this is how you get a press pass: Fayetteville regionals 2017

I roamed the concourse of Baum Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and I asked a security guard about sunscreen stations. A ticket taker told me the stations were near the tents above the seats along the first base side.

“Be careful,” the guard said. “A little goes a long way.”

I suppose that’s why I don’t work in security, but I followed his advice, dabbing sunscreen under my eyes and along my jawline.

I’d bought a general admission ticket, so I kept walking toward the Hog Pen, a grassy area beyond the outfield walls where fans had already opened burgundy lawn chairs stamped with Razorbacks. I saw a couple sitting on the top of the bleacher seats that overlooked the Hog Pen. The other fans, perhaps 200, sat as close to the field as they could.

I bought the ticket for the whole tournament after watching the Missouri State Bears get awarded a berth in the Fayetteville regional, where they faced the Oklahoma State Cowboys. The Arkansas Razorbacks played the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles in the other game.

But then I asked a local broadcaster about a press pass in a throwaway tweet. I made it a joke so I wouldn’t be letdown if it didn’t happen. But he connected me with the distributor. If I didn’t get it I’d find a spot in the Pen. I’d make my own media work.

Then I got a press pass, and I shrieked as I drove over the Arkansas state line this morning.

I had written and taken photos, and I’d sent them into the abyss of the Internet for years. I stopped often, tired of no one paying attention. I was tired of the same inner critic telling me I couldn’t do it. Then I started again because someone found me and say, “Hey, keep going.”

Then in April I wrote about Aaron Meyer. My Wally Pipp. That same broadcaster read it on his radio show, and strangers brought it up when I introduced myself at games. I revised for hours. I edited thousands of photographs.

And I still heard the same inner critic. “You can’t keep it up.”

But I still sat down to write, and I still took photos under the scalding sun.

That’s how I got that press pass.