“Positive thoughts, positive outcomes,” Aaron Cason reminded himself as he ate his blueberry pancakes and hashbrowns. He knew that would be his breakfast order even before he and his teenage son Conrad arrived at the Cracker Barrel in Snellville, Ga. That order was the only thing anyone could predict on July 13. Every other question the Cason family had that day could only be answered by fate.
The most pressing of these questions was one the Cason family would have scoffed at a few years ago: could their son be convinced to forgo a college education to pursue an uncertain professional baseball career?