Jersey Jersey.

I somewhat understand why Jersey gets the rap it does.

Most people fly into Newark Airport, take a taxi to New York City, only see the highway, get that questionable whiff in the Meadowlands, ask the taxi driver how far the Sopranos house is from the airport (20 minutes), and then end up in beautiful New York City.

So yeah, I somewhat understand why Jersey gets the rap it does – but I will never agree with it or accept it.

Jersey is much more than what you see on Jersey Shore or what you notice on that short ride up I-95; Jersey is one big, loving, tell you how it is, loud mouth, family. You know how people in some small towns say everyone knows everyone? Well, sometimes it feels like that’s how Jersey is, on a much larger scale.

Three things most New Jerseyans have in common:

1. A strong opinion

2. A sense of pride

3. A love for The Boss

Growing up in Northern New Jersey was such an unbelievable experience for my family and me. I lived in the same town my whole childhood, and to this day I have the same friends I had back then, since I was five years old. I firmly believe that the state of New Jersey played a big part in that.

Just like the residents of any county or state, we like to do things our own way. The Jersey mentality has instilled in me some ideas and values that made me who I am today. Here are a few:

Work your ass off. That “blue collar” attitude is a concept that has been thrown around for a while. The notion is that regardless of the job you have, if you work hard, good things tend to happen. Growing up, I personally saw this with my parents and uncles, they’d truly bust their ass and lead by example. Then when I was at my high school (St.Joes) in Northern New Jersey, I began to notice it again. The more effort and time put into something usually led to greater success. And a good number of kids at my high school did put in that extra mile; they did something until they got it right, not just until when the bell rang. There is a reason why New Jersey high schools tend to be up there with the bigger states in most major sports… and I think it’s largely due to the work ethic bred in the tight knit communities and also the people who come back to teach and coach, closing the circle.

I also have to thank Bergen County for its diversity. I grew up with kids from all different backgrounds. Nobody really cared what religion or race or gender you were or how rich or poor you were. Honestly, nobody gives a shit. The only real “judgement” that was passed was entirely based off a person’s character and how he or she treated others. You pass that test and all else becomes irrelevant.

Being in pro baseball, I meet kids from all over the world. Honestly, I’d bet that for some of the kids I have met, I am the first Jewish kid and/or first New Jerseyan they’ve ever met. New Jersey taught me to be accepting of all, and for that I am grateful. The melting pot of New Jersey has helped prepare me for my career and my life.

I want to end on one particular lesson Jersey taught me, and that is: without being arrogant, be damn proud. Most people within minutes of meeting me know that I’m from New Jersey. How? Maybe it’s my accent (though I don’t hear it); maybe it’s the gold chain I wear around my neck (though, believe it or not, not everyone wears one); maybe it’s the chip on my shoulder, (which I’ve been accused of having); or maybe it’s something else. Whatever it is, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Jersey attitude and demeanor have been drilled into my bones, and I could not be more proud of where I came from and who it made me. We Jerseyans carry New Jersey with us wherever we go, and we try to represent it at all times. It is something that is in us.

Regardless of what other people might think, every single time I am asked where I’m from, I am proud to say..

Beautiful, New Jersey.

Priorities.

I recently went on a trip to the West Coast. Right before the trip, I had just finished the book I had been reading for a while, and I needed a new one to keep me busy on the long flight. So with a few hours to kill in the airport, I went to one of those Hudson News convenient stores that overcharges for everything and searched for an interesting looking book.

Next thing I knew I was spending a fortune on a paperback I could have bought on Amazon for half the price – and with free expedited shipping.

I thought to myself: What highway robbery. The book was “The One Thing” by Gary Keller,  and it didn’t appear to be anything too extraordinary from the outside… Typical cover, typical creative graphics, typical sounding concept… Nonetheless, something made me buy it.

