I love sports. The excitement, the emotion, the drama. Pretty much any sport will do it for me, though I do have my favorites. Baseball is probably the sport I love the most. A lot of people don't understand that. I'll readily admit that it's probably not the most exciting (football) or glamorous (basketball) sport. But it's my favorite. I fell in love with the Cubs in the early 2000s during the (too brief) Pryor-Wood era, and again in 07 and 08.
The last two years have been rough on my poor Cubbies, but I haven't lose that initial thrill. I love stats, trade rumors, Pat (not Ron) on the radio, and Len and Bob. When you follow a team for 162 games a summer, you always feel like you get to know the players and the coaches a little bit. There's a sense of camaraderie among the fans that other sports lack, too...the games are more relaxed and social. And we all share a LOT of suffering over the course of the season.
But baseball's about the long hall. It's about consistently grinding it out and being disciplined and self-motivated. Some days you bat .600 and drive in a bunch of runs. Some days you go up to the plate and strike out every time. Baseball is about a long obedience in the same direction. It's a journey, not a destination.
You can probably see were I'm going with this. Baseball is like fundraising! I've been thinking about this a lot this summer, and I'm making this comparison half in jest and half in seriousness. Fundraising requires discipline and dedication. You have to grind it out over a long period of time. You have to sell your supporters on a compelling vision (winning the World Series!) and convince them that you can make that vision reality with their help.
Batters hate to strike out. But what a lot of people don't know if they don't follow baseball is there are two different kinds of strikeouts. There's a swinging stirkeout, where the batter swing but just misses the ball and strikes out. But there's also a looking (or called) strikeout. In those, the batter doesn't swing but the pitch is called a strike and he's out anyway.
I've been learning that it's always better to take a swinging strike. Fundraising involves a lot of strikeouts. I've certainly had my fair share (more than my fair share, sometimes it feels like). But recently instead of chickening out on calls I've made them expecting rejection. And you know what? It's not that bad. It doesn't feel that bad at all. And I'm encouraged by knowing that I tried.
