Paul Wilson: Life Lessons from the World Series

As a sports agnostic, I’ve watched the recent Royals run out of civic pride…

Equally odd, Field of Dreams – one of my favorite movies – is a baseball movie that has nothing to do with baseball.

It’s about life, loss and redemption.

Former New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel said, “Most ball games are lost, not won” – same as in life. Whether from innate insecurity, negative self talk that tells us we can’t do it, or simply a lack of effort, we can be assured doing nothing will accomplish nothing. With that in mind, I had some thoughts on the World Series and how it relates to daily life.

Don’t blame your outcomes on that one bad call that cost you the game.

Bad calls can be job loss, divorce or financial loss, but you have to move forward, regardless. St. Louis lives in a pity party to this day over a bad call at first base in the 9th inning of game 6 in the ‘85 World Series.

Live life in a way that one bad call doesn’t matter.

Play relentlessly, don’t jog the bases.

Play the game as hard as you can, even when you don’t think there’s a purpose or reason to carry on. What the scoreboard says isn’t necessarily the end result. You’re the only person who determines if the scoreboard remains the same or if you change the score.

Each pitch is a new game.

It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve lost, how many times you’ve struck out, you always get another chance in the batting rotation. Win with humility, lose with dignity but always keep your head in the game. Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda said,  “No matter how bad you are, you’re going to win one-third of your games. No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one-third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.”

The best players are the ones who listen to the coach and learn.

I’ve always kept a mentor or two in my life. From the time I was a child, it was my grandfather, an executive at Coke. He taught me what it meant to be a man and what it took to navigate the rough waters of business. Good players are good listeners and absorb knowledge from those around them.

Sometimes you get “sent down.”

As a result of a nasty political skirmish, at one point in my career, I became the Royals version of Mike Moustakas and was “sent down” to the “minor leagues.”

Sure, I was still on the team, but at the time, it felt like the worst thing in the world that could have happened.  I’m sure Moiustakas felt the same way. Little did I know, at the time, people were watching what happened to me and understood the facts.

Within a few short months, I was brought back to a role that far exceeded where I was when I got sent to the “minors.” Always remember the words of my friend, Adam Hamilton, the senior pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood:

The worst thing is never the last thing.

Wandering the desert can be a valuable tool, you just don’t want to do it for 40 years. Moses didn’t like it much either.

Adam Hamilton

Life, like baseball is a game of inches.

So many times in life, it’s just barely fair or barely foul. Imagine how little effort it takes to turn those opportunities into wins.

You have to play the ball where it lies.

Every day we have to take what’s been given to us and leverage it into the best possible game we can play.  As marketing dude Rick Maksian said, “Life will always throw you curves, just keep fouling them off. The right pitch will come, but when it does, be prepared to run the bases.”

And there will be a final score.

I heard years ago at the funeral of an amazing friend who’s grave marker had a birth year and a death year that what’s between those two is a dash. No matter what you do in the game of life, all that really matters is how you lived that dash. Did you dominate the game? Did you measure your life by things that mattered? Our friends and family will be the final umpires who make that call. They will be the ones who really know if we made it, or not. And I promise, the ruler they use to measure our success in life isn’t like what we may think it will be.

No matter where life finds you today, remember what Yogi said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”