Tag / baseball

by Nathan Coumbe

Baseball follows the decline of American democracy

“Baseball suits the character of this democratic nation. 

Democracy is government by persuasion. That means it requires patience. That means it requires a lot of compromise. Democracy is the slow politics of the half-loaf. 

Baseball is the game of the long season, where small, incremental differences decide who wins and who loses particular games, series, seasons. In baseball, you know going to the ballpark that the chances are you may win, but you also may lose. There’s no certainty, no given. You know when the season starts that the best team is going to get beaten a third of the time; the worst team is going to win a third of the time. The argument over 162 games—that middle third. 

So it’s a game you can’t like if winning’s everything. And democracy is that way, too.” 

—George Will, “Ken Burns: Baseball“

I would now posit that Americans’ declining interest in, and ability to watch and focus on, baseball directly correlates to our declining democratic ideals. 

When winning is everything—like it is in the new American pastime, football—and our culture reflects that, American democracy can no longer function. 

Baseball has become the jazz music of American sports culture: something we created that truly reflects who we are as a culture, yet no one cares about anymore.

Baseball and jazz—two of the greatest cultural creations that are 100% genuine American innovations—are the same two things most Americans don’t care about, understand, or appreciate. 

We’ve traded cerebral, authentically human jazz for three-minute pop songs, mostly created by computers with singers who rely on autotune to hit anything above or below a 5-note range. A 162-game baseball season over 8 months, for a 16-game football season that lasts 5 months. 

I’ve often said that our declining interest and ability to follow baseball is an indication of social media’s detrimental impact on our ability to focus for long periods. 

Now I’m quite certain it heralds something much worse.

by Nathan Coumbe

Impresarios make softball happen

The MLB is investing in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, a long-overdue organization for the United States’ outstanding softball players.

I’m sharing this article here, not because the MLB is investing in it, but for a different reason entirely.

As I read this, all I could think was, “A group of impresarios made this happen.”

Impresario: someone who organizes something, who brings the right people together to connect and make things happen that need to happen.

A group of people (mostly strong, driven women) said, “Why isn’t there a professional softball league? Why aren’t softball players making a career of this after dominating in college like all the men in MLB get to do?”

So what did they do? They made it happen themselves. Eventually, other groups, such as ESPN and MLB, took notice and decided to invest. But that isn’t the impressive part.

What’s impressive is that a small group of people decided that something that didn’t exist should exist. And they made it happen, without permission, by bringing the best and the brightest softballers together to build something great.

This is the work of an impresario.

This is leadership.

by Nathan Coumbe

Are You a Professional Artist?

You have a problem with perfection.

You don’t have writer’s block or artist’s block; you’re worried what you create isn’t very good. 

But once you stop worrying about whether something is good or bad, you can get to the business of creating. 

Professionals

To be a professional is to show up and do your work regardless of how you feel. To be a professional artist, then, is to create works of art every day no matter what.

If you’re trying to make a living doing something artistic or creative, you’re a professional. Or at least, you should act like one. 

Even if you don’t feel that you have any good ideas. Even if you’re “just an artist.”

An amateur artist only creates when he feels like it, or when the muse speaks to him. Or, God forbid, after getting inebriated so he can “loosen up” and go with the flow. 

If You Build It, They Will Come…

Remember Field of Dreams? Being an artist is a lot like Kevin Costner building that baseball field.

You don’t wait for the muse to show up before you start creating. If you start creating, the Muse shows up like a curious child. She asks “Ooooo! What’s that? Can I help? Can I do that with you?” 

Waiting for a child to do something you want her to do doesn’t work. But if you just start doing it, she’ll immediately perk up and join you because she wants to be a part of your world. The mythical “Muse” acts the same way.

Some days you might have incredible days full of flow and creative ideas, but I’ve found those to be few and far between. Creation comes before inspiration almost every day. It’s why I show up to my morning pages each day after I wake. 

I don’t write them because I feel inspired: I write them to BECOME inspired. That’s what a professional artist does–indeed, that’s what any professional does.

Act Like a Professional

A lawyer doesn’t wait to become inspired before writing a brief or rehearsing an opening statement. She’s a professional and shows up because that’s her job. 

A surgeon doesn’t wait for the muse to speak to her before operating on a patient. She trains for years so each and every time a patient is wheeled into the operating room, she’s ready to perform. 

What if you approached your art the same way? As your job. What if you showed up every day ready to create whether or not you’re in the mood?

Do the work. Go make the Muse curious today.

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by Nathan Coumbe

How to get into the Hall of Fame

What does it take for a Major League Baseball player to earn a spot in the MLB Hall of Fame?

It takes failure.

Not a little bit of failure – it requires failing almost two-thirds of the time.

The best baseball players who’ve ever played the sport only average a hit 3 out of 10 times they come up to bat. That means they fail at their job 7 out of 10 times. And yet we still regard them as the best.

Why then, in our own lives, do we strive so hard to avoid failure at any cost? What if the avoidance of failure is preventing us from succeeding at a level that would cause us to stand out from the pack?

We don’t learn how to succeed through books, lectures, or seminars – we learn through failure, the greatest teacher of all. The books and seminars can help us avoid mistakes committed by others who’ve walked the path before us, but we have to fail on our own, in our own way, to find what works and what doesn’t.

To paraphrase Seth Godin in his webinar a few days ago: success requires time and failure.

Failing not only teaches you lessons from which you can improve, it also makes you more resilient to future failures. Each time you fail, you build a reserve for the future, which grows your confidence and allows you to try bigger and better things the next time. It’s a cycle that only spirals up.

What could you do in your life where you would consider batting .300 to be Hall of Fame-worthy success?

Don’t fear failure – fear never taking the chance of doing something great.

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