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Episode 182: Jake Gronsky — Discipline, Sticking Up for Your Work, and Always Having an Apprentice Mindset
138 Plays5 years ago
Jake Gronsky, author of A Short Season and a Best American Sports Writing 2019 Notable Selection joins me to talk about writing and always having that apprentice mindset.
This episode is sponsored by Bay Path University's MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing.
It's also sponsored by my monthly newsletter. Sign up at brendanomeara.com.
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Transcript
Introduction and Jake Gronsky's Focus on Human Connection
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I only look for stories that make us try to understand human connection better. And that's all I want to write about.
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That is Jake Gronsky, co-author of A Short Season and a Best American Sports Writing 2019 Notable Selection for his piece, Nine Days in Cape Cod.
Podcast Introduction and Sponsorship
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Hey, this is CNF, the greatest podcast in the world.
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Let's hear from our flagship sponsor, Discover Your Story Man, with Bay Path University's fully online MFA in creative non-fiction writing. Recent graduate, is she recent anymore? Recent graduate, Christine Brooks, recalls her experience with Bay Path's MFA faculty as being, quote,
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filled with positive reinforcement and a commitment. They have true passion and love for their work. It shines through with every comment, every edit, and every reading assignment. The instructors are available to answer questions big and small.
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And it is obvious that there are years of experience as writers and teachers have made a faculty that I doubt can be beat anywhere. Don't just take her word
Newsletter Promotion and Podcast Purpose
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for it. Apply now at baypath.edu slash MFA classes begin January 21st. It's like a month away.
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You know what also sponsors this podcast, right? My monthly newsletter, that's right. This is going to be a real important thing heading into 2020. So you need to heed this house ad and subscribe to the newsletter at brendanomare.com. Hey, once a month, no spam. Can't beat it. Twas the pod before Christmas. No buts, ands, or ifs. The CN efforts were waiting for B to say riff.
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It's CNF, the creative non-fiction podcast. The show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. I'm your host Brendan O'Mara. Hey, make sure you're subscribed to the show, man. If what I've made for you is worth sharing, I'd be honored and thrilled to be linked up to the show across your various networks.
Digital Minimalism and Social Media Usage
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If you feel really moved by the giving season, leave a tax deductible review on Apple Podcasts.
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Join the conversation at cnfpod on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, though. I've curtailed my use of these quite a bit in order to get shit done, son. You can always email me in the shell if you have questions or concerns. Recently read Cal Newport's Digital Minimalism.
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And if you struggle with the whole social media industrial complex like I do, it is well worth your time and money to read that. It'll definitely get you thinking more critically about how you go about your digital lifestyle.
Parallels Between Writing and Baseball
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Today's guest is Jake Gronsky. As I said at the top of the show, he's a writer and a former minor league baseball player. So we draw on some of the parallels between writing and ball as well as sticking up for your work. Nobody but Jake submitted his piece for best American sports writing consideration. And he got a notable selection. That's an amazing honor. And it was because he took it on himself to stand up for his own piece.
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And I love that. I love the industrious nature of that. And why not? What's to lose? A little bit of postage just ended up to Hallberg, Vermont. And you might just get selected and he sure as hell did.
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I'll say he's an aside that the audio quality isn't superior for this episode. I'm sorry about that. I'm nipping it in the bud. But I think the content of Jake's Insights will overcome that. And that makes me think of something. And if you're a writer in this day and age, even if you don't produce your own podcast, you're likely going to be on podcasts, right? I mean, it's just the nature of this business.
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It's time every writer invests on a good headset or microphone as part of your gear, part of your rig. Go listen to my interview with Sonya Huber. She was using a gamer headset, and she sounded like she was right next to me. It was amazing. I'd say most parts are recorded remotely, probably 9 out of 10, really.
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And there's likely no chance the producer can afford to hire a tape sinker to record a double ender, so I think it's time y'all invested in a decent
Jake's Transition from Baseball Identity
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microphone. The one I used before, my HiL PR40, the one I use now with a boom arm, was a simple Audio Technica ATR2100 USB. And it is a damn good mic, and it's like $69 on Amazon.
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Anyway, that said, here's my conversation with the gracious and very thoughtful Jake Gronsky.
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Yeah. So that question, uh, the way that it's asked, and if I could give any advice, it was probably not. It's probably not to do what I did. So I was only interested in baseball, right? Cause that is, um, and that's the truth. Like I, I loved playing the game. I love the sport. I love everything about it. It was everything that I wanted to be, not just play. I didn't want to just play baseball. I wanted to be a baseball player. Um, you know, everything called the kid, I mean, I hardly played any other sport.
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And again, I would not give that advice to an athlete today. I think playing other sports is really great for athletes, but I just, I never had that interest other than baseball. My dad was actually, he's, you know, it's such a great
00:06:02
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man, someone I look up to, he owns a small chiropractic care. He just retired, but he's always a writer. And my mom was an artist. And those were two interests that if I could get away from the field or just almost force myself away from the field, those are two things that I love. I'm trained as a fine artist painter and writer as well. Those were the two things I think that kind of kept that balance that as much as I didn't want to have that I needed,
00:06:32
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So, it sounds a little corny, but even anything that I wrote when I was a kid, it surrounded the game of baseball. And it's what I wanted to do. It's who I wanted to be. And especially growing up in a small town in central Pennsylvania, right outside of the small foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. That's all I ever wanted to do. It was a small town dream of playing baseball.
00:06:59
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And I was fortunate enough to be able to do that. So that is also one of the things that was so hard transitioning away from it is when that was no longer the case. But yeah, again, growing up, I was a baseball player, you know, and part of me still believes that I still am, which is always going to be, that's always going to be part of me. And it's always going to be a struggle.
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It's the truth that baseball is the only thing I really wanted to do. Yeah, I can totally attest to that. When I was growing up, it was probably the only thing, even thinking today, it's truly the one thing I ever, like, stone cold wanted to be, was a professional baseball player. Sure.
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And it just, it does, it does consume you. Like a good night for me was spending a night in my basement hitting 500 balls off my Tony Quinn indoor solo hitter, you know? That's like... Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I have a fan solo hitter as well. They'll get in. I actually blame, oh yeah, but I also blame the game of baseball a little bit, because it is
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as lovable as it is experiential. So every kid, you know, the moment that you smell a baseball glove is the moment that you're hooked into not just the game of it, but the romanticized idea of fighting for something. You know, it's the blue collar store. You, you know, you go up through the minor leagues and you get to the big leagues.
