Zylstra living a dream bigger than baseball

Daniel Zylstra is living the dream. In two years he’s gone from playing baseball at Central Kitsap to Western Nevada’s powerful junior college program to playing last summer in the Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League in Maryland to now playing on scholarship at one of the best D-1 college baseball programs in America at Oklahoma State.

Forget about the humid Oklahoma summer heat, the spring rolling thunderstorms or the cold Oklahoma winters – snow was just plowed off the baseball diamond a week ago – because nothing is better for a college athlete then to be playing major D-1 ball on a possible NCAA championship team.

Zylstra – son of Rob and Heidi Zylstra – is loving it. He’s contending for a starting spot in the middle infield as a 6-2, 190-pound sophomore and this weekend will be with the Cowboys when they play Friday at USC, Saturday at UCLA and then Sunday at Dodger Stadium against Vanderbilt as part of the Dodgertown Classic.

When he’s back home Zylstra is part of a close-knit, fun loving family whose activities are centered on Christianity. It’s a family that includes besides his parents two siblings. Jenny received her undergraduate degree in English at Washington State and will next month get her masters in library science at the University of Washington. Mark is a home-schooled senior at CK where he completes in track and field. He will begin school this fall at WSU.

Zylstra hit .309 for Western Nevada during the regular season and .500 through the postseason, including the National Junior College Athletic Association World Series. He then batted .329 for the College Park Bombers last summer and that experience led him to being offered a scholarship by Oklahoma State.

It’s possible someday a pro team could draft Zylstra. Being a Major League baseball player is a dream shared by many Little Leaguers. But there is more to Zylstra than just being a baseball player with future pro potential.

He has in mind a special dream job that goes way beyond playing a sport for pay. An avid history major, Zylstra has been clued into the U.S. Mariners since he was very little. He knows the Marine Corps history and how important that branch of military service has been to the defense of the United States.

“When I graduate I want to go into the Mariners,” says Zylstra. “I’ve wanted to go into the Mariners since I was little. I feel God is calling me to do this. It’s something my parents never discouraged me, but they never encouraged me to do it. It is just something that always has been in my heart to do.

“It’s just doing something special. It’s why I love playing baseball. The competition is the challenge, whether it’s out playing in a game, a scrimmage or running sprints or lifting (weights). I’m able to challenge myself and push myself to be the best physically and mentally in every way.

“Once you get done playing baseball, whenever that is, there aren’t too many jobs like the Marines in our society. The corps is one of those jobs where I will be able to push myself, challenge myself physically and mentally. It’s the greatest challenge. It’s a big part of what I want to do.

“I’m not going into this blind or with a romantic or unrealistic view of it. The way I see it is I am able to do what I am doing right now, enjoying going to Oklahoma State University and playing baseball, because people before me have served in the Mariners and made those sacrifices.

“I can go in and make the same sacrifices those people before me made, serve my country and set it up so that my kids and their grandkids can have the same opportunity I had.”

He views the world and his role in it the same way Pat Tillman did. Tillman is the guy who starred in football at Arizona State and with the Arizona Cardinals in the NFL and then after the terrorist attacks of 2001 he left that all behind to join the Army Rangers.

Tillman was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004.

Zylstra says he is joining the Marines even if he should get drafted by a pro baseball team.

“I got to do what God has called me to do and what I believe is right,” Zylstra says. “I can’t compromise that just based on signing, getting a signing bonus and an opportunity to play (pro ball).

“Pat Tillman is one of my biggest role models. I admire him more than anybody else. He was a man of his convictions and beliefs and he never compromise that. That is a model I hope to be able to follow.

“The important thing is being true to your values and don’t compromise on that for fame or money.”

If you are reading this as I am, Zylstra is thinking of doing something that is out of the ordinary for somebody his age. This can be argued, but we live in an era where we Americans take a lot for granted, where until the recent recession we were living pretty large and perhaps losing perspective on what it takes to maintain the way of life we have gotten so used to.

How often do you, or I, do the right thing when it is easy not to do it? While we debate that, here is a young man willing to do the right thing even if it means sacrificing everything, including, perhaps, his life.

It all became clearer for him he says a week ago when the Cowboys went out to the field for baseball practice in weather that that with the wind chill factor was zero degrees.

“That was fun,” says Zylstra. “We had long sleeves and long johns under our baseball pants. You can’t bundle up because then you can’t move, and you can’t have anything on your hands so you can field the ball. That’s when you learn something about yourself, going out in weather like that.”

I think Zylstra discovered something about himself a long time before that.