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• KC Royals v Boston Red Sox for USA Today Sports Images

  The Kansas City Royals hosted the Boston Red Sox and let's just say that the Red Sox are red hot and the Royals couldn't cool them down.

  

• KC Royals v CWS pt. II for USA Today Sports Images

  For the second time this season, I photographed a match-up between the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox. It was an insane game that ended in a walk-off bunt/error in favor of the Royals. Whew.

  Here are a few of my favorite images from the game.

  

• Royals V Angels for USA Today Sports Images

  The Kansas City Royals hosted the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim yesterday, in a make-up game due to icy conditions back in mid-April. The teams donned number 42 jerseys in celebration and honor of (a belated) Jackie Robinson Day. Despite owning the worst record in baseball, the Royals eked out a 2-0 win over the Angels.

  

• Royals v White Sox for USA Today Sports Images

  Yesterday I photographed my first MLB game since the 2015 World Series in Kansas City. Needless to say, I was a little bit rusty but I wasn't alone because the Royals looked to still be shaking off the offseason dust as well. It was cold, attendance was low, and the Royals blew their two-run lead in the eighth inning. Here are a few frames that didn't suck.

  

• World Series Batting Practice

  The Kansas City Royals made their way back to the Fall Classic again this year, and I'm priviliged enough to make my way back as well. This year, I'll be running cards and photo editing for the New York Mets, as well as working for the marketing department at MLB, photographing advertisement partners. I was too impatient to wait for the games to get underway so today I drove out to the stadium to grab my credentails, mark my spot in the photo well and shoot a little bit of batting practice.

  

• World Series Parade

  By now you've all heard that the Kansas City Royals won the 2015 World Series. As a relatively new Royals fan and even newer Kansas City resident, I can only imagine the joy a long-time fan must feel based on my insane level of happiness. I got a taste of just how over-the-moon fans in Kansas City and the surrounding area are on Tuesday, when an 800,000 people crowded the streets of downtown Kansas City to watch their World Series Champions parade by. Being present for the sea of royal blue clad fans, deafening shouts of "PAY ZOBRIST," Gomes' hilarious "unpolitically correct" speech and getting to hold the Commissioner's Trophy was amazing. This city is definitely a baseball town, whatever the naysayers may think. And despite wearing off the heel of one of my boots while walking the parade route a half dozen times, I had a blast covering the World Series Parade for MLB. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day:

  

• Play Ball for MLB

  Major League Baseball and USA Baseball launched the "Play Ball" initiative this past summer to encourage widespread participation in all forms of baseball and softball activities among all age groups, especially youth. Yesterday, Kansas City held a mini-clinic at Satchel Paige Memorial Stadium and local children showed up to learn tips from former Kansas City Royals players George Brett and Willie Wilson. It was a good 'ol time and Royals' mascot Sluggerrr even showed up for some fun.

  

• WARNING: Earnest blog post

  I was going to do a "Year In Review" post like everyone else at the start of 2015, but it didn't feel right. Last year, my year didn't feel like it started on January 1st. The date that sticks in my mind from the entirety of 2014 is March 10th. That being said, you've been warned that the following blog post will be full of earnest feelings, lots of personal details and some instagram favorites.

  --

  

  A year ago today, I was sitting in a rental property in Panama City, Florida typing up and sending the most difficult email of my life to date.

  Three months previous, I had graduated from the University of Missouri and had since been applying to dozens of internships and jobs across the country. For those of you who haven't experienced it yet, job searching — to put it simply — sucks. It's like walking into a bar, approaching the best looking guy/girl in the room and putting your heart in their hands, hoping they give you a chance. There are few feelings worse than rejection, and job hunting is months on end of what feels like sending carefully crafted cover letters into a black hole. During those three months I had only gotten one interview, BUT it was with the organization I wanted to join the most. A couple of weeks after the interview, I got the call: I was offered the internship. Major League Baseball wanted me to be their photo intern in New York City as soon as I could possibly be there. HOLY COW. I was in shock. I accepted. I told my parents and they were thrilled for me. But then, it slowly sunk in that I had no money. No money to move to New York. No where to stay (besides friends' couches until I hopefully found a place to call my own). The monthly stipend they were offering just wasn't enough for me. My parents — who God bless them, had put me through five and a half years of college, some of which was out-of-state tuition — had finally cut the cord. I could take out a "loan" from my grandmother, but once I finished the internship and was on the hunt for another position, did I really want that looming over my head?

  I have a lot of feeling about how companies "pay" their interns (most of the time... maybe you have had different experiences than I). If you're lucky enough to find one that isn't only "for credit," you're most likely not going to make enough to support yourself on your own. And for those of us without the finiancial backing of a family member or enough savings to move across the country temporarily, you have to turn down once-in-a-lifetime opportunities because of it. I could rant about this for a while, but instead I'll link to a New York Times article about "Intern Nation."

  So on that day, in Panama City, I wrote an email to the senior recruiting manager with my deepest regrets and said "no" to my dream. I wish I could say I handled it like a champ and used it as fuel to move on, but I didn't. I cried every day for the rest of my week-long vacation. I cried all spring while trying to launch a freelance career in a city where I knew no one in the industry (or at all, really). I constantly wondered if I had made a huge, life-altering mistake, if there were some way I could have swung it and I just hadn't tried hard enough. I blamed myself daily. I was depressed the majority of that summer. Some days I struggled to get out of bed. I picked fights and shied away from the people I loved most in my life. I was genuinely unhappy. While my client list grew painfully slowly, I thought of the life I could have been living in New York with all of my friends there. I thought about the job I could have had and loved going to every day. Instead, I was in Kansas City, Missouri, struggling to find a foothold.

