But real quick I wanted to talk about Providence. The King Cats were in a desperate situation. They were having trouble fielding a complete team. I said was looking for someplace where I could make a difference. Well, I think I’ve found it. And it doesn’t hurt that Derek’s here.

About that. Derek and I are friends. Not even “friends with benefits”. I thought it would be cool to pitch in the same rotation with him. I used to have a rule that I wouldn’t date anyone on my team. I’ll make an exception for Derek. Assuming he wants to, of course. I’m a veteran and he’s a young guy. That might be a problem.

So anyway, back to the farewells. I want to thank my parents for everything. I want to thank NEBL.com for letting me blog these last seven years. I want to thank my teammates. On Hartford and Allentown as well as here in Providence. I want to especially thank you, the readers. I’m going to miss blogging.

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.

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.

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.

For the past three seasons, I’ve worn a pink ribbon on my cap to raise awareness for breast cancer. I’ve also donated money to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. And I’ve watched Aunt Katy battle this horrible disease. Twice it looked like she was winning, but then the cancer would be back. And the treatment would begin again. This time, while she was receiving her chemotherapy treatments, she got sick. And her system was too weak to handle it.

Aunt Katy was fun. She would sometimes catch me when I threw off the mound my dad built. But that’s not her secret. Aunt Katy played video games. And she played them well. Old games, new games, she could pick up a game she’d never seen and be beating it in a couple of days. One of the things I looked forward to when Alex and I visited her house was her vast collection of games. Games you never heard of and game systems they don’t make anymore. The last time I was at her house, we played some NEBL 2013 All Star and she kicked my butt. I don’t quite have the hang of pitching in that game, so having Alex Williams didn’t help me.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and throughout the league, teams will be conducting activities to raise breast cancer awareness. Some teams will use pink bats. Some teams will wear special jerseys. Some teams will wear pink ribbons on their jerseys and have pink wristbands. And I’ll be one of them, though I don’t pitch till Monday. The truth is, there are some things more powerful than science and medicine and cancer is one of them. And anything we can do to help change that is important.

Aunt Katy and i used to exchange e-mails. The last thing we talked about, before she went to the hospital was her cats. I guess they’ll go somewhere now. I think her friend Lydia was taking care of them while Aunt Katy was in the hospital but they’ll need a permanent home. Katy had just gotten all their shots and stuff so they could continue to go outside periodically. She was debating about turning them into indoor cats to save the money on their vaccinations. I told her to do what she wanted and that I’ve got plenty of money. Benjamin and Fiona are fine feline citizens (okay, Benjamin nips when he doesn’t get enough attention) and if they like it outside, they should be able to go.

I wish we’d've talked about something more important. There is no one else in the world like Aunt Katy. And now she’s gone. There’s a hole in my life that can’t be filled. Aunt Katy, I know you can read this. They have to have the internet in heaven. I love you.

I don’t know what it is. I don’t want to make it sound like I’m blaming my teammates because I’m not. But something about being here seems to bring out the worst in me. I came here because of the promising situation but I’m here now and the promise lies unfulfilled. I know that I’m a good pitcher. Maybe not the best, but pretty damn good. But It doesn’t seem to make a difference. I can’t seem to pitch well here.

So, it’s not me. And it’s not the team (this team went to the Patriot Cup). It’s some sort of interaction between us. Like oil and water. Nothing wrong with either one, but they don’t work together well. It’s like there’s a missing ingredient. Something that could make it all work. I don’t know what it is. I love the boys and I think this is a great team. But i don’t feel like this is what anyone expected. It’s certainly not what anyone wants.

Right now my ERA is at 3.90. That’s under four so I’m not going to feel bad about it. That’s over three so I’m not going to feel good about it either. I’m 1-1 in five starts. I’ve pitched 32.1 innings and have 33 strikeouts. On the surface, that looks good. The thing is, I’m still thinking that I need to strike guys out. I’m not trusting my team to be there in the field for me. I’m working on it. This might be what I’m missing. Trust. And this goes both ways. Because of my record, the boys don’t trust me to pitch well and they try to make up for it at the plate. Too hard sometimes. I’m trying to build trust from my side, one pitch at a time. I’m trying to learn to trust them more and to make myself more trustworthy.