Challenges of Post-Athlete Life and Writing as a New Pursuit
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You know, it's the underdog story of America and it's kind of been rooted in our culture. So, um, it's not like it's in a sense where
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you know, you have people all the time that play basketball, they play football.
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you know, they want to play those sports. Baseball is the only sport because there's not a mold of a player, there's not a mold of a body, there's not a mold of a height, weight, or anything that you need. Baseball is the only sport where you play at once, and now you're instantly wanting to become a professional baseball player. So I blame the game a bit. It is a bit addicting in that way. But it's also, I mean, it's the reason it's one of the, it's one of the major aspects that built what I could possibly
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towards the game for that. Yeah, given the obsessive nature of it that you applied to baseball and how hard you've written about this too, how hard is it to transition out of it and then to maybe
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maybe not weaponize is the wrong word it's kind of like you re focusing that obsession you had for baseball onto something else so yeah something constructive too so that you could transition out of it and not feel you know like a shell of your former self
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I'll say a couple of things about that. First, first off, I am extremely fortunate because I made no money playing the game of baseball. It sounds weird, but I made, I made nothing from it. You know, minor league baseball is pretty much a stipend for you to live off of, you know, again, very privileged in a sense where athletics and baseball and, you know, the academic side paid for, um, a, an academic, uh, you know, scholarship and,
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and paid for my school. So, you know, debt wasn't an issue in that sense, but you don't make any money playing minor league baseball. So because of that, when that ended, I had no other choice but to make something new. You know, I couldn't just say, well, you know, I played, you know, 10 years in the big leagues. Now I'm 35. I don't need to make any more money in my life. So what purpose do I have anymore? You know, I did not have
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And you know, I wrote about this a little bit, but there's a lot more struggle that comes with players. And this is something that we don't talk about a lot because the dream is to play 10, 15 years in the big leagues, make all this money that you could ever imagine and then retire. It's like, okay, but you're still now 36 years old.
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that story.
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thirty-seven years old, you know, hopefully in the grand scheme of life, you spend more time as a non-baseball player than you do baseball player.
Storytelling vs. Technical Skills in Writing
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And now you've made millions of dollars, you bought everything that you've ever wanted, your whole family is squared. So are you really going to take an internship to start over at that age? Now you were the top 1% of a skill that now is rendered useless. So
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That is hard. That's where the challenge comes in. Because now you have a choice to either do something or not. I didn't have a choice. So because of that, I had to start over. And fortunate enough for me, writing was the outlet that I poured myself into. And it's something that
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I was able to take the mentality of the obsession, the baseball, the training, the style, and be able to hone a craft that way. Now, the difference of it was, like I said, I grew up only wanting to be a baseball player. The struggle is now for identity. And that is one of the hardest struggles to go through. And that's something that I think I'll always go through. So writing, I never claimed that I'm a writer. I'm Jake. And that has to be good enough.
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love and I dedicate myself to writing. Those are two totally different things. So it's definitely having to start over for me was a blessing because I had to. But it is definitely not talked about enough. And it's definitely something that people don't realize that now you're fighting for no longer being Jake. Oh, you're the baseball player to now being, oh, I'm I'm simply Jake. And that needs to be enough. And it's hard.
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Yeah, there's a great, and one of the essays you wrote, you and your dad are at a diner, and you were speaking to the waitress coming over, and you wrote that she embodied a contentment with life that I somehow lost on this journey of baseball. Somehow the dangling golden carrot of the Big Lees overshadowed the joy and respect I had for this game, and turned it into a desperate need for upward mobility, as if every step I took through the ranks was seen as merely a stepping stone for the next.
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She has all she ever needed right in front of her, and I had all that was left. And that really struck a chord with me, mainly because when I was playing, I lost sense of the joy of playing, and I was just like, this is just a rung on the ladder. And so that really struck a chord with me, that when you wrote that it was just always about upward mobility.
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Were you ever able, and this applies to writing too, because you kind of have to swim in where you are now and not always be concerned about the higher byline or whatever. So in a sense, what was your approach with ball? Were you able to be present and enjoy it in the moment or was it always something to get you to another level?
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Well, first off, thanks for reading that. That was a really personal essay that I was glad to share. And I appreciate you pulling out some of the finer prose that I would have to. I know there's a lot of cringe-worthy stuff out there from it. So I appreciate you bringing that up. And it's true. And to answer that question, I would
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I was definitely able to find enjoyment of it. I got it. I got it. The greatest thing to ever happen to me was being able to play the game of baseball. I loved it. And I did find that enjoyment on the daily basis because without that, I don't think you could move up. So it is a catch point too. You need to be the best player today in order to see tomorrow. However, you're in a system that is built
00:15:03
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for upward mobility only. I mean, you're in, let's say, let's just use minor league baseball. This is for any level though. This is literally, this is high school, this is college, but let's use minor league. If you're an A-ball, you have to be able to be the best in A-ball in order to get the bevel. Nobody wants to be an A-ball player.
00:15:23
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you know, then you get to double A. Nobody wants to be a double A player. You know, same thing with triple A. I mean, you could go through any level of the minor leagues. I mean, there's seven levels that people forget about in the minor leagues, but there's always going to be a next step. And then even in the big leagues, there's always going to be, okay, I'm on my rookie contract. I need to be on a long-term contract. Now I need to be an all-star. There's always going to be the next step. And the game itself is built that way. So it's tough. And there's no getting around it.
00:15:53
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It is very tough to explain to a player, hey, I know you're riding the buses in Iowa right now, but you need to be at your best on your 10 AM game on a Tuesday because that's what gets you to the next level, not thinking about the next level.
00:16:07
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Um, so it is tough. I was fortunate to find a small mix of that. However, in a grand scheme of what you're trying to do, you innate, like you have to dive a hundred percent into it. And that is very dangerous. You are really walking a very firm line. And I think that's what I was really alluding to, um, in that part of the, of the, of that writing. I mean, I, we can go on for hours about that, but I remember.
00:16:36
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I remember the time we were in the Midwest, this was an A-ball.
