A Day In The Life Of Minor Leaguer Graham Lawson A Pitcher In The Chicago Cubs Organization

What's up guys? This is Graham Lawson. I played at the University of South Carolina, and now I'm with the Chicago Cubs, and this is a day in the life. What age did I get into baseball? I vaguely remember playing at seven and eight years old and played for a little local rec team with the Padres and the Yankees. Just kind of what got me into it. My grandfather was a professional way back in the day for the Spartanburg Phillies and played for the Phillies and Tigers, so that kind of started that. My uncle was also a collegiate player, so it just kind of started there and just blossomed into this. That's not a creek. That's a borderline little river. Yeah. Last year, it wasn't really. It was kind of bumpy towards the end, but it was really kind of just trying to fill out everything again. So I have a very unique journey that a bunch of my close friends know about and that guys that I've played with over the course of my career, but in high school and as a kid growing up, all I grew up with was a Clemson Tiger fan. All I wanted to do was play at Doug Kingsmore. That was my dream. Literally bled orange and purple as a child into high school. So ended up being able to commit to Clemson. Thought that was my dream. After coaching change and some things happened, I really felt like that wasn't the right fit for me. Talked to a couple schools and one man, South Carolina, elected to go to the JUCO route. Ended up not being what I thought was the best decision for me, and I was really kind of burnt out with baseball. Really didn't know kind of what was next, and I decided that I need to preface by saying I went to JUCO 25 minutes from my house. I really just kind of struggled with who I wanted to be, and so after a while, I kind of decided I need to find out more about myself, and just randomly during the summer one day, went down to South Carolina. Just walked along the campus. Had talked to a pitching coach once, Coach Jerry Myers. At one time, he told me he had a lot of guys coming back. Didn't know how many spots he would have. I kind of said, you know, I'll get back with you, and before I could even get back with him, I went ahead and signed up for orientation because I knew I felt like that was going to be a really good place for me to find out who I was as a person and not an athlete at that point, and if baseball happened to work out a little walk-on tryout, I was going to say, hey, I'm gonna leave it all on the table and see what happens, and before any of that happens, I get a text from Coach Sammy Esposito saying, hey, Graham, I'm here coming to South Carolina, and ended up just being able to be straight on the team, not having to try out, and it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. Literally revitalized my career, found another love for the game that I didn't know I had with a ton of great people, and the city of dreams just molded me into a great person today. It's just like night at the door. A strength. Let me see here. I'd say definitely a strength of mine is just trying to come to the field every day. I love doing things the right way, and I love at least knowing when I go out and compete, you're gonna get the best that Graham Lawson has to offer that day. I could go in, I throw a ton of pitches well. I do throw a sinker very well. I have a lively fastball at times, but I feel like you have to go in and compete and be a good dude every day and do the right things around the clubhouse, and I don't care what, I don't want people to remember me as a great player or them to remember me as a good teammate and a good person and a guy that competed for the team and gave us all he had. A weakness, I'd probably say is, you know, baseball-wise, I need to land a breaking ball more. I need to be able to make some better pitches up in the zone that I really think can make me a better player, and I think sometimes I just need to believe in myself a little more than trust what got me there. Any game day superstitions or rituals? I wear, no matter how cold it is, there's never undershirt on, and I make sure my cleats are absolutely spotless when I go out to the field. There's not one speck of dirt on. All right, so definitely two of my most favorite memories forever in college. I had an extremely good outing in Vanderbilt to come behind Vickery to win the series. It really kind of got me rolling into the end of a great year, and the same part of that year I did four innings of relief on the road at Texas A&M, and just an absolute awesome game. It was probably the best outing of my career, and it was just also unbelievably fun to experience that because we were rolling on our way to a super regional at the end of the year, and that is a moment. Recording those last three outs of four innings is a feeling that I will never forget. Something that I've really, really worked on is more on the mental side of baseball than actual performance. I thought one of the best things that happened for me this year was coming home and decompressing and learning about the season and really trying to process my thoughts and feelings toward it. I kind of realized some things. I put too much pressure on myself in certain areas, and it's tough to realize at times that this is a game of failure, and we're not going to be perfect. We're going to miss pitches. We're going to miss locations. We're going to have bad days, and I think being able to come home and process that and really grow in the mental aspect has really, really changed my outlook going forward and even training this offseason, and whether it's listening to my body or just trying to say, hey, I'm going to think about this scenario that happened during the season and how can I be better going forward. Just from a pitching standpoint, I really think, as I kind of mentioned earlier, is I want to be more effective in certain areas, whether it's a fastball up in the zone to use my carry or being able to land my breaking ball more in the zone and just be more consistent and command those pitches a little better. The best advice I can give somebody is you are always one pitch away or one day away or one at bat away from something changing your career. I can look back on my career and look at certain days that my career changed, and you never know when that day is going to be, so just prepare and commit to the process and just trust it because the best days are always going to be ahead of you. You keep working hard and playing the game the right way. All right, guys, so that's the day in the life of Graham Lawson. This morning, we started our day at the vault over in Simpsonville through a bullpen, which was more of a command bullpen, very early into my bullpen sequences, so that was just my third one off the mound. After we wrapped that up, went into some arm care, got to stay healthy. Then after that, we came over here to the Knack Performance Factory, where I knocked out a good lift, did some individual work, and I'm about to go have a protein shake. Thanks for watching.