The O’Toole Chronicles: Just Work Harder

I recently saw a tribute to former Baltimore Oriole, Brooks Robinson, who recently passed away. Brooks was regarded as the single greatest third baseman in Major League Baseball and was selected as one of the Top 25 All-Time MLB legends. As a diehard Yankee fan and former high school third baseman, I idolized former Yankee Craig Nettles and thought he flashed the best leather at the hot corner. After reviewing the entirety of Brooks’ amazing records, I can say with confidence I was way off.

A few astonishing statistics about Brooks:

Brooks spent his entire 23 years with the Baltimore Orioles. He played 2,870 games at third (most of any) and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot (91.98%). Brooks was an 18 time All-Star and received 16 Gold Gloves. He helped his team win two World Series and he was the World Series MVP in 1970. But these statistics don’t tell the entire story.

Throughout his career, Brooks was recognized as one of the genuinely nicest people not like glad handing running for office nice, but sincerely nice. Imagine in any day and age having universal agreement on anything.

Let’s get to the making of the legend.

By his own account, Brooks was not the fastest, best, or most talented player. By Brooks’ own admission, he was a weak hitter and had an average arm. So given those weaknesses, how did he ascend to become one of the greatest?

Simple–Brooks was obsessed with excellence.  Since he started playing ball, he figured out that given his so called limited abilities, he just had to outwork the rest. Brooks’ answer on how to succeed – just work harder.

Brooks had a mantra that he lived by to just work harder than the rest. He jumped out of bed to hone his craft and be the best that he could. He was determined to be the best at his job each and every day. Who among us can say this about themselves?

As we stare down the barrel of our own existence and look to break out and excel, we need to channel our inner Brooks Robinson and commit ourselves to work harder than the rest. You want to kick it up a bit? Adopt a little magic from Brook’s magnetic personality and be positive and respect others.

My advice to the next generation is to stop waiting for the expectation train to arrive and make your own future by working harder.

One last anecdote on the Brooks Robinson story—a few years ago, a sportswriter was talking about the fact the that New York and the Yankees loved one of their ballplayers so much that they had a candy bar named after them. The writer finished the tribute by stating that in Baltimore they loved their favorite son so much they named many of their children after Brooks. Cool stuff.