Tommy Pham isn't a .300 hitter for the Tampa Bay Rays. He didn't hit 50 home runs or steal 40 bases. He's a really good ball player who is a leader on a team that won 96 games during the regular season.

He also should be your favorite player.

Listen to him talk about what he did to get to the spot that he is after Tuesday's win over the Astros.

He played catch with a wall and threw himself batting practice because he believed in himself. It brings a tear to the eye just thinking about that.

It's a bit of a stereotype to think about great athletes not having a father figure or coming from bad neighborhoods, but this situation happens more than we ever like to think about. We don't like the idea of a kid coming home from school and whizzing a baseball at a wall for hours with nobody there to cheer him on. That's reality though. There are kids out there today who are doing exactly what Tommy Pham did and now they have someone who they can look at and say, "That's why I'm doing this."

Tommy Pham made a massive impact on the sports world in that 25 second clip, but we won't see the fruits of it for a few years when those kids he inspired make it in the big leagues.