"They hate me," he said. "I haven't even been the mascot one day and they all already hate me." He'd grown up, like most kids in his neighborhood, with dreams of manning third base for the Cubs. The cover of the diary he kept as a nine-year-old was now almost completely worn off, and some of the pages threatened to fall out of the spiral rings. But, in this moment, he found himself turning the pages. He'd dared not open it for years, afraid of losing some of the priceless mementos of his past. In it, he found he'd charted his career path as a Cubs minor league. "'Triple A by 20,' what a joke," he said, aware that when he was 20, he had actually been a D-student with a steadily growing ponch above his belt. The Freshman 15 had gotten him at least twice, appropriate, considering he'd repeated many of the classes he'd taken those first two semesters. But the thought struck him that, at just 25, he was still tasked with going to Wrigley Field every day. Sure it wasn't on the hot corner, but he was still in the park. And yeah, the adults would hate him, throw beer on him, hell, probably piss on him. But the kids would love him. And wasn't that the point? Who dreams of being a pro athlete as a child with the goal being the adoration of adults? He'd always envisioned himself taking pictures with little kids, signing autographs, tussling their hair and calling them "champ" or "sport." Suddenly he discovered he was no longer dreading the job, he was actually looking forward to it. Running his fingers across his chinstrap beard, he looked one last time into the Tupac poster above his bed, "Hail Mary" playing on his iPod. "Now, do you want to ride or die?" he asked.