And now I know why they warn you to never judge a book by its cover. Little did I know how strong of an impact that book – the book I had just paid an arm and a leg for – would have on me and my career. I couldn’t possibly have known, just based off its unimposing cover, how much it would influence the way I would handle the rest of my offseason. Suddenly it no longer bothered me how much I had paid for this book… because to me, it’s worth its weight in gold.

The book is called “The One Thing” and is written by a man named Gary Keller. It has officially become one of my favorite books of all time – and I’d like to think I read a lot. (As a high school draftee, I didn’t have the opportunity to further my education at a four-year university, so I take a few classes in the offseason and read as much as I possibly can.)

A quote from the book that really affected me – and that will now remain a part of my build-up for as long as I can imagine – was the following: “Multitasking is a lie.” As a pitcher trying to climb up the ranks, there is a lot for me to work on: mechanics (2-3 things), adding/subtracting to my arsenal, etc. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming, but only if you allow it too. But the quote struck me and made me realize: Why try to improve upon five things at once instead of focusing on the most important one first and then moving on to the next?

Two other quotes from the book that impacted me are the following:

“Success is sequential, not simultaneous.”

“Doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.”

These quotes rang true to me. They have guided my approach to the last month of my offseason, and I’m confident they will continue to shape my career – and also my life – in the years to come.

Think about them. How can they relate to your life?

Every “to-do” list has to have one thing that is the most important. Everything is not equal; that’s impossible. When you break it down and weigh your priorities, there’s got to be “The One Thing” that requires more immediate attention than the rest. That is the main concept I took away from the book, and I highly recommend the book, as it may have a similar effect on you.

My initial intention in creating this blog was to offer first-hand advice on baseball and insights into the life of a professional athlete to whoever cared to listen. But this particular post is different.

Today is bigger than sports.

How many moments in your lifetime can you recall where you remember exactly where you were, whom you were with, and what you were doing? Probably not so many. But I’d be willing to bet that most of you reading this can recall the exact place you were on this date 14 years ago – on September 11th, 2001.

I was in 1st grade, sitting in Mrs. Wolk’s English class. It was a typical day: kids being kids, a teacher beginning her lesson, nothing out of the ordinary going on. I was taking out my notebook when suddenly, the phone on our teacher’s desk started ringing off the hook. That particular desk phone never rang ever. Strange. Who could it be? This early in the day?

The only time that phone rang was when a kid was called out to go home early for a doctor’s appointment or something like that. That phone signified a positive occurrence. As a kid, that ring meant one thing: one of us was leaving school early, who was the lucky one? But it wasn’t even 9 A.M. yet – no one would be leaving quite yet… We didn’t know the reason for the calls but we knew something wasn’t right.

This time, that ring wasn’t good news for one student – it was bad news for all of us, and little did we know it at the time, but it would shape much of our lives forever. As the phone continued to ring, one by one, each one of us was called out to the lobby to get picked up by a parent or guardian.

Our initial reactions, just as you might expect from any 6 or 7 year old, were excitement: we all got to leave school only 40 minutes after it started. But as we entered the lobby, people were acting differently then they usually acted. Even as 6/7 year olds, we could recognize fear, and we certainly could recognize fear when it registered on the faces of our own parents. At that age, Mom and Dad were Superman and Wonder Woman; they could never be scared or shaken up – it just didn’t happen. But on September 11th, 2001, it did.

My recollection of that day involves the image and sound of that phone ringing off the hook, then registering the universal fear in the air and eventually making it my own, and also the overall feeling of the unknown. But the thing that stands out to me most in my memory of that day is when I was exiting my school to go home… The image that sticks out most and that I will never forget is the chilling image of fire truck after fire truck, EMT after EMT, ambulance after ambulance, and police officer after police officer heading into New York City to help in any way he or she can. They ran directly towards the danger.

I was 7 years old when the attacks happened. When I got home, my family immediately turned on the news, and everyone was in shock. They didn’t want me to watch the news, but as a kid when you’re told not to do something, the first thing you want to do is do that something…. So I found my way to a television and watched image after image of the buildings in smoke. Explaining this to an adult at the time must have been hard… but explaining the image to a 7 year old? What would you even say? All I remember was seeing my mother in shock, which meant I should be worried. Wonder Woman was in tears.

