“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”. Babe Ruth
Babe’s birthday was this week, February 6. An interviewer once asked, “Babe, what do you do when you get in a batting slump?” He replied: “I just keep goin’ up there and keep swingin’ at ‘em. I know the old law of averages will hold good for me the same as it does for anybody else, if I keep havin’ my healthy swings. If I strike out two or thee ties in a game, or fail to get a hit for a week, why should I worry? Let the pitchers worry; they’re the guys who’re gonna suffer later on.”
For years, Babe Ruth’s amazing record of 714 home runs was unapproachable. But what most people don’t know is that he held another world’s record: He struck out more than any player in history. He failed 1,330 times.
Think about it: One thousand three hundred and thirty times the mighty slugger got up to bat and struck out. But he never let the fear of failure knock him flat. In fact, when he struck out, he didn’t view it as a failure, but as effort – a step in the right direction that was bringing him close to his next home run.
The law of averages worked for Babe and it can work for us. Right now, some of us may be striking out ourselves—not on the baseball diamond, but on our field of play, the page.
We may be struggling to complete a story or novel, but feeling lost.
We may be muddling through revisions that aren’t going well.
We may be submitting stories and getting turned down.
We may be searching for an agent and coming up empty.
Whatever we’re facing, we need to make the law of averages work for us – we need to keep on slugging. The more we put ourselves in play — the more exposure we give ourselves — the closer we come to hitting our own personal home run.
I know, it’s tough. Getting up to bat and striking out is no fun. But it helps to remember that each strike-out – each rejection, each pass, each bump in the road—isn’t a failure but a step forward. And the more we get up to bat, the sooner a home run will come our way!
A strikeout is just a set-up for a home run. Write on!
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