Favorite Hobby or Activity

My favorite childhood memories include several visits to Fenway Park to watch the Boston Red Sox. Like my father, I've always been a diehard baseball fan, first as a spectator and later as a participant. I don't know if baseball can truly be in your blood, but I suspect it inhabits at least a few strands of my DNA. I knew at age six that I wanted to join the Boston Red Sox. I loved sitting high in the bleachers with my dad, sweating in the intense 90 degree heat, wiping sweat from our brows as we cheered the Sox on. It didn't matter if they won or lost, as long as they gave it their all. We were loyal fans and supported the team in foul weather and bad seasons, long after they were eliminated from pennant consideration. I'd tumble into bed exhasuted those nights, confident that in twenty years I would be on the other side of the turnstyle as a player for my favorite team.

English: Wade Boggs at the 2008 MLB All Star Legen...

Fenway Park on June 21, 2008

The Boston Red Sox celebrating their clinching the...

I'm not there yet, but I'm still an avid fan and player. I've played baseball at every available opportunity since I was seven. I joined the peewee division at my elementary school in second grade and moonlighted on a church team on Sundays. In middle school, I perfected my catching skills at summer baseball camp in Taunton, and began high school as a smirking, over-confident rookie at Sr. Xavier High. My parents enrolled me in the school because it has a strong math and science program, but I was more impressed by its athletic facilites. I also believed it has positive baseball karma. Wade Boggs graduated from St. Xavier's, and I felt confident that lighting would, indeed, strike twice there. I would improve my game and the scouts would know where to...