I live in New Jersey off the first exit over the George Washington Bridge, the bridge that connects northern New Jersey to New York City. My father is an attorney in New York City, and his firm at the time was located in midtown Manhattan. He commuted – and still commutes – everyday. My father is the hardest working man I have ever met… and his biggest client at the time was located in the World Trade Centers… With the news of an attack, my family was worried sick.

Thankfully, as soon as my father heard of the attacks, the first thing he did was call home and let us know he was safe, (which I later learned was a miracle because all the phone lines were incredibly busy that day). My Dad had actually flown to North Carolina the day before and was giving a seminar as the attacks happened. Thank God. Friends of mine weren’t as lucky as I was. They lost parents, relatives, friends, other loved ones. What the hell was going on?

As a result of the four planes that got hijacked that day, 2,997 people were killed for absolutely no reason other than disgusting, baseless, blind hatred of America by a faction of evil people. Everyone around the New York City area knows either someone who lost his or her life on 9/11 or someone who lost someone on that tragic day. My thoughts and prayers are with all of those people – including you, my reader, if you were a victim of that horrific day.

Terrorists set out to instill fear and distress in the greatest country in the world. They thought those attacks would make us crumble and give up. They may have temporarily succeeded in the confusion of that day — we can’t deny the pain we felt and the way our lives were altered forever. But what those terrorists never fathomed would happen, happened: as a nation, we rose up.

People from the surrounding areas and first responders from all over immediately ran towards the dust and smoke. To these heroes, nothing mattered except for helping those who were trapped in the rubble and leading them to safety – not even their own lives. That is what makes America so great… When we were at our worst, we are at our best; we have heroes in our midst who will not back down.

Regardless of your political beliefs or if you like him as a person, when our President at the time, President George W. Bush, took the mound at the World Series in New York City for the ceremonial first pitch of Game 3 in October 2001, it was special. It was a symbol of hope, a symbol of strength. Here was our President, in front of 50,000 New Yorkers and an audience around the world, delivering a strike. In the background, you could see our heroes – the police officers, first responders, fire fighters, etc. – standing guard. This was the month after the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history, and our President was taking the mound in the city where the shock waves from the attacks were still so strongly reverberating.

The United States came together after 9/11. Skin color, religion, political beliefs – none of it mattered. All that mattered was that we were all Americans, and proud of it. We stood together and still stand together as such.

To the many police offers, first responders, EMTs, firefighters, members of our great military, and the citizens who ran towards the flames at the Towers to help however you could, you are my heroes. Thank you. If it weren’t for people like you, I would not be able to live in peace and do what I love – none of us would.

So whenever someone calls an athlete or celebrity his or her hero, remember who the real heroes are.

God Bless America.

Failure
May 30, 2015

For better or for worse, I am a competitive person. Odds are, I am one of the most competitive people you will ever meet. Whether it’s Ping-Pong, darts, Madden, or on the mound, I want to win – and I will do almost anything to succeed. But constantly chasing success means inevitably coming face to face with failure….and that is what this blog is about: how to deal with failure.

All people have experienced failure. I have let up many earned runs; my straight-A sister has gotten Bs and Cs; my siblings and I made a huge error of judgment when we randomly came home with a second puppy one day without asking our parents if it was okay. (True story…) People lead different lives, so “failure” will look different to each individual person, and it can show up in many different forms. But it’s how we rebound from failure that matters most.

As one of the younger guys on the team, I have a ton of teammates and coaching staff to look up to. Having such open and supportive teammates and coaches means I am presented with many opportunities to learn from those who have “been there, done that.” I try to take advantage of this by asking lots of questions – I love to pick their brains and form my own opinions on all topics. So I approached some of the guys on the team and some of the coaching staff and asked them for advice on how to handle failure. How can I face failure and move forward? How can I learn from it and grow?