  But I did find that foothold. I did make friends — in the journalism industry and in my personal life. I got into a daily routine. I dug myself out of my depression.

  September 29th my cell phone rang. A 212 area-code flashed across the screen. It was Major League Baseball. The editor I had interviewed with and had offered me the internship was calling to see if I could shoot the American League Wildcard Game... Which turned into photographing the Royals' entire, unpredicatbly long post-season run. I worked a World Series not even having been a full year out of college. Despite the detour, I was finally where I wanted to be. After months of looking back to that day in Florida, I could look forward thanks to a renewed sense of confidence.

  

  "When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

  My first year of freelancing was not an easy one. I had hurdles — both physical and emotional — to jump, but I did it. There was a time that I thought I honestly wouldn't recover from the decision I made a year ago today, but I have. I may not be raking in the cash or changing the world (yet), but I'm proud of what I have accomplished. I've had five-column photos published in the Saturday print edition of the New York Times Sports Section. I've toured candy facories for the Wall Street Journal. I've been flown across the Midwest and experienced new cities with USA Volleyball. I've stood in the Kansas City Royals clubhouse, drenched in champagne as they celebrated winning the American League for MLB. Sure, some weeks still involve pajama pants and Netflix binges (and a little self-doubt), but I finally have the perspective to see the open door(s).

  That day last March broke me, but it made me better. It made me hungry. A year later, I am so happy to be where I am with the community I have built in Kansas City. It's been a rough first year, but I am overjoyed to see where the next few years here lead me.

  A big, BIG "thank you" to all of the people in my life that helped me through the dark days and stood by me, encouraging me all the way. To quote Kevin Durant, you da real MVPs ♥

  

• ALCS Game 4 (WE GOIN' TO DA 'SHIP!)

  The Kansas City Royals are World Series bound next week after a 2-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles. They've yet to lose a game in this postseason, and with the way they're playing and announcement that South Korean superfan SungWoo Lee will be in attendance for Game 1 of the Fall Classic, you have to wonder if they ever will.

  

  I also gave gif-making a try for the first time:
  

  © 2014 Major League Baseball Photos/Amy Stroth

• ALCS Game 3

  Last night (after a delay due to Monday's rainout), the Kansas City Royals defeated the Baltimore Orioles 2-1 and are now potentially one game and eight hours away from clinching a World Series berth. What?!

  

  © 2014 Major League Baseball Photos/Amy Stroth

• ALDS: ROYALS SWEEP ANGELS

  If you had told me one week ago that as of today, the Kansas City Royals would have won four-straight postseason games (three of which in extra innings, three of which against the team with the best record in baseball), I would have laughed. Last night I had the opportunity to head back to the K and photograph the boys in blue as they swept the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Despite a first inning blast by Mike Trout, the Royals pushed on and defeated the Halos 3-8. Up next: Baltimore Orioles.

  

  © 2014 Major League Baseball Photos/Amy Stroth

• AL Wildcard 2014

  Some Mondays suck, other Mondays the MLB calls you and asks you to shoot one of your favorite baseball teams as they duke it out in a winner-take-all wildcard game against the Oakland Athletics. This past Monday was the latter.

  As someone that has only been a Royals fan for the last three years, I don't quite understand what it's like to have gone through the 29 years of anguish the die-hard fans here in KC have. I do however, understand what a historical moment it was for Kansas City sports for the Royals to have made it to the postseason. Experts said they couldn't win, but in twelve glorious, nail-biting innings, they pulled it off. If you want to read a really fantastic piece on the game, I suggest THIS ONE, by Rany Jazayerli at Grantland.

  Those 10+ hours at the ballpark (and getting bathed in champagne in the Royals' clubhouse by outfielder Lorenzo Cain) are something that will stick with me throughout my career. Huge, HUGE thanks to MLB Photos editor Jessica Foster for giving me a shot despite my very short track record shooting professional baseball. Here's a "few" photos from the unforgettable night. WARNING: there are a lot.

  

  © 2014 Major League Baseball Photos/Amy Stroth

• Garrett Broshuis for the Wall Street Journal

  Last month I got called up to the big leagues and was hired to shoot my first portrait for the Wall Street Journal (s/o to Timmy Huynh and Tracy Armstead for the gig). I drove to St. Louis early on a Friday morning to meet former minor league pitcher Garrett Broshuis at the St. Louis University baseball field downtown. Broshuis is a Mizzou grad who played with one of my favorite current MLB players, Ian Kinsler, during his time as a Tiger. The conversation flowed easily as we talked about our memories in Columbia and our qualms with professional sports. It was a great first assignment.

  Broshuis has since left the world of baseball and is a now a lawyer, representing minor league players in a suit against Major League Baseball for illegal working conditions. To read more about his story, check out a great article by Ashby Jones on the WSJ website:

  http://online.wsj.com/articles/baseball-suit-calls-out-minor-league-pay-1411146392

  Here are a couple of photos I made that day: