Moneyball has been celebrated as a revolutionary look into the world of baseball analytics. The movie that followed also has been hailed as an intriguing look into the world of Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane.
The movie follows the 2002 Oakland Athletics season as they rebuilt the roster after losing many high priced free agents.
The last couple of minutes of the movie provides a wonderful metaphor as Jonah Hill’s character Peter Brandt brings Brad Pitt’s character Billy Beane into the film room to look at one of their minor league players.
Billy Beane is depressed and feels that the past year was a failure because his team did not win the final game of the season.
The video and Peter Brandt’s explains that a minor league player is so concerned with his lack of speed that he never tries to stretch a single into a double. But at this one moment he tries to stretch a single into a double and falls coming around first base. He stumbles and eventually crawls back to first base only to be informed that he had hit a homerun. The scene ends with Brad Pitt’s character realizing that he had hit a metaphorical home run during the season but only felt like he had stumbled and fell.
Sometimes we are so scared about the things that we cannot do that we don’t realize what we did do well.
Every baseball player has limitations and often those limitations cause us as ballplayers to feel that we are inadequate. We focus on our weaknesses that we sometimes miss when we do well.
We need to appreciate what we do well on a baseball field. We need to celebrate our strengths and highlights because this game will often remind us of our shortcomings.
You will hit your metaphorical homeruns. You will metaphorically strike out many times but you need to remember what you do well and stick to your strengths.
I encourage all baseball players to enjoy your accomplishments and the accomplishments of you teammates.
I encourage coaches to celebrate the accomplishments on a baseball field.
Those accomplishments must outweigh our negative thoughts and memories.
We will spend a greater period of our life not playing the game and all we are left with is our memories.
I wish all of you who lace up your cleats to remember the times when you succeeded on the field instead of the times when you failed.
Don’t fear what you struggle with because if you fixate on your limitations, eventually those limitations will blind you of your strengths and you will forget about all your successes.
Enjoy the game – don’t dread your failures.