Perspective-Shifting Moments and Embracing Failure
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And we stopped after a game. It was, it was, I remember it was, it was just one of those like top games that we got killed. It was like a doubleheader. I don't think I was playing that well. I don't think anyone was playing well. And we stopped to get fast food on the way. And I remember us talking to players and us looking at, you know, people that like hated their jobs in, in the fast food industry. And I remember us talking about, man, like, well, they get benefits.
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you know they get they actually get a salary I mean they they get they get to go home after they're done working in a way we didn't even realize it but we were idolizing what they had and they were doing the same against us and that was that that really opened my eyes to like you know no matter where you're at you're always you're always going to be thinking there's something else and that is our own fault and that is something that you know
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I think that showed the lack of awareness we had and the really the fact that when you dive into a system like that, you might lose yourself. And that is very scary.
00:17:49
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What would you say or identify are some of the first principles of what made you a driven athlete that you are subsequently taking over to sort of this next chapter in your career as a writer? What bleeds over in terms of principle for you? Yeah, principles, just like, it's actually great that you brought this up because
00:18:18
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The principles are the same. The biggest one that I would say is discipline. You know, there's nothing about the game of baseball if it's not disciplined, where you're going to be playing the game day in and day out against the best competition that you'll ever face every single night. And you need to bring your A game no matter what. You know, there's no, there's no thought of
00:18:40
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whether you're going to play that night, what's going to happen that night, no matter what you need to show up, you need to do your job and you need to be at your best. And that is the same thing with writing. I mean, you talk about one being disciplined of just being able to show up, you know, to being disciplined enough to being at your best, no matter what, you know, what the assignment is, no matter what the story is, no matter how small the byline, no matter how big the story is, you show up and you do your best. Those are that alone.
00:19:10
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I think really took me, it really took me a few further steps than I imagined. And the second one that's really important is, you know, the ability to show up knowing you're going to fail more times than you're going to succeed. Now, for me, taking criticism for my writing, I
00:19:29
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And very much welcome to actually looking for, you know, more of it in the sense because I know that's what get writers to tell better story and baseball and you are criticized more than you are celebrated. And if you can embody that and not take it personally and take it as
00:19:46
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as someone helping you, that I think really gave me an advantage mentally of being able to write, being able to critically analyze what I wrote, being able to deconstruct, and then being able to do it all over again. Those two things alone I think are perfect parallels between baseball and writing.
00:20:12
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What was it like for you to go from being so supremely skilled in your one chosen discipline as a ball player and then as you transition to your career as a writer, essentially you're starting in your mid to late 20s at something that's relatively new. So what was that like to essentially be kind of a novice again?
00:20:37
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The first thing that I always think about, even in baseball, I mean, I was never overly talented at the game, but if we're talking strictly about writing, first and foremost, you know, I am an apprentice and that's the way I hope I always look at writing. You know, there's way better writers than I can ever be.
00:20:57
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out there, which is great for our generation of writers. We could read anything at our fingertips right now. We can take any class that we want, we can learn from some of the greatest. So to me, I took it as an apprenticeship and I will forever be that. Second off, writing, I think more specifically storytelling,
00:21:22
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It's not something that is strictly found in a classroom. You know, there's a lot of MFA. There's a lot of MFA programs that are dynamite, you know, that are great. And some of the best writing, some of the best stories comes from people that are not afraid to fail, that are willing to take chances, that are able to live life and find a sense of wisdom or maybe find a sense of failure that they can now write about.
00:21:50
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And that's something that I really take to heart. I mean, the positive that I have as a writer of being able to, you know, connect with people, especially on a sports diamond or a sporting event and being able to see the person beneath the athlete, you know, those are some positives that really do help me out. The technical side of writing.
00:22:17
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I'm always going to be an apprentice. I can always get better. I can always learn more. And so I never thought of it as like a, that I was behind the eight ball, you know, even in a way with my first book and first story, I was in a very fortunate and strange position where I was going through a lot of learning and growing pains as a writer.
00:22:44
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you know, in public, you know, my, my first book was written off 24, published on 26. And, and I really do believe those. I'm very proud of the work that me and Dave Boner were able to create and the story that we were able to tell. But you know, just rereading the story, I would reread the whole thing as I would now. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. So I don't know about the I would say, I would be lying if I said that I was ever
00:23:11
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behind the eight ball or if I started late because I was fortunate enough to have experience of a failure, of trying and striving for something great and not being able to get it. And that's where a lot of great stories happen.
Simplicity and Clarity in Storytelling
00:23:26
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What would you identify that you felt you were particularly strong at, even at the beginning part of your apprenticeship as a writer?
00:23:37
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I pretty much made every mistake possible as a writer, except for being able to tell the story beneath the story. I don't know if it was something that I learned in college writing, in amateur writing, or if that was innate, but I was fortunate enough to always be on the correct story.
00:24:02
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The one thing I love about the writing world and readers in general is that they are very forgiving. People are very forgiving at their core, which is nice in the writing world specifically, where if there's a cringe-worthy sentence or maybe something that's a little too fragrant, a little too overworked, a little too overwritten, we can get past that. Your mind can get past that if the story is right.
00:24:32
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if we're telling the right story at the right time and being able to connect human experience to words. So my strongest element I think is being able to find that and write about it.
00:24:46
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Yeah, that takes a bit of skill too and especially having the, once you have that sort of kernel and then of course it's a matter of not overworking the dough so to speak. It's telling it as straight as possible and showing some restraint because I think as writers you want to have some sort of artistic flair but oftentimes what's best is if you have the story it's best to sort of surrender to that and just get out of its way.
00:25:16
Speaker
Oh, 100%. I mean, I, the amount of time that I've overwritten everything, I mean, I think that's the true sign of an amateur, you know, I don't mean that pretentious ways, you know, naturally, we want to tell everything because we're so excited about it. But, you know, the amount of time that I've told readers that two plus two who's four, rather than just leading it at two plus two, you know, I can't even count. So and that's where I think the best learning comes in, where I can look at things, things
00:25:44
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You know, if I was able to tell this smaller story, this beneath story, then I didn't need to tell anything else. You know, if you can find the story that can help us understand human connection, there's nothing else that we need to say as a writer. You know, the rest is a relationship that the reader has. And that's what I love about reading. That's what I love about.
