My age 21 season

Last night, I sat down to watch the first couple innings of the MLB All Star game. I wanted to see how Matt Harvey would pitch, and after he was done, I kept the game on as background noise while I was piddling around on my computer.

So I am sitting on the couch of my apartment, and the first pitch of the game is a blistering 97 mile-per-hour tailing fastball on the outer half of the plate, and the batter ripped it opposite field down the first base line and busted into second base with a head first slide for a double.

That batter was Mike Trout, and he is 6 month's younger than I am. 22 year old all-stars are uncommon, but not extraordinarily rare. Al Kaline was 20 years old, and Bryce Harper was 20 when he was named last year as a rookie. In fact, Manny Machado is only 21 years old, and he was Trout's teammate last night.

What makes Mike Trout special is last year in his age 20 season, he had one of the best season's in baseball history. His 10.9 wins above replacement (by Fangraphs calculations) was good enough for 21st ALL TIME, and he came one stolen base short of joining the 30-50 club, something that has only been done twice in baseball history.

Trout is hitting at the same level this season, and playing damn good defense in the outfield on top of it all. After he hit that leadoff double, I googled some stuff about Mike Trout.  Apparently, he dates a supermodel, makes over $500,000 a year playing baseball, and is a genuinely nice guy.

Needless to say, I am a little bit jealous of Mike Trout. I don't have a job that pays $500,000 a year. In fact I am in the middle of looking for a job that pays me anything at all. Last year I finished up my last year of school, and I would say that I did pretty good in the classroom and with my on-campus job. I did not, however, have the 21st best year ever as a student, or as a journalist. Not even close.

I would feel really bad that a guy younger than me is much better at his job, at a younger age, than I ever will be at my job. But the more I think about it, some guys are just really damn good. So, Mr. Mike Trout, I will tip my hat to you and say good day sir.

Nice hit, by the way. I liked the way you went with the pitch last night.

Who says you can't go home?

Robert Frost wrote and said many brilliant things in his long life. He wrote The Mending Wall, Fire and Ice, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. He quipped "In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on," a statement that seems to grace every high school graduates Facebook wall at some point or another. He read at John F. Kennedy's inauguration and is lauded as one of the giants of American literature along with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Twain.

That intro sounds a little bit like the intro to a American Lit paper in college, and I am sorry for that, but I must admit that Frost is probably my favorite author to read along with Stephen King and Pat Conroy. I got to thinking about old Bobby Frost tonight because I am going home for the first time in almost 2 months Wednesday, and whenever I head home one quote pops into my head.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Every time that I get in the car, or the plane, or the whatever to go home after a long absence I think of that quote. Whether I am driving my old Buick through the Blue Ridge mountains from Western, or back to the piedmont from Chapel Hill, I think about that quote. Home is where they have to take you in. Where they won't shut the door and fasten the latch when I shake the dust from my shoes on the porch. Where I can always find something to eat without feeling guilty for mooching. Home is where things just feel right.

When I think of home, I think of a myriad of things. Home is seeing my twin brother and asking him to play catch in the front yard, whipping the ball from the driveway to the edge of our yard no matter what the weather is and how in shape our arms are. It is sitting down to talk ball with my dad and watching the hours slip away as we talk about all of the plays and stories that we've seen. Home is walking in the front door of my mom's house and talking about the books that we love and hate. Home is her helping me bust out of the terrible writers block I am stuck in, or looking over a paragraph that she can't quite end the right way. Home is knowing the way to my gramma's house even if it had been months since I have been there. It's knowing that I will smell brownies or cookies, or a delicious southern meal as I walk in the door.

It has been a shamefully long time since I have been home. I feel really bad about letting two months go by and not seeing the people who have known me the longest. I've been painfully busy with work and an internship, but I don't feel like that is a valid excuse. I should have figured out a way to make it two hours down the road at some point in the last couple of months.

The good news is that I am going home Wednesday, and spending four glorious days seeing my family without any worries of work or bills or anything. I get to chill with both of my brothers, have lunch with my gramma, and zip line; that is just Wednesday. I don't know the rest of the itinerary of my visit, but I know that it will go my much too fast and I will have to go back to the real world sooner than I would like.

Home. Just thinking about it makes me wish tomorrow flies by and I am heading west down I-40 with blue skies pointing me in the right direction.