Lesson learned: it’s not the tools.

“I’ll never make it to the Majors with this mitt,” I said. “Your glove is fine,” my parents replied. “If you want a new glove, get a job and pay for it with your own money.”

So that’s what I did. At age ten, I got my first job. I washed mugs in a root-beer stand across from the Arkansas State Hospital in Little Rock. I walked to work and home each afternoon and saved my twenty cents an hour until I had enough for my new glove.

I learned a valuable lesson that summer. Sometimes it’s more than equipment holding people back; sometimes, it’s talent. But the more important lesson for me, all these years later, is how I should have given the money to my coach and asked him to help me be a better second baseman.