Imagine yourself as a young child, idolizing a Major League Baseball team.

You pick up the game, and following your college career, are drafted by a professional team and sent to one of their farm teams.

After bouncing around in a couple of organizations, one day the phone rings. You are to be on the next flight out to pitch the following day for a Triple-A affiliate to your favorite team growing up.

For Iowa Cubs and former ISU right-hander Shawn Sedlacek, this isn’t a dream. This is reality.

Sedlacek, who hails from Cedar Rapids, said he grew up a Chicago Cubs fan. Now pitching for the Iowa Cubs, he knows he is just a phone call away from pulling on a Chicago Cubs uniform and throwing pitches from inside the ivy-laced confines of Wrigley Field.

“I think about it every day,” he said.

Following a senior year at Iowa State that saw Sedlacek lead the Cyclones in wins (6), strikeouts (65) and innings pitched (77), he was taken in the 14th round of the 1998 draft by the Kansas City Royals and promptly shipped to Omaha.

After working hard in the Royals and Rangers organizations, Sedlacek was called up to pitch for Kansas City. His first test was on the road against Montreal, where he pitched the Royals to a 4-2 lead in 5 2/3 innings. However, the Royals were unable to save his win, losing the game 5-4 and giving Sedlacek a no-decision.

He was denied a win in his next three starts, having two saves blown.

“It was frustrating,” Sedlacek said. “I was 3-5 that first year. Knowing I could have been something like 8-5, it was frustrating. But you get over that. I was just happy to throw.”

His first major league win, an 8-6 decision over Texas, came in his fifth start. Sedlacek said that while that was exciting, his first major league win wasn’t his most memorable experience in the big leagues.

“Two years ago, I got my first home start [June 29 in Kansas City] on my birthday,” he said. “I pitched against San Diego [a game Kansas City lost 8-4, one of Sedlacek’s no-decisions], and a bunch of my family and friends from Cedar Rapids made the trip down.”

At the beginning of this season, Sedlacek found himself pitching with the Binghamton Mets, the Double-A affiliate to the New York Mets. Sedlacek said he hadn’t been there long before he received the fateful phone call.

“I had to get on the next flight out because they wanted me to start the next day in Colorado Springs,” Sedlacek said of being called up by the Iowa Cubs. He pitched four innings in the game, allowing six hits and three earned runs. Sedlacek is 3-1 this season, having allowed 36 hits, 18 earned runs and throwing 28 strikeouts in 42 innings.

“It’s nice to be representing the state again,” he said. “It’s funny to look down and see ‘Iowa’ on the front of the uniform.”

Sedlacek credits his time spent at Iowa State for the success he has experienced in his professional career.

“The competition [I faced in college] made me a better player,” he said. “The Big 12 Conference is one of the best in the nation. I was able to pitch against premier teams like Oklahoma State, Texas and Oklahoma.”

Sedlacek said he was very disappointed when he heard the athletic department decided in 2001 to cut the program due to budget cuts.

“It was the first team sport at Iowa State,” he said. “It’s too bad it didn’t mean more to more people. I’m sure a lot of people will miss it.”

Sedlacek said that while Iowa and Northern Iowa still have programs, the loss of the ISU program has more of a negative affect on high school baseball players in the western part of the state who want to play college baseball close to home.

“Those players wouldn’t have the option of playing Division I baseball,” he said. “They would have to play at junior colleges instead.”

Even though the program is gone, Sedlacek said his time at Iowa State was the most enjoyable for him as a player because of the teammates he had.

“I still keep in regular touch with about half a dozen guys I played with [at Iowa State],” he said. “We usually talk about the coaches and about college life.”

Still, the thought of standing on the mound at Wrigley Field sits in the back of Sedlacek’s mind. The fan in him probably always will think of that.

Sedlacek said having Chicago starter Mark Prior in the bullpen for the I-Cubs a couple weeks ago was exciting.

“It was the first time I had met him,” Sedlacek said after Prior’s rehab assignment to Iowa during Memorial Day weekend. “I was one of the guys who sat in the stands and charted his pitches.”

Maybe one day, someone else will look at Sedlacek the same way.