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Prologue

Now

Grant

This is thefor since I was a little kid

Since I dug in at the plate during a Little League game and hit my first home run

Since I caught ame

Through it all, I pictured this

Finallyit to The Show

Now I’e chance in front of me

I’ve been at spring training for a full week, practicing with pitchers and catchers, showing the coaches what I’ood so far

TodayThe position players will arrive, and soon we’ll start playing gaainst the other teams in Arizona

That’s when my future will be on the line When I have the opportunity, at last, to prove myself where it counts—on the diamond

And I intend to do just that

Every day, I oals

It’s eight-thirty in the , and our first workout is at nine-thirty

I leave the hotel, make my way to the team’s facility a half-mile away, and head inside Even after a week, wonder spreads through my body as I check out the plaques and trophies on the wall

I head to the locker rooame, the pitches I’ll call, the approach I’ll need at-bat

Baseball, and only baseball, runs through my mind as I turn the corner and nearly smack into someone

But not just anyone

My new tea on from afar

And it started nearly four years ago

1

Then

Grant

The first ti a sandwich

You got the bread, you spread the mustard, you added a slice of meat

It was just so you did in a day

But the first tinited inside my body

We’re talking lightning, thunder—entire power grids frying