Once upon a time there was a hero.
“Oh, easy! This is already born a hero.”, will be your thought.
No, he is not born a hero, he becomes one.
Now I’ll tell you a story.
Our hero was a baseball player and a good one. But not just “good”, but very good. Someone who was fully committed to what he did and had looked for the best coaches, the most intricate situations to solve with his talent alone. He had perfected himself, studied and “stolen” with his eyes everything he had found good over the years on the baseball fields.
He had become someone to call upon to have on their team, someone who made a difference. Esteemed, admired and, of course, hated.
He soon began to win increasingly important prizes at a national and international level. He was satisfied with himself, not for the prizes, because those are just objects, but for being able to say to himself “You did well.”
Then, one day, the monster arrives. The one who swallows anyone and anything, hoping to become as good and famous as the people he harms. He doesn’t act alone, no, he sends his monster-helpers to get their hands dirty, because he must always appear pure and chaste.
Our hero finds a monster-helper right in his path.
One morning, just as he was preparing to receive another award that placed him in the Olympus of those chosen for glory, a strange guy approached him and stopped him saying:
“You will not receive the prize today, because our Lord (the monster) has decided that another person should win this recognition.”
“But how?! I’m already here, I deserved it. Why can’t I have it?”
“Because that’s how it was decided. A new hero is needed. Unless you want to stay in office speaking well of our Lord.”, was the firm reply.
An affront? A punishment? What was that choice?
The chosen one was no better than him. He was a novice, someone who didn’t have the same talent as him.
Our hero remained silent for a few minutes, thinking about the “way” in which he had been excluded.
They had let him get ready, get to the agreed place, let him savor yet another result of his good work and then… they had punished him in that unexpected way.
No, he would never agree to speak well of the monster just to keep a prize that he knew he deserved anyway.
His self-esteem had been wounded, but the surge of pride that followed that decision was strong and explicit in his mind.
“Enough!”, he imposed on himself.
And it was exactly like that. From that day on he stopped playing baseball. He put all his things in a box, put it in the back of his bedroom closet, and tried to forget.
But, as you know, baseball is a disease. You can’t forget like that on the spot, just because you force it on yourself.
The prize itself, as always, didn’t matter to him at all, but the monster had tried to weaken his inner strength, had mortified him, had tried to lower his self-esteem, the one he felt for the time, the way, the result of his good work.
He stopped playing, yes. He returned to his daily job and never spoke about baseball again, not even with those who asked him for an explanation for his sudden decision to abandon, or with those who asked him to return. He shook his head and remained silent.
How many stories are similar to this one? I am sure that there are many, silenced, forced into silence, blackmailed, humiliated. Look around you, think about how many of your friends or acquaintances have disappeared from our sport without saying why.
A hero is always a hero, even when he leaves. He understands perfectly who he is and will not change either his decision or his being. He will accept the inevitable consequences, but he will always remain himself.
The monster? Well, the monster will continue to gobble up heroes, one after another, because he cannot understand the difference between being and having.
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Author: Cristina Pivirotto
Image source: web
2024, BardelBaseball, baseball, featured, Italia
