Hitting singles

Singles and home runs both get us around the bases

Years ago someone asked the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony how many hours the orchestra had to rehearse for a performance. We all waited for his concise answer, anticipating a specific number. “Well, there’s the short answer and the long answer,” he said. “Together, we rehearse about 10 hours, but these musicians have been practicing for years and years, developing their talents.” In other words, they had to hit lots of “singles” before being part of any “home-run" performance.

But it is baseball season, and we’re captivated by the SportsCenter highlights full of spectacular plays and home run hits. Although some baseball fans may disagree, I believe home runs, as fun as they are, do not a winning team make. More often than not, a team’s success comes from a combination of decent pitching, skilled fielding, and consistent hitting rather than from a few singular, out-of-the-park glory moments.

For the first 25 years of my life, my lists of goals would typically read something like “Goals for the Week.” I thought nothing of it until just after I was married and some new friends saw my list posted on the fridge. They just laughed—not at me but at themselves. All of them were at least ten years older than I was and had busy lives filled with husbands, children, and lots of the unexpected. Goals for the week weren’t part of their reality, and I guess thinking about that possibility just cracked them up. 

Fast forward a decade or so, and I was in the same boat. I no longer set weekly goals. In fact, sometimes I was glad to just be treading water. I was progressing, but sometimes that progress was less planned and often imperceptible. Happily, though, my life was full. I had fewer points on my map to reach but much more fun getting where I was going. 

Sometimes, we ratchet down our goals to more predictable expectations. For example, as our bodies age, we naturally slow down. We run with a tad less zip. At other times, though, unexpected circumstances force us to change our expectations. Even Baseball Hall-of-Famer Lou Gehrig, a man whose lifetime batting average of .340 still stands as the 15^th highest of all time, had to adjust to unexpected losses. Stricken early in life with ALS (now nicknamed “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”), he is regarded to this day as one of the most talented baseball players. of all time, but he had to accept his failing health while finding new ways to succeed. The disease caused him to lose tremendous muscle strength and coordination, so every day it became a struggle just to hit a “single.” His daily challenges became the simplest of tasks, such as sitting in a chair, walking up stairs, and swallowing.

For most of us, changes in expectations are not as dramatic or noticeable as they were for Gehrig, but different seasons of our lives hold different demands. Over the long haul, instead of wearing ourselves out by always swinging for the fence, we’re probably better off hitting lots of singles and then enjoying the rare and wonderful moments when we “knock it out of the park.” Besides, even though home runs are great, hitting singles still gets us around the bases.