00:26:07
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Great writers that they're able to allow the reader to take the story to where it needs to go. And we can't force that on a reader. And I think that's some of the best learning that I had to go through.
00:26:19
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you know, some of it privately, some of it publicly in my writing, and that's something that I take near and dear now. You know, how can I make this leaner? How can I make it straighter? How can I make it more, you know, how can I make it easier for the reader to connect to these dots? And that's what I'm trying to do.
00:26:40
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And as a freshman at Monmouth, what was the experience you had with Chad Dell's class? Was that maybe the seed that was planted that said that you could be a writer someday? Man, I'm so happy you brought up Dr. Dell. He is someone very special to me and good for you for finding that somewhere.
00:27:05
Speaker
Dr. Dell, he always had now taught me to call him Chad, but he will forever be Dr. Dell to me. You know, at that time freshman year, I, you know, I was a baseball player. I was a kid that I wanted to play professional baseball and that was it. And, and I took, you know, a simple writing course with him and everything that I, that I wrote, he would kind of push even more. He'd keep pushing me, pushing me. And then all he said was, I don't know.
00:27:33
Speaker
what you're going to do or where you're going to go. I just want you to take one class with me every semester, like every one of my writing courses, just take it. So I was like, yeah, fine. I like writing. It's, it's something that really, uh, it allows me to escape the game. So this makes sense. It helps my baseball career. That's literally how I thought, but that's how shallow I thought of it. Uh, and so I took it and, you know, I was so
00:27:59
Speaker
so pompous and so full of myself. He was introducing me to more literary agents and toddlers. And I was introduced to baseball agents. And I took it, I don't want to take so different random cause I didn't, I appreciate everything that he did for me, but I didn't think that was me. I said, you know, Hey, I love writing. And one day I want to write, I want to continue to write, but you know, I'm a baseball player. So, uh, and I remember after four years, you know, we sat down and, and we were,
00:28:27
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talking about graduation, a little bit about baseball. And he said, you know what? Just keep writing. No matter what, just keep writing for yourself. You don't need to do anything with it. But just don't stop what you've done for four years. And so I did. And then it was really incredible after my first book was able to come out. And now we still are able to talk about it. And he still kind of sucks.
00:28:56
Speaker
And he's still pushing me, you know, the stuff that I bring up to him, he always finds a way to push it to the next level of not saying he's never once said a great job Jake, you know, just do, do what you are. There's always something that he finds in me that he believes in me. And that's what I've taken from him. He was the first person to ever believe in my writing. And it means a lot because I know no one in this industry really
00:29:25
Speaker
And he was the first one just simply saying, your writing is good enough. And now it's time to do everything else. It's so important to have mentors like that who just put enough gas in your tank to say that you're not completely diluted. Like just keep doing it, keep leaning into it, right?
Timing, Luck, and Persistence in Writing and Sports
00:29:44
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And just put in the repetitions because this is something that you're always going to improve at if you just have rigor and tenacity. And you need those kind of people in your corner.
00:29:55
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. And again, like, it was, it all came from such a place where I had no intention of ever being like, Oh, well, maybe he could introduce me to some agents. Like, I mean, it was a friendship. It was something that we both cherish each other's relationship and, and now being able to talk to him and still being able to seek advice, you know, that means so much to me. And like you said,
00:30:21
Speaker
It is nice after getting your 30th rejection from something that you thought was going to be fire and say, you know what? It just wasn't right. You know, just, you know, and here's why, you know, it really does matter for somebody to say, you know, you're right there.
00:30:36
Speaker
We just need to find the right door for you to bang on. So I'm glad you brought him up. That just made my day. So thanks for bringing up Dr. Dowell. Yeah, of course. And you know, what you bring up too about timing and the 30 rejections, like so much of that stuff is…
00:30:58
Speaker
It really comes down to luck sometimes, and you could even bring it back to ball. Depending on what position you play, in the hierarchy of an organization, if you were a talented shortstop coming up in the 90s and 2000s for the Yankees organization, there was a big bottleneck right there at shortstop at Yankee Stadium. There's a wall there. You're not going to be a shortstop for the Yankees. It's just not going to happen.
00:31:23
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Same with catchers or something because they're only going to carry two catchers, maybe a bullpen catcher. And so it's a matter of – it really is timing and luck. So sometimes it's not even a matter of you as a ball player or you as a writer. It's just like circumstances aren't in your favor. Maybe they just published something that you pitched and it's not that you wrote a bad pitch. It's just that, oh, two months ago we wrote something already on that. It doesn't mean you're bad. It's just bad timing.
00:31:48
Speaker
Absolutely. And it does go back to, you know, the ability to not personify a lot of your failures or even successes. I mean, a lot of success. I mean, we need to realize, especially as writers, you know, a lot of our successes come from the same spigot of our failures. You know, so if we're talking about my writing career very analytically,
00:32:10
Speaker
and taking the personal side out of it. You know, I was fortunate enough to start my career with a story that a lot of people, a lot of sports writers, you know, would have killed to have had the opportunity. You know, the story with Josiah Vieira and Dave Bonner was such a great story for me to learn about, for me to understand. You know, and there was, there was an 1,000 writers that would have loved that.
00:32:37
Speaker
But the fact that Dave and I, we were able to connect that one of my weakest moments in life and one of his toughest moments, you know, that gave us a bond that now gave trust to what we were doing, you know, and that gave Dave the ability to say, Hey, I want to work on a project. Would you work on it with me? You know, things like that, I mean, that doesn't just happen to get you read a few of my articles. You thought that I was the best writer ever. He liked my writing notes.
00:33:06
Speaker
do believe that I put working for that. But it was the fact that it came from something other than a pitch. And a lot of times,
00:33:16
Speaker
success and failure like you just said in baseball or in writing are gonna be out of our control big time. And the fact that the serendipitous nature of how you even met Dave and Josiah was like weren't you like hit by a pitch and that sent you to State College to rehab over there or to be evaluated by their doctors and then that's how you cross paths right?
Co-Writing a Book and Unexpected Life Turns
00:33:41
Speaker
The way we met again was one of the lowest moments
00:33:45
Speaker
In my career, what happened was I was finally, as they say, figuring it out. I had one of the hottest months of my career. I'm not saying this to boost my ego at all.
