Lessons from the Old Ball Game
Written By Doug Green
Yogi Berra once said, “Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good, too.” I fell in love with baseball at an early age. I still remember the day I got my first mitt and discovered the art of breaking it in. I put a ball in its webbing, tied some string around it, and slept with it under my pillow for 2 weeks. My summers were full of baseball practices, games, and rounds of catch with my dad in the backyard before the sun set.
My talent for baseball didn’t quite match my love for the sport and I officially retired from the game at the age of 16. While I fell short of my dream of playing centerfield for the Dodgers, the lessons that I learned from baseball have helped me throughout my professional life. Here are just a few:
LESSON #1 DON’T LET THE BALL PLAY YOU
A crusty but wise coach once taught me as an infielder, to never let the ball play me. What he meant by that was when a ball is hit in your direction, to go get the ball and not wait for the ball to come to you. I learned this lesson the hard way playing 2nd base as a 13-year-old during a game.
I still remember the ball being hit to me and thinking to myself, I’m playing 2nd base, the throw to first is short, I don’t need to go get the ball, I’ll wait for it to come to me. I casually waited for the ball to come and right when I went down to scoop it up, the ball hit a pebble, took a bad hop, and popped me right underneath my left eye. The runner made it safely to first base and I was left bewildered on the infield with a shiner that could light up Las Vegas. As I sat on the bench for the rest of the game holding a bag of ice under my left eye, the words of my old coach haunted me, “don’t let the ball play you.”
My old coach was far from a business guru, but his advice has always rung true in anything that I have done. Am I an object waiting to be acted upon or am I an agent charting my own course? Most of us don’t live in a world where fish jump in the boat, or we wake up every morning to a bluebird deal. However, if we charge the ground balls of life and work, and not let them play us, it’s amazing how often good things happen.
LESSON #2 - IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SPIN
One of the many things that I find so cool about baseball is the names given to describe the types of pitches. You have cutters, sliders, beanballs, curves (yakkers, hammers, hooks, uncle charlies), cement mixers, screw balls, knucklers, slurves, fastballs, splitters, changeups, sinkers, sweepers, I could go on and on. Depending upon the type of pitch, the ball could dive, curve, cut, dart, or float to you, away form you, or hit you. Experts believe the average reaction time for a hitter to determine whether to swing at a pitch is about 0.4 seconds in the major leagues. So, you ask yourself, how can anyone ever hit a ball. The answer is, identify the spin. The spin of the ball will tell you which
way it is going to go. If you identify the spin, your chances of hitting a dinger (home run) go way up.I remember the first time I saw a curve ball as a hitter. The pitcher threw a ball that I thought was going to hit me in the head. Naturally, I stepped back away from home plate to avoid getting hit and right as I did so the ball broke right back over the plate for a strike leaving me perplexed and frankly embarrassed for stepping back. My next at bat, I was determined that was not going to happen again, I was going to stay in the box and rip his curve ball. Sure enough, he threw a pitch that was coming for my head and this time I stayed in the box thinking to myself, he’s not fooling me twice. Right as I went to crush his curve ball, I realized too late that it was a fastball that hit me right in the neck below the helmet. As I came back to dugout in between innings with a sore neck I asked my coach, how do you tell the difference between a curveball and a fastball, he looked at me, lifted his finger up and moved it in a circular direction and said, “it’s all about the spin. Spin is mostly used to describe politicians using glossy terms to make their ideas or mistakes sound good to the public. However, spin shows up just about everywhere. Every organization, group, or culture has their own way of thinking and lingo or spin. Understanding their spin allows us to connect with their challenges and plans. As we learn to understand and dial into their spin, we move away from being a provider or supplier to being a trusted partner.”
LESSON #3 – THERE’S ALWAYS A NEXT AT-BAT
Baseball is full of ups and downs and highs and lows, so is life. I remember making a great diving play in the field only to strike out in my next atbat. I recall hitting a can of corn (weak flyball) to shallow leftfield in one at-bat and crushing the ball over the centerfield fence in the next. Baseball has a way of keeping you humble and optimistic all at the same time as you never know if your next at-bat will be a game winning hit or a game losing strikeout.
I have felt the same way in my career in sales and business development. I have gone through slumps where it feels like every deal falls apart and I have had moments where the big deal landed just in time to make the quarter end goal. Whether our last at-bat was a strikeout or a walk-off grand slam, the idea of having the next at-bat keeps us grounded, humble, hungry, and optimistic. It helps us to be good winners and even better losers.
I agree with the Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth, when he said, “Baseball was, is, and always will be to me the best game in the world.” The game has taught me lessons that go well beyond the diamond and have stuck with me throughout my life. Long live baseball!