Written by Mike Patterson
My form of gardening is much different than what most people would consider gardening. Most people when they think of gardening have a little spot where they plant flowers or grow fruits and vegetables but what I consider my garden is something so much more. All my life I have been playing baseball and the great game has taught me so many life lessons that I didn’t even know. I never thought that sports and gardening could be connected but the more I thought about it the more I realized that gardening has had a major influence on my life without me even knowing. With everything in life everyone wants to take pride in their home and that is no different with our home field. We as a team always wanted other teams to show up to our field and be in awe of how well kept it was and how nice it looked because there is nothing better than a well kept field, look at Fenway Park for example. People go there every year for the pure beauty of it. We wanted to do the same with ours as well. At the time I never even considered what I was doing to be gardening until the more I thought about it. I always just looked at it as the teatius tasks that had to be done after a long practice but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it was in fact gardening. As players it was our job to water the field, take care of the dirt, fill in holes that the New England weather created, and even plant some grass seeds in areas that were losing its grass. Since maintenance did not want to take the time to do it we as players felt it was our responsibility to maintain the field and make it presentable for our opponents. We even planted some flowers around the field to make it pop even more. I realized that not only did baseball teach me lessons but the gardening and the maintenance that took place after all those practices taught me something as well. I believe that it taught me how to be more disciplined and how to take pride in my work because everyday we were working on the field after practice. Although it is not the traditional form of gardening looking back I realized that sports and gardening can be interconnected and teach people valuable lessons.
