BASEBALL

When  I was 5 years old my father put me on a Little League team. I remember all the kids were like 8 or 9 and they were astonished that I had been put on a team at 5 years old. I remember a couple weeks before he made me play baseball, I was in bed and I woke up to my father drunk off his ass, tapping me on the heart and saying, "You could've been a great baseball player one day" in a slurry voice. I remember thinking, "Whatever.." 

I played baseball for 3 years and I had 3 hits in 3 years. That's pretty fucking awful, literally 3 hits in 3 years. I was so afraid of striking out I just never swung the bat so I either got hit, walked, or struck out. I remember my first coach told everyone "Go out there and get a hit!" when they were leaving the dugout to go to bat. Whenever I was going up to bat he'd say, "Alright Mike, go out there and get hit." 

One time it was like 22 to nothing in the first inning. I am so old they didn't even have the "Mercy Rule" yet. We were losing that badly. As another dude was going home from 3rd I said to the coach, "There goes our no-hitter," He totally laughed. 

The last year I was on a different team. The coach used to read everyone's batting average at practice. I'll never forget him saying, "Mike McGuirk has a zero, zero, zero average but that's ok because he's always on base even though he's not hitting." 

That reminds me, I only lasted one week in college. When I went to the Bursar's office and asked him for financial aid to go a second semester. I had skipped all my finals -- I had a zero GPA. I was literally like the guy in Animal House. He said, "You have a  zero point zero GPA."