Editorials

The Beauty of Baseball And How It Mirrors Life’s Ups And Downs

The Los Angeles Dodgers lost the 2017 World Series. The team lost in seven games. It is done. Onto the next season. The preparations have begun.

Baseball, a game of failure, loss, and yet many call it a beautiful game. It is a sport that tricks one into thinking the individual can do it to and so it brings fans ever closer to their favorite players and teams. Moreover, conventional wisdom would say that baseball players are generally not built like football players, or as agile as soccer players are, cannot jump as high as basketball players can, nor are they as tough as hockey players are. Therefore, the gap between professional and fan is brought closer together because the baseball player is perceivably more like them.



Conventional wisdom be whisked away. Baseball players work six to seven days a week, travel across the country to sixteen to twenty different cities during a season, and must begin their careers in the minor leagues for training.

Baseball players spend six years under team control before they reach free agency. Ballplayers fight injury, failure, confidence, and more failure, and more confidence. Professional sports players all do something a lot earlier than all of us too. They reach the pinnacle in their careers in their thirties and forties.

Imagine working at a company and you are thirty-five years old.  You have been with the company for ten to fifteen years.  Your boss comes into your office and says you are too old and your brain does not work as it used to, you have been released.

Baseball players deal with this on a daily basis. Contract or not, employment is based on performance. Once your performance suffers from excellence, you are done.

By the way, you are performing before 30,000 to 50,000 people every night in person with another million+ watching on television and listening on the radio. You then have journalists, reporters, and analysts reviewing your performance and telling you what your value is to the country, the league, and team.

Take all of those factors and then try to hit .300. This is why the World Series experience needs to be taken in stride. Be happy that your team made it to the dance and got to taste the champagne on the way there.

Be happy for the victor and shake their hand. Congratulate them on a running a successful race. Remember how you felt losing and let it feed your passion to rise and win again. Learn from your mistakes and your competitor’s victories.

Baseball, like life, is a beautiful thing. Baseball is beautiful because it mirrors life. Life, like baseball, includes peaks and valleys, so enjoy the journey.

ICYMI: Major League Facts About the Astros vs. Dodgers 2017 World Series

Jeremy Evans

Jeremy M. Evans is the Founder & Managing Attorney at California Sports Lawyer®, representing entertainment, media, and sports clientele. Evans is an award-winning attorney and industry leader based in Los Angeles.

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