00:33:59
Speaker
You know, this is part of the story that I was finally figuring out. I remember my roommate, Harrison Bader, he was the center fielder for the Cardinals now. And I remember when we went, he was three for four that day or something. I was four for four with two doubles, like everything you could imagine. I remember us after the game talking about, hey, this was exactly what we needed. You know, we were both getting hot at the right time. You know, the team was playing better. And I remember him saying like, dude, we're going to double A next year. We're rooming together. And this is it.
00:34:29
Speaker
The next day I gave a fastball and broke my hands. I ended my season. I mean, even to the point where, you know, I knew my, my reach for an organization was very short. And I asked if I could not get a casted and I could just figure out how to put my hand on the bat and just play.
00:34:50
Speaker
the last moment because I wasn't guaranteed coming back for some training. And granted, that was a legal issue. So they shut that down quick. But after that, I, you know, I grew up right outside of where the state college place play. So they said, Hey, instead of going to Florida for like a weekend to check with a doctor, we're sending you to state college and to meet with their doctor. So, um,
00:35:16
Speaker
I flew back home, I went to stay college and then that day a small child and a grandfather walked down into the clubhouse and there was Josiah and Dave and then we talked, Dave and I, we found out we were from the same, we were from the same area. He lives an hour from my hometown.
00:35:38
Speaker
And we spoke for an hour that day and then we kept in touch. I went to everyone I just saw his doctor's appointments. We got coffee in the off season and I just listened to him because he was so filled with wisdom and he was somebody I wanted to be around. And then a year later, a book proposal came around and that's how we met. That's how the story happened all from breaking a hand and being sent to state college.
00:36:05
Speaker
And that matters so much to me where this really isn't nothing that happened to me within my own plan. And I don't want to bring any religion or faith to. I am a devout Christian. That's something that matters a lot to me and meeting Dave and meeting his family and him being able to pour into me.
00:36:29
Speaker
You know, that matters more to me than a book. And I hope people that read our story, you know, took half of what I was able to take from Dave. And it really, again, it was incredible how it happened. Some of the lowest moments and some of the best moments, all within, you know, one fastball to my left hand.
00:36:51
Speaker
And what was that experience like for your first book being more of a conduit or a co-writer for his story? Because it definitely feels more like Dave's voice, but you're clearly the person taking the reins of it, but you're sort of putting it through that filter. So what's that like for you as a writer to write basically on behalf of someone else? Co-write and ghost-write, if you will?
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, so that's something that I can really help me as a writer because first off, it really humbles you. You know, this story is not about me. It's not even mine. You know, so to have that mindset going in, it's really a humbling sense of, okay, this is not about me. You know, this story now, again, I think the reason why our story was able to resonate a little bit more was everyone that heard about this story,
00:37:51
Speaker
to Josiah, which, you know, very much is deserving. And Josiah is somebody that truly changed my life. But they all want to talk about his disease. They all want to talk about what he went through, his struggles. But the story was actually the I would say the deeper story was a story of a family, a story of a family struggling to heal. And this little boy was dropped into this imperfect family.
00:38:19
Speaker
and forced them down a path of healing. So that was our story. It had to come from Dave. There was no other person that could have told the story. This was a story about Josiah through the eyes of a broken grandfather. And Dave's story was just as harrowing as anyone else's. He was part of some of the worst child abuse in really Pennsylvania history.
00:38:43
Speaker
You know, it was swept under the rug. It was something that, especially in a small coal mining town, that's not talked about. That's not something that's brought up. And he grew resentful towards the world of it. He cut himself off to this earth pretty much. The family struggled. You know, his marriage, his family, everything was struggling. And then there was this child that was, you know, he was diagnosed with Hutchins-Gilford-Procherius syndrome, which is a
00:39:12
Speaker
terrible it is needed. It's even hard to research. It was hard to understand. And now this family that was struggling so much is now forced into a choice. Either they can live with resentment or they can find the few years that they have together and they can find a way to live it as a family. Now that is a story that is to me was life changing.
00:39:39
Speaker
And that's where the story comes from. So to be a co-author, I think you need to push that narrative. You know, you can't push your own agenda. You have to understand what are they actually trying to say? And you need to be, you know, just like a journalist, you need to be able to dig into that story. And so for me,
00:40:01
Speaker
Personally, it was not only moving as a human being, but as a writer, now it really humbles you to the story. There's nothing greater than the story beneath the story. And my job as a co-author, as a ghostwriter, as a journalist, as a narrative writer is to find that and to push that and then to be able to connect it to somebody reading it.
00:40:25
Speaker
What was your great takeaway as a writer and an artist from going through the mill of generating that book that you were able to then sort of grow and propel off of that project?
Storytelling Over Writing Mechanics
00:40:41
Speaker
So what was your big sort of a growth as a writer as a result of having done this book? I honestly think it was the ability to tell a story. That is different than writing. And I don't know if it's
00:40:54
Speaker
It's an issue of how we teach, quote unquote, writing or how we look at it. But we want to, the first thing we want to look at is plot and prose, right? Which are on the outside. Yeah, that's what a story is built on, right? The story is actually based on human connection. So, you know, I had to rewrite this book four different times. And I'm not just like, oh, we like edited it. No, we wrote it four times. And granted,
00:41:20
Speaker
What was, what was right about the entire time was that the connection between the characters and their struggles beneath the surface. All of that was correct. So the biggest takeaway, you know, was just that a story is not about words. There's only, there's only 26 letters.
00:41:42
Speaker
You know, there's only, there's only so many combinations you can do. It's not about, you know, very fluent, beautiful prose. That is great. And I hope one day I can get there, but it's about story and it's about people. And if we ever recited that, I think you're going to lose your reader. That was something that really stuck with me. And now, you know, that's all I care about in story. I mean, I.
00:42:05
Speaker
I only look for stories that make us try to understand human connection better. And that's all I want to write about.
