He approached the batters’ box for his first career at-bat with the Nebraska baseball team and remembered what his high school coach had always said about handling first-time nerves.
Never look into the stands in your first trip to the plate.
He looked into the stands.
Hallmark (pictured above) grew worried and nervous when he saw the crowd at Tempe Diablo Stadium in Arizona. If he screwed up, it’d be in front a lot more people than had ever seen him screw up before, he thought.
“I was pretty shook out there,” Hallmark said. “I’m not going to lie to you.