We live in this weird baseball Limbo where it seems like I've always been just good enough to get us to over the hump to the next level. But now there is this new hump, a new "good enough", called the big leagues that I can't seem to live up to. My minor league numbers are pretty darn good, no matter who you compare them to. I've had my ups and downs through the levels, but at the end of the day I was decent enough to make it to the big leagues with 2 different teams. My big league numbers, however, are mediocre at best...and at worst, downright atrocious. Like Ashley, I know that I am good. History has shown that to be at least mostly true. But I too look at myself and think "Will I ever be good enough?"
As an athlete, being competitive has always come naturally to me. I was raised with 3 siblings (2 brothers and a sister) and we all competed, literally and figuratively, for the entirety of our childhoods. We fought for parents' attention, bragging rights at the ping pong table, front seat in our Mercury Villager minivan and just about anything else where there was a perceived victor (everything). Naturally, that translated well to the baseball field. I was intrinsically driven to win every game, play every inning and make every all star team no matter the significance...or insignificance...of the honor. I never really played travel ball growing up, so it wasn't so hard for me to see myself as one of the best players in our small suburban rec. league. Once middle and high school rolled around, the competition got better and I did what was second nature to me. I competed. I finally made the Varsity squad as a sophomore, and there was a sense of school pride that permeated my on field performance. I wanted to bring home a championship for Providence Christian Academy, but more than anything I just wanted to keep playing after my 4 years there were over. I practiced and played in the hopes that I would be good enough to earn a scholarship to play college baseball. Turns out I was good enough. I attended Berry College on a baseball scholarship and I pitched there for 3 years. I wasn't an All-American (not even academically) and I didn't shock the baseball world with crazy velocity or stats. I was, however, good enough to get drafted in 2008. I played for 5.5 years in the New York Mets organization, hitting every minor league level they have to offer. Methodically (and divinely I believe), I made it through each level and onto the next until I reached the big leagues in August of 2012. Here's where the pattern breaks.
There is no next level at this point. There's the Hall of Fame (which is the ultimate all star team), but even that is simply an honor bestowed on you long after your playing days are over. Once you get to the level I am at now, there is no "good enough" that's "good enough" anymore.
Let's go through an ideal major league career:
- Made it to the big leagues
- Immediately have success and make and all star team
- Win World Series
- Get big $$$ contract extension
- Gain endorsement deals
- Win Cy Young award(s)
- Continue for the next 10 years
- Qualify for full pension
- Keep playing until you either retire or quit
- Get elected by journalists into the Hall of Fame
There is only a very small percentage of guys who have played this game that have achieved those things. And among those guys, at what point along their journey did they rest and say "Now I'm finally good enough." When they got the money? The awards? The tenure? Doubtful. My guess is that they probably used the questions of "Am I good enough" to drive them forward to succeed. But the vast majority of us are already behind the 8 ball when it comes to checking those items off of our career bucket lists, so we can't even come close to saying that we're good enough. It's easy to feel like we're on a professional hamster wheel, perpetually turning faster and faster but not actually getting anywhere. So many of us who play the game think that if we can just get to that next milestone, then we'll be good enough. "If I can just make the club out of Spring training....If I can just get to arbitration...If I can just get that multi year deal...if only..." There is no real end in sight. The thought process is completely unrealistic and, I dare say, impossible. The reality is that all of us will fall short of something. Many of us baseball players won't ever get a multi year deal or make an all star team. But even most of the guys who do won't win a world series or make the hall of fame. At the end, there will always be something that we will have fallen short of. That we won't have been "good enough" for. But is that the way you want to look at your life? Is that a healthy way to view any professional endeavor?
Let's look at a more optimistic reality. I have already been good enough to accomplish everything that I've done in the past. We all have! Every one of us has accomplished something, big or small, in our lives. And in that moment of accomplishment we were exactly good enough to complete whatever it was. So the question of whether or not we'll be good enough to accomplish something more difficult in the future should be simple...why not? If the past is any indicator of the future then why shouldn't we be able to do great things? We've all been up to the task at hand before, so it is totally reasonable to believe that with growth, practice, sweat, tears and faith we will be able to do it again...but with something bigger!
I loved Russell Wilson's (QB for the World Champion Seattle Seahawks) post game Super Bowl interview. After initially giving thanks to God for his blessings (the things we can't earn), Wilson repeated the phrase that has become their team's mantra all year. Why Not Us? His father used to ask him the same question growing up. Being a quarterback who was small in stature and better at baseball anyway, people were skeptical about his ability to become a great college, let alone NFL, QB. His father's response to the criticisms were, "Why not you?" Sure, there are plenty of reasons that we all should fall short of our goals. Maybe the cards are stacked so high against us that we can't see over them. But we have the tools to achieve great things, so why not us? Why not now? Why not this season? The critics are always going to criticize and if you let them into your headspace, what they're saying will start to make too much sense to ignore. So don't give people the power to dictate what you are or aren't good enough for. We are good enough, so why not us?
Here's the post game video with Russell Wilson:
Well written, sir. And though you certainly know this, that whole "Am I good enough?" question goes for everything beyond sports, as well. The difference that I see, and the added pressure on the athlete, is the relatively early expiration date on an athlete's career, where the prime is reached at age 27... when many human-type people only every learn what it is they're more than "good enough" at until much later than that.
ReplyDeleteAll you can control, though, is what you can control. As for the rest, it is what it is. It's hard to do (I know) but you can't drive yourself into the ground worrying about what you have no control over. I've certainly learned that (and continue to learn that) the hard way.
Keep on truckin', brother.