WORDS OF WISDOM FROM BASEBALL STAR, CARLOS PENA

 WORDS OF WISDOM FROM BASEBALL STAR, CARLOS PENA

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© August 26, 2012

There is a word, which we borrow from the Germans that describes the glee people feel when they are privy to the misfortunes of others.  It is called “schadenfreude.” 

Carlos Pena, first baseman for the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League, is going through a bad patch.  He is striking out a lot, leaving men on base in scoring position, and not bringing them in with hits or sacrifices.  If this weren't bad enough, he has the lowest batting average of any active player in the major leagues with 425 plate appearances.  He is hitting .190, which means eight out of ten times he is striking out, grounding or flying out, or reaching base on an error.

Baseball is a beautiful sport, but a sport that teaches us more about losing than winning.  A batting average of .300, or only hitting safely three out ten times is considered outstanding.  Moreover, the best teams in baseball are likely to lost at least sixty games in a season. 

Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould once made a study of baseball players over the history of the sport, and found the batting average a shade less than .250.  That means that three out of every four plate appearances major league players over time, cumulatively, have failed to hit safely.

Now, you may not be a baseball fan, or have any interest in the sport much less its statistics.  I do believe you have an interest in life, and the lessons life teaches you.  Baseball is about being a winner when most of the time you are losing.

We are a society that likes winners.  We like winners, vicariously, as spectators where we don’t have to take risks, and can bask in the glory of those that do.  It is why life has become increasingly passive and dependent on those who take risks for us, who perform before our eyes, and excel or come up short to our cheers or jeers.  All we need is the price of admission.

On a more personal level, we are a society that compares and competes, often focusing on the attributes of others, and copying them rather than finding our own niche. 

It seldom occurs to us in this competitive jungle that we can never be or have or attain what someone else does because we are not that individual, nor do we have identical attributes to that person. 

The best we can do by emulating someone else is to be a poor copy of that person.  It is apparent that many if not most people choose that course.  That is unfortunate.  It means we never discover our own personal uniqueness, the difference that makes us special, whatever that is.  Everyone has that specialness.  Everyone.

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The baseball season is a grueling business, a season that sucks the energy and spirit out of the players, who often play hurt or in pain from injuries received in the game.  This is the physical part of the game that shows, or perhaps it doesn’t.  A sore wrist or forearm, or sore calf muscle or toe does not show, and may not be sufficient to put a player on the disabled list, but it can change his stance at the plate, his bat speed, and result in plummeting statistics regarding his performance.  Baseball is a game that loves statistics, and the fate of a player rises and falls on these indices.

The other part of the game that doesn’t show but weighs decisively in the player's performance is his psychology or emotional balance.  

Baseball, like all sports, is a mind or head game, and the mind must be in sync with the physical gifts for the music of the soul to vibrate with a winning message.  Remember, that winning message may occur only three out of ten times for a hitter.  Pitching is a whole other matter with complexities too subtle and complicated to cover in this brief missive.

Every player brings his personal baggage with him to the game.  Since baseball season involves 81 of its 162 games on the road, home life is an interrupted experience with all the tensions that that may involve.  Players spend many hours in hotel rooms or on planes, trains or buses between games, and away from their families.  It is a frenetic life and spans six months or more of every year they are a professional baseball player. 

The game of baseball requires maturity and a dedication that strains the temperament of the most stable personality. 

A career can be launched right out of high school or college, with the possibility of many apprentice years in the minors before making it to the big leagues.  Then, there are no guarantees of staying longer than time for a cup of coffee.  Add to this the possibility of being traded to another team, requiring adjusting to a new management style, new players and a new baseball culture, not to mention a new complement of fans.  Put family dynamics and family tensions into the mix, and you have some appreciation of the personal and role demands on a player. 

True, major league baseball players make, on average, far more than peers their age.  Yet, it is uncommon for a baseball career to last beyond a player’s early thirties.  If a player has no sense of frugality, and accumulates a lot of hanger ons while in his glory, he can come out of baseball not only in debt but a broken man, and he has lived only a third of his life.     

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This is preamble to Carlos Pena’s comments to the press yesterday after the Tampa Bay Rays lost their second game in a row to the Oakland Athletics, a team chasing them in the wild card race for a berth in the playoffs.  Hometown fans booed Pena when he failed to hit safely with a man on base.

It has been a disappointing month for the first basement, indeed, a disappointing season.  He said he was disappointed for the fans to boo him, but he understood.  It is their prerogative as paying customers.  That said he would not allow himself to react negatively to the boos, as he has not allowed himself to have his head turned when fans celebrate his achievements. 

“As grateful as I am for all the cheers, as grateful as I am for all the pats on the back, and all the love the area has given me, I also think I have been smart enough to make it my lifeline not to make it my identity, not to make it my source of worth.”

He went on to say, “I have been very careful over the years to not let that define me, so if you have not embraced or become addicted to the cheers then the boos shouldn’t bug you either. 

“Keeping that balance,” he said, “is easier said than done.  But that’s ideally what I want to do at all times.”

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There is a lesson here for us all.  If we have an internal governor, an internal compass, we will be self-directed, and know where we are going.  More importantly, we will know who and what we are. 

We will not let anyone else define us, and that means with praise or criticism.  We are our own person.  That is power, with that power comes confidence, with that confidence comes the instinct to embrace our challenges and control our destiny.  We have mounted the courage and now possess the knowledge to know everything will turn out okay in the end. 

Carlos Pena must have amazing parents because he is an amazing man who happens to be, at the moment, a baseball player.

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