Round bases of 2019 with five life lessons from baseball
As we head for 2019, you will probably hear a lot of people dispensing a lot of advice about how to make the new year the best ever. I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to tell you that there will be ups and downs in the year ahead. I can guarantee it. The trick to getting through everything is to understand life’s lessons. And to do that, it’s best to know baseball.
Even if you’ve never been a fan, even if you barely know the game, you can learn to accept life if you learn a little from baseball.
Example 1: Eddie Morgan. In April of 1936, this 21-year-old player for the St. Louis Cardinals picked up a bat and walked to home plate. It was his major league debut.
He swung at the first pitch and hit it out of the ballpark. A home run! On the first pitch he ever saw!
What a fantastic start to a career. Except he never hit another big league home run in his life.
Lesson: Success, even if it comes easily at first, is no sure thing.
Example 2: Mickey Mantle. He’s one of baseball’s immortals. You know his name even if you don’t know the difference between a dugout and a pitchout. But consider these facts about one of baseball’s best-ever hitters: In his career, Mickey struck out 1,710 times. He also walked 1,733 times. Which means he came to the plate 3,443 times without putting the ball in play. And he was a superstar.
Lesson: Don’t expect every day to be magical. There will be ordinary days, strings of ordinary days, even strings of ordinary days sprinkled with awful days. Don’t ever forget that greatness is measured in the long run.
Example 3: Lou Gehrig. You’ve probably heard of him because he died of ALS when he was just 37 years old. The disease is now often called Lou Gehrig’s disease.
He was afflicted at the peak of his career. And though he was recognized as a superb player, he was never fully appreciated.
After the 1934 season, there was the usual voting for the American League Most Valuable Player award. The player who won the award had a batting average of .320. Gehrig’s was .363. The winner drove in 75 runs. Gehrig drove in166. The winner hit two home runs. Gehrig hit 49. It seems impossible, but somehow, Gehrig finished fifth in the voting.
Lesson: Life isn’t fair. So don’t wait for others to pat you on the back. Just do your best every day. Sooner or later, people will notice.
Example 4: Roberto Clemente. He was an extraordinarily talented player for the Pittsburgh Pirates. After his team won the 1960 World Series, a newspaper reported that he had signed a new contract for 1961 worth $40,000. The paper cited a source, “which is right at least half the time.”
Lesson: Maybe 50/50 isn’t the way to go when deciding what to believe and what not to believe. (In this case, the source was wrong. The contract was for $35,000.)
Example 5: George Herman Ruth. The Babe was a carouser with an insatiable appetite. When his Yankees travelled to play outside New York, he would often stay out all night drinking and womanizing. His roommate, Frank “Ping” Bodie, was once asked what the Babe was really like.
“I don’t know,” Ping said. “I don’t room with Babe Ruth. I room with his suitcase.”
Lesson: Every once in a while, someone in the public eye will actually utter the unvarnished truth. No deflecting. No spinning. When that happens, enjoy the moment.
Baseball tells us that life is simple. We can navigate it if we don’t overreact to the inevitable irritations and setbacks. The 1988 movie Bull Durham put it this way: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”
Steady as she goes, everyone. Happy 2019.