Brooks Robinson - The Timeless Advice of a 13-Year-Old Boy
- Feb 18
- 2 min read
Brooks Robinson is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He holds a special place in my heart, not because I watched him or idolized him or spent hours studying him, but because I have a signed card of his, stemming all the way back to my childhood.
I'm not sure how I got it or where I got it, but what I do know is I got it, and I'll have it forever.
But this isn't about me or about my connection to Robinson; it's about Robinson himself. The man with more than 1,300 RBI's, more than 250 homers, and more than a staggering 2,800 hits in his career.
Those statistics are rare, and it takes a rare individual, a rare player to produce that type of career. But Robinson had something that is also rare itself, something that is within all of our grasp.
When Robinson was 13 years old, he wrote an essay about his desire to be a professional baseball player. It's the dream every young ballplayer has—to hit a home run over Fenway's Green Monster, to run out to a crowd of 60,000 fans, to have the game on the line and the chance to be the hero.
But it's a dream that stays out of reach for most.
Robinson, though, believed at 13, and until he made the big leagues, that it was a possibility.
Why?
It lies in a sentence he wrote in that essay: "I'm slow to anger and not easily discouraged; am enthusiastic, happy, calm, and very active."
He wrote that at thirteen, but those words stayed with him forever.
When Robinson failed, it didn't get the best of him.
When he had a hitless game, a few errors in the field, those types of performances that can wreck a player's confidence, Robinson was even-keel and undisturbed.
When Robinson, like any baseball player, fell into a slump, he approached each day, each practice, each game, each opportunity to play the beautiful game with enthusiasm and joy.
Much of life's success lies in that sentence, in those lines from that 13-year-old boy.
When you're slow to anger, you create fewer problems. You don't harm yourself. You can see things clearly.
When you're not easily discouraged, you're less likely to give in and give up. What crushes other people is just part of the process for you.
When you're enthusiastic and happy, everything becomes a joy—every day, every moment, every opportunity.
When you're calm while other people are freaking out, you're, as Marcus Aurelius said, "the rock that the waves keep crashing over, it stands, unmoved, and the raging of the sea falls still around it."
So take that advice from the 13-year-old Brooks Robinson, and like him, you can make the big leagues, or whatever your form of the big leagues is.
Thank you for reading.
You can check out my books here, and my podcast here, where I dive into the lives and works of the world's greatest people.
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