00:42:15
Speaker
Yeah, and that goes to a point that you made in another essay you wrote that really tethers to your identity as a ballplayer is when you cited Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby of him not wanting to identify as a polo player anymore. And it's just like, well, that's an element of fiction that was written in the 1920s or took place in the 20s. And I think it was published in the 30s. Maybe it was published in the 20s. I should know this.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah, but that's just like the universal sort of grace note of of that like of someone wanting to be known for some something else like in that story so there's something bubbling underneath that that you were able to connect to so that's kind of what you're getting at that you want to get to what's underneath the pros exactly
00:43:06
Speaker
Any story that's worth reading, I believe is about what it costs for the person to change. What is the human connection? What do they have to do to get there? And yes, story very much. And again, I think we need to make a difference of journalism. There's going to be a very
00:43:26
Speaker
a very strict line of how straight you can tell it, and then being able to bring out the storytelling aspect underneath that. There is a time and place for everything, but what's so important to me is not taking things as just face value. You can find the true story beneath the surface, that need to be told, and I think that's our job as storytellers.
00:43:52
Speaker
Progressing forward, you said you had to really tear it down and rewrite it several times.
Resilience in Rewriting and Self-Advocacy
00:43:59
Speaker
I often talk to people about the grind of the middle of drafts, and that's a whole different beast than having to rip it down and build it up again. How did you not get demoralized by that process of having to really strip it down and build it back up several times?
00:44:18
Speaker
Sure. So, I mean, I really believe that goes back to baseball, you know, I mean, the, the same concepts that we had of going through a season of going through slumps and hide my loads like, to me it was never an option to not go through that time.
00:44:34
Speaker
You know, maybe it was the, cause this was my, my first, my first, you know, I would say bigger production that I've, that I've done. And I would say probably at, you know, the, well, definitely at the highest level, um, that I was at, especially at the time, there was no other option, you know, it wasn't like I was like, ah, it's good enough. You know, I really, um, maybe it was the overconfidence of, uh,
00:44:59
Speaker
of myself, you know, or of just the, the overconfidence of the story. Maybe I thought the story, which I still do, um, you know, it could never be sold short. So I had to figure out a way that to give every ounce of what I had just, I just kept saying, get it to the point where you can give it to an editor and then they can, they can take it further than you can. And, you know, again, maybe that was just a mantra that I, that I thought would work.
00:45:28
Speaker
As my relationships with editors grow, I still do believe in that. Good editing is what a good writer needs. But yeah, there was no other option, but I just try to figure out ways of just making it better and maybe just a little bit better. And then you get to a point where
00:45:48
Speaker
If it's like, just like carpentry, you know, you work on something for so long, if you keep fiddling with it, you're going to split the wood. So, you know, that's where I, you know, are parts of the story overworked? Yeah, of course there are. Are parts exactly how they should be? I think there's more of those parts than there are overworked. So, you know, I'm still extremely, extremely happy with how it came out. You know, I think it really, I give Dave
00:46:15
Speaker
all the credits to that because of how genuine and how open he was. So, um, you know, and that's, that's also part of it where, you know, man, I wish the one thing I wish I was better at than I do regret is I wish I was a better interviewer at the time. We got into some really, really particularly heavy and brutal topics that Dave had to talk about. He had to, you know, open up doors that, you know, maybe he hasn't even thought about in 30 years and
00:46:43
Speaker
And I regret it that I fumbled the conversations a lot. I had to go back and ask him questions for a second time that no person should have to answer twice. So the one thing I do regret is not the writing, but the interview process. You know, that was the only thing I think that so bothers me today is that, and how much I love Dave of how open he was of, you know, going through,
00:47:13
Speaker
some of these emotions and some of these stories for the second, third time just because I wasn't good enough at the start. And that I think was what sparked me to say, okay, I'm going to do this again. You know, I'm going to write another story in my life. I'm going to co-author more books. I'm going to help people tell their stories. And I'm never going to do that again. You know, I'm not, if I have to, you know, whatever I have to learn, whatever I have to do, you know, I'm never going to make someone go through the interview process.
00:47:42
Speaker
twice. And that's, you know, maybe a big takeaway, but that's one of the reasons why I didn't mind, you know, putting in more work because I know how much I asked of Dave. And how did you arrive at the great two-part feature that you were able to do on the Cape Cod League that subsequently was a notable selection for Best American Sports Writing? So how'd you arrive at this story? So that came to me from a friend, really, and
00:48:13
Speaker
And all the text message said was, hey, you got to look, you got to look up the 2017 Cape Cod league. And I was like, all right. Yeah, sure. So I looked it up and I had a connection with coach chef ship, the head coach that the story was, was about. And I said, Hey, you know, I almost like.
00:48:33
Speaker
you know, telling me how do you guys want a championship? And, you know, of course, and it was actually absolutely so. And he's a, he's a real, like, he is a bulldog of a coast. There's no other way of describing it. So him telling me the story. And then he said something when, uh, you know, it wasn't in recording. I'm just talking to him about it. And he said that after their first year, they scrapped it and he went back to the Keystone way.
00:49:01
Speaker
Finn Collin covered the story because the story ultimately is about, you know, really, this is really the story about Chef Chick. It's about his transformation and actually what he is giving to kids at Keystone and Cape Codley is what I believe he deserves in his life that he's not getting. So there is this juxtaposition of how much he gives versus what he can get in return, which is a, you know, it's a really
00:49:29
Speaker
I think there should be a deeper character dive. I didn't have that much real estate to go into it of the, of what is pulling that in Chet's mind. But, um, once he said about the Keystone way of recruiting, that is what started this whole thing that he was able to find players that no other team would take. Right. They were players that they deserve to be in the Cape Codley to other coaches standards. Maybe not. They weren't at grade school. They weren't at big time.
00:49:59
Speaker
Schools, they're either maybe they were at a big time school, but they were young. They were inexperienced. They had, they were not proven. And Jeff took all of them. The only stipulation was that he needed somebody that would play harder than anybody else and had more to prove than what they've already proven. And that was extremely interesting to me.
00:50:21
Speaker
So the story unfolds like a freaking movie. I'll tell you what, man, I worked out on that. You know, the way I was writing this, not how I was researching it, I actually researched more.
00:50:32
Speaker
about the story that I'm writing, because I figured somebody else already wrote this. I'm like, there's no way one year has passed before anybody else has taught this story. So I looked up every publication of trying to find anything about, you know, this style, this team, these players, and there was nothing. So I thought I was like getting away with something. I was going to do this until somebody said, oh, yeah, well, you know, Ian Shannon wrote this story a month ago. You know, that's how I figured the story was going to end.
