Hey everyone this is Brett Wallace of the St. Louis Cardinals checking in from Peoria, Arizona. I’ll start out by giving you some background information on myself. I am 22 years old and grew up in Sonoma, California. I attended Justin-Siena high school in Napa, California, where I received a scholarship to play at Arizona State University. My three years at ASU were three of the most influential and fun years of my life. I grew a ton as a person and as a player. While playing there I switched from third base (my high school position) to first base for my first two seasons, and then back to third for my third and final season.

I was drafted by the Cardinals this year and started out with the Quad Cities River Bandits of the Midwest league where I played for about a month, and then was promoted to the Springfield Cardinals, our Double-A team.

I learned a lot during my first pro season. Playing every day and finding time to workout and condition on your own, as well as the traveling and weather, are a definite change from college. I enjoyed my time in Quad Cities and couldn’t wait for the challenge of Double A once I got the promotion.

Being in Arizona for the Fall League is a lot of fun for me, having gone to school about 20 minutes away. It gave me a chance to see old teammates and coaches again and visit some old friends before we started the fall season. Now that the season is in full gear, we continue to make adjustments, because each team has at least two and sometimes three guys at every position.  We continually rotate playing time, which most of the guys here are not used to. On days that you don’t play you can take the time to work on certain skills or things in your game you want to improve upon. For me, I am trying to continue to grow as a third baseman and learn the different angles and footwork that will help me continue to improve my game defensively. Having days off allows us to focus on improvement instead of the results, which helps us grasp the concept quicker.

Overall, it has been an exciting last few months.  Our team is playing really well right now and hopefully by the end of this thing we’ll be playing for a championship.