The Bullpen Gospels:: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran

by Dirk Hayhurst

Perfectionism is a funny thing. It won’t allow you to cut yourself even the tiniest bit of slack. It will insult you when you fail to achieve it and berate and belittle you until you’re your own worst enemy, an enemy you can never defeat. It’ll make you mad at those who try to tell you positive things. It’ll push people away. In the end, what was once a strong drive to do your best is now a wicked master who’s never satisfied.

It’s not all about accomplishments, but how we soldier through disappointments.”

I.e., “that’s life.”

Sooner or later, you don’t care about anyone else but yourself, and you won’t listen to anyone else no matter how relevant that person’s words are. You become your own enemy, and your words turn into something more than words.

Excellent quote here.

I spoke to him as much as I did to myself. They weren’t my words, but they were my experiences, boiled down and pieced together like some bullpen gospel. I had taken more than my share of lumps in this game, and while I thought I had nothing to show for it except a string of yawn-inducing numbers, it turns out I did. I had wisdom, something far more valuable.

The burden of the player isn’t to achieve greatness, but to give the feeling of it to everyone he encounters. It was wrong of me even to try to separate life and the game. They were intertwined, meant to be, one affecting the other, one teaching the other, even when the mixture occasionally blows up. It takes a real person, one who understands himself, to use the tool of baseball for something good. For that person, as long as he has a jersey on his back, he has a chance.

I love this - great life lesson.

Baseball wouldn’t make my marriage work, just like it didn’t make so many other things work, but a man of integrity can make any profession seem heroic by how he lives while doing it.