The transcription is about Manny Aponte sharing his baseball journey from growing up in a competitive baseball environment, experiencing pressure to excel, sustaining an injury, undergoing surgery, and returning to the field with a different approach. He prioritizes baseball, adapting his routine post-surgery, aiming to play at the highest level possible, driven by competition and discipline. Playing D1 baseball signifies achievement and resilience for him. Baseball now serves as an escape from life's challenges.
All right, who am I here with? You're here with Manny Aponte. Where are you from and where are you now? I am from South Jersey, Ann Arbor Township, New Jersey, and I am now at Washington College. So why don't you tell me what it was like growing up playing baseball where you're from. Growing up playing baseball where I was from, it was very competitive, there's a lot of talent around where I'm from, especially in my, like, county, like the Atlanta County region.
A lot of talent, very competitive, from all ages, there's always multiple teams, like for travel teams there's always multiple teams, whether it's an A, B, and C team, there's just a lot of people competing, trying to be on the best team possible, so that was my experience. Did that put pressure on you at all? Did that put pressure on me? I would say yes, because I always wanted to strive to be on the, I guess the A team, and fortunately I was always on the A team, but to answer their question simply, yes, it did put pressure to try and be the best and be better than other people at the sport.
So you had a bit of an injury, before this injury though, what did baseball mean to you? So was playing at a high level always the goal, and did you picture yourself playing past college? Yeah, to answer that last part, playing at the highest level I possibly can is always the goal. Hopefully I'm able to do that after Washington College and get my master's degree at another school, maybe at a higher level, hopefully, if that opportunity presents itself, and what was the first part of the question? Before the injury, what did baseball mean to you? What did baseball mean to me? Baseball pretty much, to sum it up, means everything to me.
I base everything I do off of baseball, whether it's school and all my other activities that go on throughout my life, I base everything around baseball and make sure I get what I need to do done. So you'd say that's a priority of yours? Yeah, it's a major priority of mine. So, why don't you walk me through the moment when the injury occurred and you found out you needed surgery? So the injury, the moment the injury occurred, actually there wasn't a specific moment, but it was a window of time that it happened.
So, I was pitching in a game in July 2023, and I started the game, I'm usually a reliever, and I threw more pitches than I usually do. I didn't think anything of it. I just threw more pitches than I usually did, and then the next day when I woke up, I couldn't bend my elbow at all, like past 90 degrees. So, then I went to go to the doctor, got it checked out, he told me that I had a partially torn UCL, and that was that.
I tried rehabbing it for two years, and eventually ended up needing surgery. Why don't you walk me through the emotions of going through, finding out you have to get surgery, and knowing the recovery? So, walking through the emotions, when I initially found out I needed surgery, I wasn't really scared. I was kind of excited, actually, because there has been this saying going around that when you get the surgery, you come back throwing harder. That was the initial buzz going around when I found out this news.
I wasn't nervous at the time, but after trying to rehab it, I was trying to avoid surgery at first, but eventually I was told I needed surgery. As I inched closer to surgery, I got more and more nervous, especially because I get nervous for surgery in general. I was just worried about what this meant in the future, because I knew it was going to be a grueling recovery process after surgery. So, that's that. So now moving forward, how do you think going through this has impacted your routine, and what are some things that you refuse to skip in your lifestyle and baseball preparation? What's the first part of that question? Read the first part, and I'll answer it bit by bit.
How has this impacted your routine? So, the impact to my routine that this surgery has had on me is that I've become very superstitious, and I have to do certain things, not certain times, but I have to do certain things to feel right. Whether that is, it sounds silly, but breathing exercises, extra stretches just to make sure I feel okay. So that's, to answer that part of the question, yes, surgery has changed the way I do things, and I'm a little superstitious about some stuff.
Why are you so strict about this routine and these superstitions? Why am I so strict? Because I know what it feels like to have the game taken away from me, because it's such a big part of my life, so I just try and do everything I can to prevent, I do certain things to prevent having like a pain feeling or a pain sensation, so I just can play freely and not think about anything else. So now on a more positive note, what was it like stepping back on the field for the first time this year? Did you feel like the same player? No, to answer that question, I did not feel like the same player.
I felt like a completely different version of myself. What was it like stepping back on the field for the first time this year? Stepping back on the field for the first time in two years was interesting because I was a different, I would consider myself a different player. I wasn't who I was two years ago. That's because, well, that's because I throw different pitches, I go about training a different way, I'm more protected with my training because I don't want to get injured again, and overall the way I approach the game is a little different than it was beforehand.
So now that you're back, what are you chasing? Well, what I'm chasing, the ultimate goal is to play at the highest level possible and throw as hard as possible. I think that would be any pitcher and competitor's goal. But the thing I'm chasing is just, to be honest, I don't really know. I kind of just want to compete at the highest level possible. That's all. What's so appealing about that? Why is it so important for you to try to play D1 or at a higher level? I think it's important to play Division I baseball, to me, is solely the fact to just say that I did it, that I'm a competitor, and I feel like competing at the highest level you can shows that you have discipline, and yeah, that's really it.
I just want to compete at the highest level. What would it mean to you to get there after everything? To get there after everything would probably mean the world because it just shows that the amount of hard work you can put in, you can do anything, especially for me as a pitcher that's undersized, that would be at the Division I level. It would mean a lot because it just shows that anyone can do it. And what does baseball mean to you now compared to before? What baseball means to me now is just kind of an escape from everything that goes on.
In my life, and yeah, that's honestly really it. It's just an escape. That's all I got. I kept taking more questions, but that should be enough. You can stop it.
