[Editor's Note: This will be the last post about baseball for a while. I promise. I had to get it out of my system. Thanks for indulging me.]
Those who know me know that I frequently can be found on baseball fields in the Greater Lowell, MA area, playing baseball in a men's baseball league. It's a great release, gets us all outside in the summer sun, connects me to the game I grew up loving, and feeds my competitive juices just enough.
Recently, we held our annual end-of-season banquet where we celebrated, in muted fashion, the retirement of a friend and teammate with whom I've played for 11 of my 14
years in the league. Because of his reticence and hatred of the limelight, a more public celebration, toast, roast, encomiums, etc. at the banquet were out of the question.
HOWEVER, because of my process orientation, I (compulsively? Perhaps. Whatever.) I thought a lot about what I've learned from him over that time, as a sort of "lessons learned." Here goes:
- Know the game. My teammate was a student of the game who had clearly received great coaching. In addition to the natural talents he had, he understood the situation at any instant in the game, and knew the right offensive approach (e.g., take pitches to work the count when down by a few runs) or defensive play to "steal an out" in a key situation. Larger lesson: it's not just about technique (doing things right), but also about a broader understanding of the context (doing the right things).
- Capitalize on your opponents' inattention. Not infrequently, an opponent would hit one of my pitches for a double, and if he was a weaker hitter, he would be visibly happy/excited about the hit as he stood on second base. When the next hitter came to the plate, my teammate and I would frequently pick the still-celebrating player off second base. There are many other instances of this, but most are too arcane (truly "inside baseball" stuff) or too competitively valuable going forward to share here. Larger lesson: Never take your eye off the ball. Never stop competing.
- If you don't have something useful to say, watch, listen, and keep your mouth shut. My teammate was a man of few words, many of which were acerbic and hilarious, and he didn't have the highest tolerance for those who were unnecessarily chatty. In fact, I'm not sure how he tolerated me and my incessant patter for as long as he did. His quiet demeanor didn't mean he wasn't competitive and passionate about playing the game the right way, just that he led by action rather than words. Larger lesson: Shut up. You might learn something.
There's an old expression, attributed to either Aesop or former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, that goes: "When all is said and done, more is said than done."
Cheers to a friend and teammate who lived up to the opposite.
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