00:51:00
Speaker
I was able to write the whole thing and, you know, Chef Chef gave me hit not on his blessing, but then got me in contact with every major character. And these characters are like straight from a movie book. I mean, it absolutely ridiculous of the types of people that were involved in this thing. Even I couldn't even get into it, but one of their assistant coaches is like a concert pianist. He's a professor. He's a coach. I mean, he was this interesting, interesting dude.
00:51:30
Speaker
that I wish I could write more on that actually got cut pretty much from the story. A greater lesson for once was that that story got rejected from, like, almost every publication I reached out to, you know, yeah, was it was there other factors involved? Definitely. Actually, you said one of them, there was a lot of people that already published the baseball story that year. So, you know, having another story about
00:51:57
Speaker
the cake oddly made no sense, which I mean, I thought that makes perfect sense to me. Why would you publish the same thing? But, you know, this thing just kept getting rejected, rejected, rejected. And then, you know, a site that was called Purpose to Play, it's part of a fansided network. You know, I shot the editor a pitch and she said, you know, I love this story. This is what our website represents. So, I mean, dude,
00:52:22
Speaker
It is not good. I wrote that and, you know, full disclosure, you know, the amount of work that I put into it to get like a couple of hundred bucks from it. Like it was never about the money. I mean, this story, it just needed to get out. And that's what I love about the art that I do is that, you know, unfortunately enough that I do have a separate career in a way. Um, but you know, went out and it did very well.
00:52:50
Speaker
Their site picked it up even more and it kept kind of getting this little buzz going, which was really nice for that story and Chef Chick. You know, maybe I was overconfident about it, but I said, I have no one really in my corner with these things. I'm trying to figure out as I go.
00:53:08
Speaker
I read the best American sports writing, I read the travel essays, I read almost all of them. So I said, what's the worst thing that could happen? I'm not losing anything. I mean, I put it myself. I dropped it into the mailbox, like the Senate of Vermont. There was nobody who did that for me.
00:53:33
Speaker
And yeah, and I ended up getting part of the notable stories, which was, which is pretty exciting because I didn't hear it in the background. So obviously I didn't think I got it, which was okay, cool. Another rejection, no good deal. And then I was in Barnes and Noble and I picked it up. I was being all like thrashed and everything. I was saying, oh, you know, let's see who made it in. I didn't. And then I flipped to the notable writing team. I was like, oh, all right, I'm going to buy this book now. So that's not how that all happened.
00:54:01
Speaker
That's amazing. And I love that I've never been selected for either thing, but I've submitted work. And I've had to do it myself too. You have to be your own advocate. And Glenn says, it's cool for you to submit your own work. You have to be your own advocate. And I love that that's what you did. You stood up for your own work.
00:54:24
Speaker
to get into the back of the book there. It's just, it's a tremendous honor and you should be like, I know you are proud and you need to be proud because that's an amazing honor and it's because you stood up for your work. Oh, well, thank you. For real, that does mean a lot because I think I get on a whim, I think more because of the respect I have for the book and the, you know, like you said, you have to stand up for your work and I've had an
00:54:52
Speaker
I get rejected every day. I mean, heck, I just finished writing something now that I would just set it out to get rejected at least a dozen times. That's part of what we do. And so I said, what is the worst? Do I print out paper and I get rejected again? That's part of it. The great thing about writing is that I don't have a time limit like I did with athletics. There's only a small window you have in athletics. I'm going to be a writer.
00:55:21
Speaker
hopefully, you know, God willing for the next 50 years of my life. Yeah, there's there's no changing that. I agree. So I write. There's there's no deviation from that. So I have 50 years to become the writer that I hope to be.
Learning from Other Writers and the Importance of Reading
00:55:38
Speaker
Oh yeah, and thumbing through the back there, and I always like to see who makes it, who I've spoken to, who are friends and peers, and just up and down that list. Your name is among Seth Wickersham, Eva Holland, Bronwyn Dickey.
00:55:55
Speaker
All these people who are just like, these are like the cream of the crop and it's just gotta, you know, your name's among them and anthologized and sort of ossified in stone. So that's just great. All the more great stuff and all the more validating that you're doing the right thing, you're on the right path and you just gotta keep going. Like I'm very excited to see what you do next now.
00:56:17
Speaker
Well, I do appreciate that. And, you know, I love, I think, Wright Thompson is one of the best sports writers that I've ever read in my life. So the fact that he, you know, he was, I think, the first story in that book. Yeah, if you're batting lead off in the in the anthology, like, that's pretty good. But no, I do appreciate that. And I do.
00:56:41
Speaker
I look forward to what I can learn from somebody. I mean, I'm currently reading those stories and deconstructing them and seeing what they have and how they were able to tell a better story than I did, how they were able to connect deeper, or being able to make the read better, if that makes sense. How can I make people want to read the next sentence, the next page?
00:57:08
Speaker
And I think that's probably the next phase of my development as a writer. I don't think it's going to be, you know, having to stick with it or the discipline to do it or any of that, the habitual sense. But I definitely look forward to learning from other writers and other editors of how they go about their business. You know, that's I think what separates
00:57:33
Speaker
Some of the great storytellers, and then, you know, some of the, some of the not favorite storytellers but
00:57:41
Speaker
Yeah, and it's just like what Roy Peter Clark would say, America's writing coach, if you will. His latest book, I think he's got another one coming out, but his latest one I believe is x-ray reading. And it's basically just what you're saying. It's kind of deconstructing what makes good writing good writing. And so it's like deconstructing that. It's like, all right, what are the elements that make this work? Glenn, the editor of that series, and prolific author himself.
00:58:09
Speaker
He has this great term of when one of his writers, one of his, that he was editing was having a hard time, he told him or her to pull down an issue of Best American Sports Writing and just shotgun leads, as he said. Just go through every story and read the lead of every single one. Whatever it was, 250, 500, maybe even a thousand word lead.
00:58:33
Speaker
but just to get, not to plagiarize, not to copy, but to just see what they're doing. And that informs the writing and that's kind of deconstructing it and seeing how the good ones do it because you can emulate them and then through all that your voice will develop but you're just going to start imprinting a lot of really good habits if you do that. Oh, absolutely. And it's true. Even when we're talking about co-op, I think that helped me actually find my voice as a writer because I had to first learn how to write to other people.
