Spring training is in the air, and with baseball on the way, I figured I would give you guys a look into the real me. I’m the athlete who could have gone anywhere in the country to play baseball, but decided to come to Syracuse to pursue my dream of living in an igloo.

The doctors said I was born with a glove in my hand, and after removing this anomaly of science from my body, they thought I would be pretty good at sports, too. I was born on the same day as Lil B TheBasedGod, also known as the founder of the Based God’s curse, so you could say I was destined for greatness.

When I was around 5 and started T-ball, the legend began to grow. As soon as the scouts started showing up to games, my parents knew that there was a possibility of something special. I still remember the day Derek Jeter asked for my autograph, but I had to decline because I did not know cursive (I still don’t know cursive.)

But like all fallen idols, the success began to get to my head. First it was the applesauce endorsement, then the free Nintendo from middle school boosters. I thought I was invincible, but I soon found out that even the coolest 7 year olds need to take a time out. It was around then when my parents broke the news to me: I was too good at baseball. They had been getting complaints from parents that I was getting so good that the confidence of every boy in local elementary schools was in jeopardy. So I did what any kid with integrity would do.

To save a generation, I decided to become the worst baseball player known to man. I was the ballplayer my town wanted, but just not the player it deserved. And thus began the hero’s journey.

The greatest ruse ever played took years to pull off. It took a lot of effort — countless weekends playing Backyard Baseball on the computer, trying to convince myself I liked golf and working on my synchronized swimming routine — in order to block out the pain of not playing baseball. But in order to give the kids a chance, it was what I had to do.

There were times I wanted to give up and be amazing at sports again. But through it all, I kept my mentor in mind. Like many, I wanted to be like Mike. Michael Jordan’s brilliant example of striving to be a below-average baseball player made it easy for me to focus on my own game. It’s why he’s the greatest. If he was striking out, why couldn’t I?

Hard work on and off the field made it so convincing. I would study the hitting approaches of my new heroes — Chone Figgins, Wilson Betemit, Kazuo Matsui — all so great at getting out that I didn’t think I could do it. On the fielding side, I would get home and watch countless videos of throwing and fielding errors from Manny Ramirez to prepare for any situation in which the coach called my name.

To get the full aesthetic of a Little League burn out, I had to look the part. Often I would wear sneakers to games on grass, wear my pants all the way rolled down and became known as the Babe Ruth of passing Gatorades from the cooler. There was no one more prepared to spit sunflower seeds all over his jersey.

Pro-littleleaguereference.com has my final career statistics — I will forever go down as a .083 hitter with more strikeouts than Kevin Federline’s eHarmony profile. But I like to think of my time as a Little Leaguer with great pride.

I hope this explains to all of my Little League teammates and coaches why I looked like an idiot all those years. I was doing it to protect you.

Danny Cuneo is a junior television, radio and film major. His favorite midnight snack is Big League Chew. His column runs every Thursday in Pulp. He can be reached at dacuneo@syr.edu.

Published on February 26, 2015 at 12:01 am