Hi, I’m Doug Mead, and I’m a sportsaholic. Oh wait, that’s for another venue…I have been passionate about sports, and about writing, for most of my life. I was introduced to sports way back in 1967 when, as a small lad growing up in Boston, I enthusiastically followed the Boston Red Sox during their “Impossible Dream” season, and even put together a scrapbook of my favorite memories of the season. My love affair with the Red Sox, and all things sports, has never waned.
I took up an earnest interest in writing during my sophomore year of high school. I had signed up for a college prep course called “Writing Workshop I.” My teacher, a sweet 74-year old women, endeavored to inspire her class with one of the toughest curriculum I had encountered in my education to date. We were required to write without utilizing the verb “to be”, and generic adjectives, like “good” and “interesting”. The word “like” could not be used in any form. It was a daunting task for a young sophomore!
Throughout that semester, Ms. Bujnievicz coaxed and chortled me, at the same time inspiring me to great literary heights.
The final exam was expected to be a minimum 500-word descriptive essay, giving a detailed account of each student’s favorite room in their respective houses. I chose my attic, as my mother was a pack-rat, and gave me plenty of material in which to describe. My efforts resulted in an A plus, and my writing career, I thought, was set in stone.
With my devotion to sports, my goal was to enroll at a local university and study broadcast journalism. However, real life got in the way and took a bite out of my aspirations. My mother died shortly after my junior year started, and I set off on a path of partying and cavorting. In the time before my mother’s passing, I was an honors student with a 3.85 GPA. By the time I graduated, I had slipped to a 2.6 GPA, barely even passing several courses during my junior and senior years.
In spite of the dramatic turnaround in my grades, I was still accepted to one of the local universities I had applied to. But my partying ways still got the best of me, and I neglected to apply for scholarships or financial aid, thus my budding writing career would have to wait.
After a failed marriage, two kids, and the passing of my father, I still had aspirations of becoming a writer, and had turned in freelance columns to several local community newspapers through the years. But my drinking career was flourishing at the same time, not allowing me to pursue my dream.
Now, some twenty five years later, and having been sober since August 1989, my passion for writing has again consumed me. I am currently a contributor for several private employers, and am currently a paid MLB featured columnist for Bleacher Report. With my outlet here on The Passion of Baseball, I will endeavor to deliver columns that elicit passion about our great American pastime.
All too often, when we peruse various media outlets, we see stories involving athletes in a negative light. The use of performance enhancing drugs, alleged weapons and drug charges, DUI’s, domestic abuse…the list goes on and on, ad nauseum. On this website, I will seek out and write stories about the athletes who make a difference in people’s lives, in one way or another. Whether it be via charitable contributions, volunteer efforts, or other various forms of good deeds, these athletes will not only have a place on The Passion of Baseball, they will be proudly featured.
My other passion is as a director for an online charitable organization called Little Angels Charities. We support a variety of children’s charitable organizations such as Marine Toys for Tots, Cure Tay-Sachs and St. Judes Children’s Research Hospital. Little Angels Charities conducts several online fundraising events each year.
You can follow me online at Facebook and at Twitter as well, and I look forward to presenting you with stories than put a smile, rather than a frown, on your face.