As professional ballplayers, we are given such unbelievable opportunities to showcase our abilities and to get paid for what we love to do. Speaking on behalf of minor leaguers (at least the ones I spoke to about this topic), we never want to fail at our own game. Our job is to produce results day in and day out. But it is a long, 140-game season, and we have bad days – sometimes bad weeks. Sometimes we get in our own heads and it all just catapults into a downward spiral of negative thoughts. There are bumps in the road, there are stressors, there are frustrations along the way. We quickly learn that we need to find ways to live with these feelings, or else we would crumble.

There is a distinct difference between dwelling on failure, and staring failure in the face and refusing to let it own you. Failure is one of the best ways to learn. Learning what not to do allows you to learn what to do.

The other day, I had a rough outing. I got hit and did not put my team in a position to win. I failed at my profession. I found myself cursing under my breath, and after the game, I lost my cool in the clubhouse. We are human: we fail, we get angry, we lose our cool. It happens, and it’s okay. But if we keep things in perspective, it makes it easier on us and helps us grow.

The day of my poor outing, I found myself cursing, upset, not answering my friends’ and my family’s calls/texts – all because I had a bad day at work. Think about that. I let up runs and didn’t execute pitches, and I found myself ignoring the people that do not judge me based off a stat line. Upon reflection, I recognize that what I should have done was taken a step back and disect what went wrong, how to fix it, do everything in my power to not let it happen again, and ultimately, most importantly, move on. Was letting up a few runs really a reason to be so down and upset? Maybe for a little while. But I now realize that ignoring my family and friends and trapping myself in my own thoughts was not a productive way to handle the failure. In fact, it was counterproductive.

Baseball is a game of failure. If a hitter succeeds three times out of ten (30%), he is an all-star caliber player. In contrast, if a quarterback completes 30% of his passes, or a basketball player makes 30% of his shots, they are each looking for new jobs. Baseball is a game within a game. You literally have to learn how to accept being beat a majority of the time. Imagine that. Some of the most competitive athletes on earth have to be OKAY with being beat! Not possible, right? Wrong. Ask any big league hitter if they would sign up for failing 7 out of 10 times for the rest of their career… My guess is they’d sign on the dotted line without thinking twice.

The point of this post is to share my opinion on failure and how to handle and cope with failure. Most of the time, it is not life or death and should not be treated as such. I am not saying I am okay with failing. I often fall victim to overthinking and losing perspective… everyone does. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the theory of, “Remember, don’t be upset because it could be worse.” (Does that mean I shouldn’t be happy because it could be better?) But then again, perspective is key. When something goes wrong in your life, look in the mirror, dissect what happened, what went wrong, what went right, take away a few positives, and then move on.

Why dwell on the past? If you let it pervade your thoughts and dreams, if you let it eat you alive… nothing positive will come of it. Learning, moving on, and growing from failure is much more productive than being miserable because of a mishap. Adapt and overcome the adversity and failure that occurs in your life. Do not fall victim to people feeling bad for you or you feeling bad for yourself. Get up, face failure head on, and refuse to let it pass without learning something from it. Win the battle within your own head, and you’ll be right back on the road towards your next success.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from one of the most succesful athletes in history.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” –Michael Jordan

May 13, 2015
Daytona Florida

​The other day, my buddy Austin was telling me about an essay he was writing for one of his college classes. The essay prompt was:
“What is success? What does it mean to you?” Austin, who knows I enjoy reading about success, successful people’s stories, and the common threads in such stories,
sent me his essay and asked what I thought.

His essay was great – many good points were brought up: success is never final, and hard work will lead to success, are two that stood out. But overall, my opinion differed from his – and since we are always honest with each other, I shared with him my thoughts. In doing so, I thought it would be an interesting blog post to get people talking. So as you read, please think about what success means to you – what it means, what it looks like, how you obtain it – and comment at the end.

