Today is June 20 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How long will you keep trying to translate your dreams into reality?”
For Steve Delabar, it took him eight years.
Delabar’s story about his road to becoming a professional baseball player illustrates another example of how there is no such thing as an overnight success.
In 2003 the San Diego Padres drafted Delabar and he began playing in the minor leagues the following years. For five years he played in the low minor leagues until he sustained a severe elbow injury that required a steel plate and nine screws embedded to stabilize the elbow during the surgery. In 2010 he worked as a substitute teacher and then became an assistant high school baseball coach.
He helped to implement an arm conditioning program for pitchers at the high school and found that his own pitching velocity improved significantly.
Since he kept thinking about playing professional baseball, Delabar tried out with the Seattle Mariners in 2011 and got assigned to the team's class A affiliate. He progressed to Classes High A, Double-A, and Triple-A, then to the major leagues.
His MLB debut came late in 2011 at the age of 28. He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2012 and in 2013 posted a 5–1 record with a 1.58 ERA and an American League reliever-leading 57 strikeouts in 40 innings over 35 games played prior to the All-Star Game.
On July 11, 2013 it was announced that Delabar had been elected to the 2013 All-Star game in the Final Vote contest, receiving 9.6 million votes.
British statesman Winston Churchill noted “Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about.” Delabar never gave up on playing professional baseball.
How long will you keep trying to translate your dreams into reality?