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“I reminisce on last year so much just because I had a blast,” he says. “Even though I didn’t win a lot of ball games, it was still fun because Vince made it fun for me every day. Feeling myself get better every day was very rewarding.”

For Norris, the important things in his life connect. As a kid, he loved to watch surfers on TV, and began to notice that many of them hauled their gear in VW vans. And when he finally got the chance to surf a couple of years ago, he found a connection with pitching, a delicate blend of elation and tranquillity.

“When you’re out there on the water, you have to be patient, but at the same time, once you catch a wave, it’s the most peaceful feeling,” he says. “You feel weightless on the water. You’re gliding on these massive walls of water. It’s exhilarating but mellowing at the same time.

“The only place I can feel anything in comparison to that is on the mound. You’re so amped up to get out there and strike somebody out, but at the same time, if there’s too much chaos going on and you can’t control it, it’s not right. Same thing with surfing. If you’re trying to paddle as hard as you can into a wave and you’re flailing like that, you’re not getting anywhere. You’re not going to catch the wave because the harder you try when you paddle, the slower you go. Same with pitching. I’ve come to figure out that the harder you try to throw, the slower you throw. Pitching is controlled chaos on the mound.”

Norris’s father, David, has operated a mountain bike shop in Johnson City for 37 years. He is a perfectionist who works long hours, Daniel says. “He prides himself on quality. He doesn’t just want to keep selling bikes. He wants people to keep bringing them back to get repaired because they’re built to last.”