I have a friend. When we were younger we played baseball together. Now, I should probably define the word “together” as meaning I would play and he would sit on the bench and do nothing. However, we wore the same uniform and so we were on the same team so we played “together”. He was a nice kid and was at every practice and every game but he rarely played more than a few innings here and there and was not ever going to have someone watch him play and say or think, “Damn, that kid is going to be a damned good ball player one day”. From game to game and year to year he really didn’t improve much…. but he kept playing. For whatever reason he loved the sport. You might say he was passionate about it.

I, on the other hand, had a genuine love for baseball when it wasn’t basketball or football season but wasn’t going to work too hard on the drills or working the fundamentals on a repetitive basis. I figured it was just a bit too damned boring. Plus, I was pretty damned good. In fact, as arrogant as it sounds, I was actually pretty good at most everything that I did that was athletic. Even if I found something I wasn’t terribly good at, I would pick it up pretty quick and GET good at it. In baseball, I was told when I was young (or would overhear coaches talking about me) that I was so good that I might go somewhere with it later in my life. Hearing things like that doesn’t typically make a 10 or 12 year old work much harder if they are already not working very hard and hearing they can play big league ball one day. Oh, I was sure that the only thing I had to do was pick what team I wanted to play for. Getting there was almost a formality to me. Again, it may sound arrogant but remember that I was being told this quite a bit by adults around me and “in the know” when I was very young.

So, we have my friend that pretty much sucks at baseball and then you have me who it comes incredibly easy to. I was a catcher and I remember the first ball I caught behind the plate and the first pop up that I caught after diving for, near the 1st base bench. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had a strong bat with a propensity to hit on 0-2 and 1-2 counts for probably 90% of my hits over the years. Defensively behind the plate, I was a standout, as well. The only thing I would have had to really work on was my arm. I was accurate and had a quick release but the arm power wasn’t there. This would be something that if I was going to go a long way in the sport I needed to work on but it was more than doable.

My friend would come over to our house and we would play everything from hot-box (pickle to some) or mock games or just whatever we wanted to do. I lived 7 houses from a massive baseball park so sometimes we would go down and pick out a ball diamond and just hit for the fun of it. We played quite a bit but nothing very structured where you practice over and over to make a weakness stronger. We just played and had fun.

Over the years I drifted away from baseball in favor of the much more lucrative sport of bodybuilding. I mean, once you are told how great you are and how far you will go, it seems almost anticlimactic to actually continue on that road, right? My buddy? He stuck with it but I didn’t know at that time. I moved away and he moved away and years later I heard someone say what he was doing for living. I actually laughed out loud when I heard it said that he was playing baseball for the White Sox farm team. I thought to myself: How in the fuck did this guy get to the point of wearing a White Sox uniform? Are they stupid? Don’t they know this kid sucks at baseball? Apparently, he was quite good I later found out. He played for 7 seasons though he never made it to the major leagues. I haven’t given it much thought but the other day I got to thinking about genetics and potential and all of those cliche words that get thrown around so much in the sport of bodybuilding. It occurred to me that genetics obviously were not only a part of bodybuilding but a part of baseball, among other sports, as well.

My friend, Greg, sucked as a kid because he likely wasn’t born with a gift of great hand-eye coordination as he really didn’t excel at any sports that I recall yet he played basketball and football, too. We have all seen the young kids that just make it look so easy and effortless and have what we call a gift. That was me. I think the gift is simply a genetic predisposition at being very good at something. If someone can throw a ball faster than anyone else they may have tighter or shorter tendons in their wrists and forearms allowing a different or quicker or more powerful flick of their wrist. I am obviously stronger than a lot of pitchers or catchers out there in the majors and yet I can’t possibly throw as fast as they do. This is a genetic component. I remember not having to EVER watch the ball into the bat or watch a ball into my glove and I rarely ever missed gloving a ball. Again, another genetic component.

Now, some would argue that Greg went off to college and mastered the art of hitting (he would end up being a designated hitter for many of those years) which is one of the most difficult things to do in sport today. Practice can damned sure make you better at something. Just like someone that does workout after workout over weeks and months and years to get bigger and stronger, the baseball player would do essentially the same thing by practicing his stance, timing, follow through, bat speed, etc.. Over the years Greg obviously got better the more he practiced because he damned sure wasn’t born with what anyone would consider a gift. He worked hard, no doubt, on getting better and better and I am sure that after being taught proper form and technique that this helped him to excel, as well. However, in the end, he didn’t get to the majors because of …. his genetic limitations. It wasn’t that he didn’t work hard enough. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the best teachers in the sport – he damned sure did. He worked his ass off and still came up short of making the majors. He was PAID to practice and yet still couldn’t do it. Sound familiar (minus the getting paid part)??

All too many people think that hard work will get you to whatever your goal is. No, it won’t. If you think so you are not at all being realistic. Will hard work get you MUCH farther than not working hard? Duh. Will it take hard work to master anything or be better than anyone else at the same task? Bet your ass. But don’t think for a second that hard work trumps genetic potential because it doesn’t and it never will. No baseball player or bodybuilder has EVER overcome his genetic potential from sheer hard work and/or determination. Just like in bodybuilding you can’t change the shape of a muscle or your structure. You aren’t going to all of a sudden practice yourself into a hitting champion in the majors, either, if you don’t have the genetic potential to do so. You can train until you are blue in the face, liver falling out from too much drug use, wife leaving you for someone that is “normal” and your kids hating you for eating fruity pebbles in front of them after your workout and making them eat the “healthy” cheerios and you still won’t be a pro if that is not coded into your genetic blueprint.

Now, there will be plenty that will argue this. Some will take my words and twist them and say that I said that hard work means nothing, blah, blah, blah. Say what you want and the loudest ones running their mouths will be the ones that don’t have the genetic potential and yet don’t want to admit it. Oh, they know it but they don’t dare admit it. These are the people that are convinced that if they work hard enough, they will get there even though everyone around them knows better. To them I say: go for it. You won’t know until you give it all of what you have but just take this advice, please: Be smart enough to know when you have given your all and see the writing on the wall for what it is. If your goal is to be competitive and win some shows, no one would ever hold that against you. However, I will hold it against you, personally, if you see you aren’t going to be a pro and yet still continue to chase that warped dream at the expense of other things in your life and other people in your life.

Greg was smart. Along the way he walked away with a college education and the work ethic of someone that will always do the very best no matter what he takes on in life. He also doesn’t bitch, piss and moan about not making the majors. He is good with the effort that he gave to his dream and he knows he went as far as he could go with baseball – maybe even further than he ever thought he could go. I have a lot of respect for Greg and not because he played ball for the White Sox but because he worked his ass off, followed his dream and when he couldn’t work any harder, he knew when to call it a day.

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