The Kid from Tucson Who Never Missed a Rep

By Deeze

People like to talk about chasing dreams as if the moment you make it is all that matters.
The call-up. The lights. The cameras. The highlight reels.

But what they never tell you is how quiet the years before that are.
How long they stretch.
How much they ask of you.

The truth is, you do not wake up one day and make it.
You earn it one morning at a time.

And for me, that started in Tucson.

The First Swing

Tucson baseball is unforgiving. The heat bakes everything, even your patience.
The metal bleachers burn through jeans. The field dirt sticks to your skin. The air feels like it is holding its breath.

When I was eight, my dad would drive me to Kino Sports Complex before work. We had one bucket of baseballs, a glove that had gone gray from the sun, and a shared belief that repetition was the secret.

He would say the same thing every morning.
Consistency beats talent.

At eight years old, I did not care about consistency. I just wanted to hit one over the fence.
But the fences kept getting farther.
The kids around me got bigger.
And every year, another teammate stopped showing up.

It was never the worst players who quit.
It was the ones who stopped loving the routine.

The Long Summer

When I was thirteen, I joined a travel team that played up in Phoenix. That meant waking up at four in the morning, driving two hours north, and pretending I was not tired.

My dad slept in the car some weekends because hotel money was gas money.
We ate peanut butter sandwiches in parking lots.

At the time, I thought we were crazy.
Now I see it for what it was.

Those drives taught me how to do hard things quietly.
How to keep going when there is no crowd and no promise.

A kid on our team named Luis got drafted out of high school. We watched his name scroll across the TV in a lobby with bad carpet and flickering lights. Everyone said he was special.

He was.
But three years later, Luis was out of baseball.

I was still taking grounders.

Pima Days

After high school, I went to Pima Community College.
No scouts. No big crowds. Just a small field, chain-link fences, and a coach who believed that details were everything.

He had this line he repeated before every practice.
If you want to play in July, learn to rest in December.

Back then I thought he was talking about pitch counts.
Now I know he was talking about burnout.

At Pima I learned how to stretch right, how to eat right, how to study video, and how to stay patient when my body was tired. I learned that consistency is not just about showing up. It is about doing the same small things right when nobody is watching.

By the time scouts started showing up, I did not even notice.
I was too focused on the routine.
The sound of a clean ground ball. The rhythm of a day done right.

The Decision

When the University of Arizona called, I felt like everything had come full circle. Hi Corbett Field had always looked like a dream to me. The grass cut in perfect lines, the echo of the PA, the stands filled with people who believed you were going somewhere.

Then, one afternoon in my junior year, I got drafted.
Late round. Small bonus. Nothing flashy.

Some teammates told me to wait another year.
They said I could get a better offer if I put up bigger numbers.

But I could not shake what my dad used to say.
Consistency beats talent.

I signed.

Rookie ball was not glamorous.
It was long bus rides, small towns, and cheap motels. It was hitting off a tee under flickering lights while other guys went out drinking. It was learning that talent gets you seen but consistency gets you remembered.

Some nights I would sit in the dark with a bucket of balls and think about those early mornings in Tucson.
The smell of dust.
The way the ball sounded off my dad’s glove.

I did not realize it then, but that was where I learned how to stay in love with the process.

The Climb

Every step up the ladder was harder than the last.
Rookie ball to Low-A. Low-A to High-A. Then Double-A.

At each level the game moved faster, and the number of players who could really hang got smaller.

By Double-A, everyone threw gas. Everyone had a highlight reel.
The difference was not skill anymore. It was stamina.

I saw guys with more power than me.
Guys with better arms.
Guys who looked the part.

But they burned out because they needed the crowd.
They needed someone to tell them they were good.

I did not need that.
I just needed another rep.

When the call came that I was going up, I did not cry or jump around.
I just texted my dad.
He texted back.
Told you consistency wins.

Lessons from the Dirt

If I could talk to that eight-year-old kid again, I would tell him the truth.
You do not need to be the best.
You just need to keep showing up.

Every swing shapes you.
Every early morning builds you.
Every failure refines you.

We love to glamorize the moment someone makes it.
The contract, the headline, the viral clip.

But you do not make it in one moment.
You make it in ten thousand.

Consistency is quiet, and it is slow, and it will not always reward you right away.
But it will never betray you either.

That is the thing people do not get.
Consistency is not about results.
It is about becoming the kind of person who keeps promises to themselves.

The Desert Never Leaves You

Even now, I still feel Tucson in everything I do.
The heat. The grit. The patience it forced into me.

That city taught me that growth takes time.
You cannot rush it.

Every cactus out there waits months for one flower.
That kind of patience leaves a mark.

Whenever I walk out of a dugout, I can still smell the desert in the back of my mind.
That red dirt. That dry wind. That reminder to keep trusting the work.

The best players I have ever met all share the same thing.
They do not panic when it gets quiet.
They do not lose focus when nobody is watching.
They do not count reps. They build them.

Game 7

The crowd is so loud I can feel it in my chest.
It is October.
Game 7 of the World Series.

We are down by one.
Two outs.

And I am up next.

I can feel the weight of the bat in my hands. The same weight it had in Tucson.
The dirt looks different, but it smells the same.

I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth.
Everything slows down.

Every early morning.
Every bus ride.
Every swing that did not matter.

They all led to this.

Consistency brought me here.

And whatever happens next,
I am ready.