So here are my thoughts. (And remember, this is my opinion)

​The word “success” is small, but its meaning carries substantial weight. The word is thrown around by people from all different corners of the world, as the desire to “do well” or “to achieve success” does not discriminate. Most people, when they think of success, probably think of positive end results: the student’s A+’s, the CEO’s seven-figure paycheck, the athlete’s awards. This is logical, because those grades and that money and that fame are all observable things – they are all goals achieved, boxes checked off. But what people don’t see – and what they sometimes refuse to see – is the work that produced those results.

To me, success is more than just an end result. Results are not coincidences; they do not materialize by happenstance or “luck”. I do not believe in ” luck”. The athlete who just got a multi-year deal? He didn’t wake up one day, roll out of bed, and land on a golden contract. The teacher whose class got the best results on the state tests? Not many people comprehend or appreciate the hard work and late hours he or she spent on helping those kids prepare. The end result is what people see and deem a “success”, but the person who strived for that result – who shed blood, sweat, and tears on the road towards that end goal – knows that a medal or a high GPA wasn’t an overnight victory. He or shes hard work, itself, is just as a great success as the end result is. Success is never final. Money and fame can run out but what was learned on the road to the achievement, can last a lifetime.

​As athletes, my teammates and I have been given an unbelievable opportunity. After all, we get paid to play a game – and a game we love. But then again, not many people see the 6:00AM lifts, the late night games, the ten-hour bus rides, the being away from family for six months straight, and the rest of “the grind” we all endure in order to attain what we, as athletes, want. We don’t want to be minor league players; we want to be major leaguers and to help our respective organizations win a World Series.

That being said, we are in no position to complain. We play our favorite sport and we get paid to do so – and we owe it to our organizations to work as hard as possible to reach the Big Leagues. That is our duty, and we owe it to many people – most importantly ourselves. The last thing any athlete wants is to look back in thirty years and have any regrets. That is what will make you lose sleep at night.

​In my opinion, success is a highly complex concept. The road to success is never-ending, and yet success can be fleeting. Not one single person can tell you what success is because success comes in so many different flavors. Success is in the eye of the beholder, and yet it’s too often measured in the eyes of the onlookers. What one person sees as success, another can see as failure, and vice-versa. That is the craziest part of this… Success is so complex, yet you – and only you – choose the meaning of it.

​What do you think success is? Would love to hear from whoever would like to respond. Appreciate your time.

Personally, I am not a big talker. I don’t feel the need to be talking 24/7. I grew up hearing the phrase “talk is cheap,” and that is what is instilled in the back of my mind. But while talk may be cheap, writing isn’t necessarily so. Putting pen to paper enables you to literally see your ideas in front of you, to reflect upon them, and to develop them further. I’m a huge believer in writing down goals and doing everything possible to achieve them. Speaking of writing things down, I always liked the idea of starting a blog – and I contemplated the idea various times over the past few years.  But truth be told, I’ve always been hesitant to start a blog because a part of me never wanted to risk having other people think I was trying to impose my beliefs on them; I didn’t want people to think that in publicizing my thoughts, I was basically saying, “My way or the highway.” But then I realized that if I were to start a blog, it wouldn’t have to be that way at all – it could simply be a place where I share my thoughts, opinions, and beliefs and invite others to do the same. It could be a platform for the exchange of interesting conversation as well as a place to learn from one another. And so this post marks the inception of my blog, “22sTwoCents.” In writing this blog, I intend to be honest, to share some of my own thoughts and ideas, elaborate on topics that are brought up, and ask thought provoking questions, while I’m on the road playing within the St. Louis Cardinals organization, and to provide some information into minor league baseball in general. One of my goals is to reach at least one person and have that person open his or her eyes to the fact that anything that he or she dreams up can be brought to life. I hope to share with people a little bit of my own story and –  though it’s not necessarily my intention – if people get motivated to go after their own dreams then that’s great. Thanks for following