00:59:03
Speaker
So now that took the focus off of me trying to be poetic and, you know, filled with beautiful prose. It was like, okay, how would this person, what do they actually mean? How would they say it? What are they trying to get at? You know, those are things that really helped me where I didn't even know it was helping as a writer. And, you know, you kind of brought up as you're talking about, first off, I'm going to start doing that because I don't do that. I just, you know, read and deconstruct that. I'm going to start shotgunning all these,
00:59:33
Speaker
these leaves. But let's look at how these chefs learn how to cook, right? You know, one of the things that is extremely important is not just learning how to cook a meal, right? They have, they study where it came from. They study, you know, the flavors that go into it. You know, they even know more about agriculture, I think, than some people even give them credit for. And then along with that, they're able to taste something and then be able to deconstruct what goes into making that.
01:00:02
Speaker
You know, and I, and I thought about this when, when I was wondering, I don't know why I was wondering about, you know, I can't cook, but I was wondering about how chefs study. And that really, you know, shaped how I view it. I mean, there's something, anything that you Google, you can find with, Oh, six ways to make a better management with all these different things. Most of them are hacks. Most of them are clickbait, but let's look at how authors, you know, bring flavor to what they're doing. You know, let's look at, okay.
01:00:32
Speaker
If a chef just tasted with, you know, whatever it might be, the soup, and now they're able to deconstruct it and make it better themselves, why don't we do that with essays? Why don't we do that with books? You know, why don't we do that with somebody telling stories? So that's kind of, you know, I'm glad we're talking about this because that's really how, you know, I like to spend my time now doing that, reading stories and deconstructing
01:00:57
Speaker
you know, where they came from. And it's really profound in a way of trying to understand how the author is doing about what they're doing, not just what they are doing. Oh, you know, how do you fold, you know, reading in a deep reading, x-ray reading, if you will, into your day? And what are some of those maybe go-to books or essays or magazine articles that you revisit to remind yourself how it's done? The first thing, I read everything that Wright Thompson, Wright
01:01:26
Speaker
Not because I want to write like him. I read Red Thompson's because it reminds me of what perfection looks like.
01:01:41
Speaker
of even, you know, the story of the Dan Gable, the loss of the Dan Gable is, it's something, if you want to see how a non-fiction story, a non-fiction essay should read, I mean, that reads like, like a fiction story. You know, that is something that is really incredible. So I will definitely read, I'll read him, you know, every morning I read The Athletic. I think I really, that's getting more popular in a sense, and I think it's a great,
01:02:07
Speaker
It's something that I definitely connect with because the idea there is, hey, let's fall in love with the sports pitch again. Let's tell stories, not just of what's happening now, but let's start a little bit deeper with a long form about the people involved with sports. So I really connect with that. I'll read that religiously every single morning, no matter what. But with the deep reading and the X-ray reading, if you will,
01:02:35
Speaker
I schedule that into my day, just like it would be another meeting at work or another, you know, another writing session. I schedule it in completely. There's no getting around it. If you want to be a great writer, you know, you have to be a great reader. And that is the ability. There's no getting around that.
01:02:55
Speaker
There's nothing else to be said about that. So I scheduled into my day of enjoyment reading and then also like study reading. Those are two different two different sections. And any minute waste any minute reading is not a minute wasted. So I really believe that especially as a writer. But I actually started to really enjoy fiction. Not necessarily due to the nature of
01:03:25
Speaker
what's going on, but I think in fiction, you have to develop character even more than what's expected of somebody reading it, right? So you have to fall in love with characters or you're not going to finish the book. I mean, you have three to 400 pages of a story, and so you have to fall in love with a character. So I do love fiction. I mean, Jody P. Cole is one of the greatest writers.
01:03:52
Speaker
and I will read all of her work. She's a complete fiction writer and, you know, I love Kristin Hannah as well. I mean, I know these are more fiction than anything, but I think we can learn a lot from fiction writing, especially in the crafting of story. So I'll read them very religiously. I'm pretty much like a fangirl of anything they come out with, I'll read. But yeah, definitely,
01:04:21
Speaker
The athletic is where I spend most of my time. I think it's minimum of an hour every morning reading the athletic. You know, there are some other places that I do love the undefeated. I do love reading some things of ESPN. Some of the basic, I don't think there's anything wrong with reading mass media because there's a reason why they're able to reach so many people. I'll x-ray a whole lot on fiction.
01:04:44
Speaker
Well, that's great. Well, Jake, this
Podcast Conclusion and Future Conversations
01:04:46
Speaker
was awesome. I hope this is the first of many conversations we have about talking shop like this, because there's definitely a lot of things I'd given more time I'd like to unpack. So that just means we're going to have to do this again, I hope, in the future.
01:04:59
Speaker
Man, I would love to, you know, again, like I told you, I've been listening to this podcast now for a couple of years. I enjoy the people you've had on and the, you know, the great thing about it, I read most of their work that you've had on. I've also been rejected by most of the editors that you've had on. So it is a really, you know, this is a fun experience to connect it all together. But I really, I really respect the people you have on the show. So having me,
01:05:26
Speaker
on this with them is, it really does mean the world to me. So Ben, I hope we can do this again and I hope the answers that I give of your questions are totally different than what I'm answering now. So I do appreciate this time. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Jake. And like I said, we'll do this again down the road for sure when more of your work comes out.
01:05:52
Speaker
Well, that's it, CNFers. Thanks to Jake and, of course, Bay Path University for the support. We love it, baby. Subscribe to the show, friend. You know where to find it. Also, the newsletter. The newsletter? The newsletter. My monthly newsletter.
01:06:10
Speaker
Here's good stuff coming to subscribers so you know what to do. BrendanOmero.com either the pop up or the form at the end of the blog post or on the smot bar across the top. Once a month no spam. As far as I can tell you can't beat it. If you deem the show worth sharing, link up to it on social media.
01:06:30
Speaker
you can tag me in the show at cnfpod though as you know i'm scaling back on social media herd so if i don't give you mad props right away that james headfield headbanging gif that's why time to go cnfers i'm flying into the belly of the beast for christmas man so if you don't hear from me ever again you'll know what happened
01:07:22
Speaker
but just remember this if you can do interviews see