“The Pros and Cons of It All”

“The Pros and Cons of It All”

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another

person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have

lighted the flame within us.”

—Albert Schweitzer

“I had the pleasure of taking in a Mets and Nationals baseball game

one Saturday in September. It was a thrill because I attended the game

in the new Citi Field ballpark. I marveled at its brilliance in new brick,

stone, and steel girders, the largest I had ever seen. The girders in

the shape of a “Y” soared up a few stories, and, no doubt, supported

most of the structure. I was fascinated by the great technology and

workmanship that went into this great ballpark. So I looked up some

statistics and learned that it includes 1.2 million bricks, 11,000 light

fixtures, 2,200 doors, 850 televisions, 12,540 tons of structural steel

and 48,000 cubic yards of asphalt. An amazing feat of construction,

the stadium holds approximately 45,000 fans. I don’t have statistics on

how many people worked on it, but I can imagine fifty years from now

some grandfather telling his grandchild all about how he helped build

it half a century back.

I rarely go to baseball games, but when I do go, I get a real thrill

out of watching the players on the field. I visualize what it was like for

someone watching a game live in the 1920s or ’30s. The players would

have been stationed in basically the same spots as those who played

this game. The uniforms would have been different, but the game was

basically the same. The fans would clap and yell and stand and cheer.

The players’ dedication was basically the same—play hard and play your

best because if you didn’t, there would be someone sitting on the bench

just waiting for that one opportunity to show the manager that he could

play better than you and that he deserved to play full-time.

“Professional.” The word itself has a nice ring to it. The Merriam-

Webster Dictionary defines professional this way: “participating for

gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in

by amateurs.”

Think of what it takes to be a professional baseball player and to

play in Major League Baseball. The amazing thing is, a young boy with

a baseball, a bat, and a glove can become the greatest baseball success

ever. He needs an intense, burning desire that never fades. He needs

so much more, but the fact remains that if the burning desire is not

present throughout, he will never be propelled to greatness in the sport

of baseball.”

“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or

put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is with a new

game every day, and that’s the way baseball is.”

—Bob Feller

“When I think of the greatest baseball players of all time, I think

of Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Babe

Ruth, Cy Young, and many others. But the list is really not that long,

considering that professional Major League Baseball has been played

for more than one hundred thirty years—since 1876—by thousands of

players over all those years.

To actually break into the Major Leagues is a very big accomplishment,

considering that most of the people who put on a baseball uniform from

childhood through adulthood will never actually make it that far. So,

what is the difference between the players who make it and those who

never make the cut?

Maybe it is only a 10 percent difference. Maybe one player is 10

percent faster than the others who never get called up. Ten percent? If a

player has a batting average of 250, 10 percent better is 275. Or say one

pitcher throws at eighty miles per hour and another pitcher throws at

eighty-eight miles per hour. You see the small difference? That minute

amount can mean a difference in pay of millions of dollars more once

someone makes it to the majors.

So, I looked out onto the field while at the game, and I studied

each player carefully as he manned his position. I watched the players

in almost military precision as they guarded their ground, the area they

were each responsible for, making sure there weren’t any small mounds

of dirt that would make a baseball take a bad hop if hit to them. I even

studied the umpire as he bent down at the knees to look at every pitch.

I looked closely as he studied each pitch of the ball so carefully. Then I

realized that every pitch counts equally in value. One pitch could mean

the ballgame for one team or the other. Some, if not most, pitches would

be recorded in the record books. So it was no wonder how professional

the umpire was. This particular umpire on this day was even crouching

down behind the catcher when the pitcher was taking warm-up throws

that didn’t count for the game. I estimated that the umpire squatted

down, bent at the knees, at least three hundred times for that game.

Professional? You bet. Some umpires make it to the Major Leagues, too.

Many, however, don’t.

Professionalism is found in all walks of life. Think again about what

it means to be “pro,” and also consider those who merely go through

the motions. I call some people “cons” because they are only conning

themselves, making believe that they are giving it their best effort, while

secretly, down deep, they are only trying to get to closing time.”

C-2012 J. Carinci from the book An All-Consuming Desire To Succeed