Alex Williams is one of the big name free agents this off-season. And I don’t know where he’ll end up. I know that Ryan was interested in him. But I also know that he’ll command a big salary and that that number may be more than the Angels can afford. I’m sure I could learn a lot from him if he came here, but I still think Nolan Ryan is the greatest living pitcher. And he’s wearing an Angels’ jersey.

I had a great time in Montreal. In many ways, it exceeded my expectations. I now know a few phrases in French, though I don’t know how to write them. The two most important things to know in any language are “please” and “thank you”. If you attempt to speak to people in their language, they’ll treat you better than if you don’t. (This I know from growing up in Texas–there are many people in Texas who speak Spanish as their primary language.) It’s not that they treat you bad otherwise. It’s that they recognize you’re making an effort.

I’m excited to be starting a new season. I’ve worked over the offseason and I even spent some time during spring training talking to a sports psychologist. He helped me to internalize some of advice that I’ve been given. The biggest thing is that he reminded me that I’m good enough. I’m a major league pitcher. I’m not the best pitcher in the league but I don’t need to be. What I need is to be the best pitcher I can be. And that I need to stop trying to pitch like someone else and pitch like myself. Alex Williams may strike out every other batter he faces, but that’s not my idiom and I should pitch within myself. Will this new attitude make a difference? We’ll see.

This year, we’ll be around for the Montreal High Lights festival. It’s the last week of February and in normal years, pitchers and catchers report to spring training in the middle of February so we missed it last year. I’m really looking forward to it.

The only thing I don’t like about Montreal is that I don’t speak French. Or even understand it. I’d like to remedy that. If I could get as good at French as i am at Spanish (I can understand it if it’s spoken slowly and I can speak a little with a bad accent) then I wouldn’t feel so out of place. Of course Pierre speaks French. And I spend a great deal of time with him. Maybe he can teach me.

Anyway, this is going to be so exciting. There will be concerts and exhibits and various dining experiences. The one I’m most excited about is the Old Montreal Progressive Meal, where you go to different restaurants for each course of the meal. That seems like a lot of work, but you get to go to a lot of places on one night. Kinda like the idea of going somewhere for dinner and then somewhere else for dessert. Only on a macro scale. And the lights! I don’t know what to expect but it sounds exciting.

We’re also doing things Pierre is interested in. We’re going to see Les Cowboys Fringants. They are one of Pierre’s favorites and they provide the music for his MySpace.

While vacationing in the Bahamas (that’s fun to type), I’ve discovered Texas Hold ‘em. You’re wondering how someone could play professional baseball so long and not be familiar with poker. It’s not that. What I mean is, I’ve discovered it can be fun and not just a way to hand money over to Bear. Maybe that has to do with Bear not being along on the cruise. But it can actually be relaxing to play. And I’m half-decent at it so I’m not losing all my money but overall coming out about even.

The food here is wonderful. You always have your choice between three or four things. And that’s for each course. Salad, main dish and dessert. And they’ll let you get more than one if you ask. Yesterday I had chocolate cake and a cheese tray (chocolate goes great with cheese, especially dark chocolate).

Overall, I’m having fun. I’m past the depression I went through after we lost the Patriot Cup. Ryan said he was proud of us and we exceeded his expectations. I don’t think he meant me. I fell vastly short of what I expected. But Nolan told me that sometimes you have a down year. That it’s not that you’re bad, but that your luck isn’t there. And it’s especially hard when you’re a pitcher because you don’t participate in the offense. He also pointed out that I earned incentives. So I did some things quite well. Got strikeouts, for example. Things will be different this season. I’m sure of it. And I can smile again. It’s a great feeling.

There is no excuse for game three. I gave up five runs without getting anybody out. When the bullpen came to rescue me, I had two runners on and they both scored, too. That’s seven runs. The boys only scored four runs in nine innings. It doesn’t matter how many runs the bullpen let up. I lost it for us all by myself.

After game four I went home. By myself. I’m by myself a lot these days. I’m not sure I like it but I’ll get used to it. I miss Jay. He’s fun to get drunk with and I think that might’ve been a good thing to do. But i don’t like going out alone. There are a couple of my old teammates I could probably have picked up but I just couldn’t. Not then.

I feel awful. That pretty much sums it up. Sure, I write a blog and sure I’m fairly good with words. But I’m out of words. I can’t describe it. It’s like nothing else.

Maybe next year will be better.