The last couple of days have been crazy. Especially for us in the sports world. If you hadn’t heard, spring training was cancelled yesterday and the regular season pushed back at least two weeks.

I’ve debated writing anything because there are still a lot of unknowns and confusion.

What we know as of now is we’re going to be staying in Arizona. Matt will still be going to Camelback Ranch to workout everyday. This could change, but for us, it just makes sense to stay in Arizona. 
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They’ve given the options of staying, going to your team’s city or going to your “offseason” home. We don’t have a home really so that’s doesn’t really make sense. We still have our place in Arizona until the end of the month at least so that makes the most sense for us as of now.

I couldn’t really come up with a title of this without sounding like we were traded which Matt HAS NOT been traded…yet at least. 
This is just a blog talking about what is like being on a team when trade rumors are swirling all around you and then when “blockbuster” trades happen. 

To be honest, when Matt was in the minor leagues, we didn’t really pay attention that closely to trades because we never thought Matt would really be a piece and we didn’t feel the effects of a trade very much in the lower levels of the minor leagues.
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But ever since Matt has been put on the 40-man, we watch trade stuff like hawks. OK, that might be dramatic. But every move has a direct hit on each player on the 40-man and then to the (now) 26-man roster for the season.
Also from my standpoint, my mind goes straight to the logistics of a trade. Learning a new team, navigating new cities, different organizations ways of doing things.

​I think I should start this post with saying I’ve been a Twitter troll. I’ve been that sports fan. Ya know the one that’s complaining about Butch Jones coaching or play calling or how Tennessee football is terrible…yeah, I’m the hot take queen. Or at least I used to be. 

I’ve always been a sports fan. I mean I have a degree in journalism and did seven internships in college all in sports. I covered Texas high school football for two seasons out of college. I’ll always be invested in sports, I’ll always tell sports stories and I’ll probably always have hot takes. 

But I will say watching Matt play at the highest level in his sport and seeing the criticism has changed my hot take heart a little bit. Now I have journalistic integrity and I know what to say and what not to say, but being at this level has made me second guess tweeting out a sports hot take. For the sole reason is all of these athletes have families. This is their job. They don’t want to go out and make mistakes or just flat out suck sometimes, but it happens. (I’m not meaning to sound soft. I’m just being honest in how my heart has changed on this a little.)

I thought about putting some tweets here that I’ve seen about Matt. But then I thought nah, I don’t want to give those people attention. And I already want to have a section at the end of my book one day dedicated to the haters. :) Now is not the time.

​I’ve thought labeling prospects is a dumb concept for as long as I can remember. But I never thought I could really write that because Matt wasn’t on a prospect list. BUT now he is AND guess what…I still think labeling prospects is dumb. And now I’m going to write why I think that.
 
In sports, prospects are labeled all the time, but in baseball labeling prospects is most common because there are so many minor league players.
 
Usually each MLB organization has a list of 30 prospects then there is a Top 100 prospects list, which is just the top 100 players throughout the entire minors.
 
First things first ­— according to Wikipedia, “a prospect is any player whose rights are owned by a professional team, but who has yet to play a game for the team, or is not established with the team yet.”
 
Second thing, you’re probably wondering who makes these prospects lists. So Baseball America and MLB Pipeline each make lists. Baseball writers are the main people who are making these lists.
 
And I’m here to say as a writer I’m not dissing those writers who make the lists. I’ll be the first to tell you I think it’s so cool that Matt is on the prospect list — mainly because he earned it/deserves the recognition. But that also doesn’t mean I still can’t think labeling is dumb.
 
I will say though I would love to know how many of the people making the lists have actually seen Matt (or a majority of players on the list/considered for the list) play a game of baseball. Sure they’ve watched him on film, right? But that’s minimum to me to get the whole picture of what kind of player he is. And again I know they’ve done their research and definitely know what they’re talking about. They really go off numbers — especially with someone like Matt.
 
But anyway, the people making the lists aren’t the point of this post.

​I went to my first Vols game when I was in the womb.
 
I’ve probably said that too many times in my life— some take the line as a joke. I see it as a big part of trying to get people to understand the point I’m about to make.
 
You know who else took his first trip to Neyland in the womb? My brother.
 
My Grandaddy has had four Tennessee season tickets since 1985. Row four in the corner of the north end zone with a perfect view of the Running through the T.
 
My grandparents co-owned Big Orange Kountry — a Tennessee team store — for most of my childhood. I remember loving when new gear came in, and my Memaw would say we didn’t need it. But would usually get it for Christmas. One of my favorite days of the year was “The Big Day” where orange tents would be outside Big Orange Kountry. Food, drinks, sales on Tennessee gear, friends and family flooded the tents outside.
 
My brother, our two cousins and I grew up getting to choose which Tennessee games we wanted to go to each season. We’d make the trek to Knoxville from West Tennessee in the white van with orange stripes, Tennessee flags on the windows and Tennessee magnets on the sides. We’d get to our parking spot and set up our little tailgate with sandwiches, chips and dip, you name it. Then the Vol walk. We would be in our seats a couple hours before kickoff, and that’s just how we liked our game day to go.