Marines and baseball players

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to speak at a local high school baseball team’s “First Dinner” to start off their new season.  I talked about a number of things but one of them was a story I was told by someone I had met a couple years ago.  Here is the story …

A couple years ago at one of my children’s games, I ran into a parent from another team that was wearing a college baseball sweatshirt.  It turns out that he was a former college player so we immediately hit it off since we had a lot in common.  We shared our experiences and talked a bit about baseball in general.  He mentioned that he is in the finance industry and does a lot of work on Wall Street.  He said that he was at a Wall Street function and happened to meet the CEO of a major financial institution (I forget which one – Merrell Lynch, Godman Sachs, or some firm like that.)

The two of them had an immediate connection, largely because they realized that both had served in the Marines.  They shared stories about their service and life in the Marines but the topic of baseball never came up.  Right before having to move on, the CEO leaned in and whispered, “If I had to hire only two groups of people, it would be Marines and baseball players.”

The guy was surprised because, like I said, he and the CEO had not talked about baseball at all.  He asked the CEO, “Why those two groups?”  The CEO responded, “Because Marines and baseball players routinely get knocked on their $ss.”

So much of today’s society attempts to protect younger people from getting knocked on their rear ends.  Some argue that teachers, counselors, parents, and other adults have become too protective of the younger generations.  This modern view of raising kids, critics say, makes the mistake of thinking that failing and adversity hurt self-esteem and that higher self-esteem needs to be in place before success can be achieved.  

Marines and baseball players, through experience, would argue that they have the order of those things mixed up.  Getting continually knocked down by the game forces a player to get back up if they want to achieve and succeed.  It’s not the “getting knocked down” that makes a player successful but rather the getting back up, making adjustments, pushing forward despite the setbacks, and learning how to emotionally deal with adversity that leads to success. Only through this achievement of properly handling adversity does someone’s self-esteem rise.  This mental toughness that both the Marines and the game of baseball develops is what the CEO and many other successful people in their fields find valuable in employees.

The odds are that most, if not all, of the players in that audience will never play baseball as a career.  However, having played the game will provide them with a built in advantage over some of their peers that have not been allowed to fail and as a result, have not been forced to deal with it effectively.

Kids are learning a whole lot more than just baseball when they play the game.

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