“Control what you can control.”
Such a notion may sound circular, but it has great practical benefit. It is something that successful baseball men and a number of my colleagues preach.
In sports, when we talk about “controlling the controllables” it is almost always in the context of the mental side of the game. I say all of this, yet there is a constant re-evaluation when it comes to “controlling the controllables” on a day-to-day basis.
It is difficult.
I’d like to think I do a decent enough job, but I don’t really know. Some folks find it easier to control their environment in the realm of athletics more so than in real life. Once we realize the parallels, we can take a lot of lessons from sports and take them into real life.
That's what I do, anyway.
In the groundbreaking book, The Mental Game of Baseball, by Harvey Dorfman and Karl Kuehl, they use vignettes from an array of ballplayers to get across various points about the "mental game."
I was re-reading the book the other day and this one stood out:
Eric Davis, opening the 1987 season as Cincinnati’s centerfielder and cleanup hitter, and having heard that the Reds general manager “couldn’t accept a slow start from Davis”:
“I love being on the spot when the game is on the line. Some guys don’t like the pressure, but I do. Sometimes before I get to the plate, I know what the pitcher’s going to do.”
Eric Davis was a surefire Hall of Famer until injuries and cancer affected his career. After lacerating his kidney in the final game of the 1990 World Series, many figured his career to be over at age 28.
Dave Parker, a man who should probably be in the Hall, but is not in there yet, served as Davis’s mentor early on with the Reds.
“As an overall package,” Parker said at the time, “there’s no one in either league who can play with Eric Davis.”
Davis was on par with Rickey Henderson as the most exciting baseball player of the mid-to-late 80s.
Eric the Red may have been even better than the Man of Steal. Davis was not only a speed merchant, he was also a legit power hitter—unlike Henderson, whose offensive focus was getting on base and terrorizing defenses—though Rickey did hit enough dingers (297) to keep pitchers honest.
For the record, I am a HUGE Rickey Henderson fan. For a good portion of my childhood, he was my favorite American League player.
A little more perspective on Davis:
Over a 162-game span from June 18, 1986, through July 10, 1987, Davis hit .307 /.405 /.629 while launching 49 homers and swiping 93 bases. If you shift the dates back a bit, from June 8, 1986, through June 27, 1987, Davis hit 46 home runs and stole 99 bags. He’s the only player in MLB history to have a 162-game stretch with those numbers.
Barry Bonds, the best overall baseball player of my lifetime—regardless of what transgressions he may or may have not committed against the game—looked up to Eric Davis, not the other way around.
“I’m the one who bought Barry his earring,” Davis said. “The diamond with a cross on the bottom of it, it was what I wore. All of his emulation was about what I was doing. The high-top shoes, all that stuff.”
Davis certainly had the swagger, but what kept him in the game for so long was his mentality.
“Once you can’t hit any more home runs or strike any more guys out, trust me: They forget about you,” said Davis. The story of his career, however, is that Eric Davis kept grinding.
Davis missed the entire 1995 season with a neck injury. In 1997, the removal of a baseball-sized tumor only cost him 4 months.
To this day, Davis doesn’t dwell on all that negativity—the what-could-have-been scenarios.
“Find what success means to you as an individual. Own your own moment. Don’t let anyone else own it.”
In other words, you can’t let others define success for you.
“Life is about chapters,” Davis said when speaking at a baseball fundraising benefit in early 2022. “How many of y’all played Little League? That chapter’s over. High school ball? That chapter’s over. This is your chapter now. You’re responsible for what you write.”
We could go on and on about Eric Davis, and the story gets more amazing the more you dive into his career, but he had a mentality that was above and beyond his skill level.
His skills were elite, by the way. We're talking Mays, Mantle, Aaron territory, if not better.
And when injuries and cancer started sapping his abilities, his elite mentality not only lingered, it became stronger.
Davis played until age 39 and for a total of 17 big league seasons.
Today, we should all be so fortunate to wish Mr. Davis a Happy 62nd Birthday.
As always,
Brian
P.S. — Our coaching program integrates the lessons from sports into regular life and business. If you need help "controlling the controllables" in your life, check us out.
