People have asked me why I’m walking away from Allentown. Why I’m leaving a team that wants me and, some say, needs me. So I’ll try to explain.

Maybe you’ve noticed something different in my pitching these last two seasons. My pitching coach, Nolan Ryan, said my delivery was the same. He said he couldn’t tell what the difference was by watching me on the mound. He could tell, though, by looking at the numbers. My ERA was higher. My wins were fewer and my losses more numerous.

It just wasn’t working. Some pitchers don’t fit in with some teams. It’s not anybody’s fault, but it’s everybody’s problem. So I’m taking it upon myself to solve the problem. Or my half of it anyway.

I’m talking to a lot of people. Some of them are people I talked to my first time around. Some are new faces. But they all have the same questions. What kind of money am I looking for? Where would I want to be in the rotation? How many years would I stay?

That’s not the way I’m approaching it though. I have money. I’m not about being an ace. And I want the flexibility to determine how long I stay after I’ve been there awhile.

I’m looking for a situation. I want to make a difference. I tried that in Allentown and it didn’t work so well. Maybe it plays better in another city with a different team. I don’t want to be the staff ace. I’m good enough and everything, it’s not that. If it doesn’t work out, i don’t want to take the whole ship with me.

I know there are a lot of girls out there who look up to me. And I don’t want any of them to feel disappointed. I want to find a situation where I can not only succeed, but exceed expectations. And that’s what I’m looking for now.

I have a couple places in mind. We’ll see what happens over the next week or so.

Sometimes the truth is simple. It’s easy to look at my record and see that I’m around .500. Sometimes the truth is more subtle. I’ve given up 87 runs this season. Of those, 72 were earned runs. That means that roughly 20% of the runs I’ve given up have been unearned. I like my boys. I really do. But I can’t keep on taking sole responsibility for this situation. I don’t know what to do, though.

There are other truths that are hard to face. It’s been over a year since I’ve had a man in my life. That’s because I thought I knew who I wanted there. We had one night together and then … I messed it up. Sometimes the truth is ugly. I spent a night with someone else. That was a bad decision on my part and I regret it but I can’t undo it. And he doesn’t want a woman who sleeps around. So there it is. He’s someone I work with, so I had to re-examine some of my assumptions. But I think I could’ve made it work.

I had strung together some wins and I actually got back to .500. Then I ran into Derek Hollaar in Toronto. He only gave up one run. I gave up four. This time it was all my fault. But I kinda knew him off the field because I met him at Banana Joes when the Celtics were in Allentown. So after the game, I called him and we got together and had a few drinks at Fregata. He’s only 20. I sort of had the idea he was a couple of years older. He’s a competitor. I respect that. We can be friends and he still wants to beat me. That’s how it should be. I don’t like hearing that a guy will go easy on me. I wanna win, but I wanna win the old-fashioned way–I want to earn it.

And the next time I saw him, back in Harper field, I did beat him. 2-0. Shutouts are great, but shutting out your friends is even better. Did I mention he was young? I invited him back to my place to toss a few back. We played some NEBL Inside the Lines 2014. I beat him at that, too. Then we did Home Run Derby–using ourselves. And he won that. He carries a big bat for a pitcher. It was a great time. I’ll have to have him over again.

Last night, I had a dream about Derek. He and I were both pitching for my hometown Astros and we went to the World Series. And lost. To Hartford. We were the wild card team, like in 2005. It was a three-man rotation and since it was my dream, I started games one and four. Derek was #2 and Roy O. was #3. They say that dreams have meaning. If so, this one means that even if we had Derek and Roy, we’d've still lost to Hartford last year. Don’t look at me, though. I won one of my starts. Against Casey Lane. He beat me in game four though.

My waking dream is that we beat Hartford in the Patriot Cup. Or Halifax. Or whoever. The important part is the winning. We’ve got a good team so we can do it. One game at a time, though. First we win today’s game. We’ll worry about tomorrow’s game tomorrow.

I have an easy life. I wake up in the morning and go to the ballpark. I put on the uniform of a major league baseball team. And every fifth day, I pitch to major league hitters. And I get paid to do all of this. A goodly amount.

Trouble is, I’m not as good at it as I used to be. I can tell this by looking at my ERA. Two years ago, it was 2.13. This year, it’s 3.38. That’s over a full point higher. And that represents an extra run every nine innings that I’m giving up now versus then.

But I have a dream. In my dream, my ERA is back below three and I’m piling up strikeouts. I’m helping my team get wins.

The question is, how do I realize this dream? This seems to be the theme of this blog lately but I am coming to the conclusion that I don’t control my fate. That the best I can do is influence it. By doing the best I can in the circumstances given me.

I think it might be time for me to pray about this. Oh, I don’t mean ask God to lower my ERA or raise my strikeouts. God isn’t about favoring one team over another or one player over another. No, I need to pray for guidance. I need to pray for serenity. I need to be able to do my best and accept that that won’t always be good enough. Maybe I need to learn to accept that I’m not going to go 29-4 every year. Maybe I need to learn to be happy.

I have other unfulfilled dreams. For one thing, I have my eye on a man. I know I said I’d never consider getting close to someone on my team, but this guy is an Angel. I think maybe I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m mature enough (and he is too) that if something comes between us, we’ll still be able to get along as teammates. And I’ve got it bad. I sent him an e-mail because I don’t know what I’d do if he said “no”. Now I know that sounds contradictory to what I just said, but this is a huge thing for me.

He didn’t say “no” but he did say he needed time to think. Well, time’s been ticking away. I’m past expecting though. Now I’m at the point where I’m waiting for the keenness of my want to wear off. Matty says to find someone and throw myself in again and that will ease it for me. We’ll see. I don’t know who that would be right now.