Cinderella never looked so ugly, but what a story that was in 2013. Gattis was a premier amateur baseball player in the Dallas–Fort Worth area through high school. However, anxiety and substance abuse led him to abandon his scholarship to Texas A&M University. Gattis' first job after quitting baseball was as a parking valet in Dallas. He then visited his sister in Boulder, Colorado, and decided to reside there. He sold his truck and worked in a pizza parlor and as a ski-lift operator at the Eldora Mountain Resort. Depressed, unable to sleep, and contemplating suicide, Gattis entered an inpatient psychiatric ward for three days in the summer of 2007, where he was diagnosed with clinical depression and an anxiety disorder. He was released into the care of his father.
After living in Colorado for seven months, Gattis then moved to Dallas with his brother, where they worked as janitors for Datamatics Global Services. He met a New Age spiritual advisor there, and on her advice, he followed her to Taos, New Mexico. There, he lived in a hostel and worked at a ski resort. Three months later, he moved to California to find more spiritual gurus. Gattis also moved to Wyoming, where he worked at Yellowstone National Park. After wandering around the Western United States for four years, he returned to baseball, and was drafted by the Braves in 2010. By 2013, he was in the majors and starting. Amazing.
Go Falcons!
Baseball is a slow, boring, complex, cerebral game that doesn't lend itself to histrionics. You 'take in' a baseball game, something odd to say about a football or basketball game, with the clock running and the bodies flying.
Charles Krauthammer
