for her. Am I good, or what?

This is me, my brothers Dwin and Ben, and our dad, at Tropicana Field.

This is my mom and Cayden at The Trop for a Red Sox game.

This is my dad and I at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. I had to fly from Oklahoma City to Frankfurt, Germany - so I did what any reasonable fan would do; I checked potential layovers against the baseball schedule.
 
Atlanta was at Cincinnati for a FOX Saturday Game of the Week. I told my dad, who was in Florida, what I was doing. When I got to the airport in Cincinnati he was there waiting for me. We went to the game and then went back to the airport. I flew to Germany and he got on a plane back to Florida. 

This is me and my SBTN co-authors at Barry Switzer's house. Barry is a way cool guy - you should see the stuff on his shelf.

And this is my niece with Joe Maddon.
 
Joe is an interesting guy - not that I know him, but he was nice enough when we were at games a couple of years ago when only a few hundred people were there for batting practice. 

I thought I'd seen a lot of cool things in my lifetime - hung out with a lot of cool people, gone to a lot of cool places, done a lot of cool things. I really didn't think there was much more I could see that would surprise me. 
 
This is the 2008 pennant-winning Tampa Bay Rays. 

I have been to The Trop every year since the Rays began play and, if I'm being completely honest, I thought this could never happen. 

I was wrong, of course. 

And I have never been so happy about being so wrong in my entire life.