Lessons from Opening Day: Enjoy the Ride and Have Hope

© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.

By Craig W. Budner

I have always loved baseball. And I don’t mean that I’m a casual fan who is only interested in our national pastime if the Texas Rangers are in the pennant race in September. No. I mean I LOVE baseball. I guess I always assumed it was embedded in my genes. Let me explain why.

In the late 19th century, my great-grandfather, Hyman Pearlstone (“Pa”), traveled to New Orleans to see the Philadelphia Athletics on their barnstorming tour. The team Pa traveled to see represented a traveling all-star team of sorts. The players used these tours to make additional money and to spread the great game of baseball to the rest of the United States, where it mostly didn’t exist.

The story goes that Pa was wearing his three-piece suit and an Elk’s pin (signifying membership in the Elk fraternal social order). One of the players encouraged Pa to introduce himself to Connie Mack. “He’ll take a liking to you. He is an Elk too.” Forty-eight years later, Pa had traveled for one month every season with the A’s and helped Connie Mack sign several high profile players. Sporting News named Pa “The Greatest Fan in Baseball.” Year after year, Pa sat on the bench during games, warmed up the pitchers, and traveled with the team on the road in the railcar. Growing up, my walls were covered with autographed pictures and baseballs signed by the likes of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins and Connie Mack. Combine that with my Dad’s contagious love of history and you have one heck of a baseball fan.

The Texas Rangers moved to Arlington in 1972. I have vivid memories of listening to games at my grandmother’s side as she chain-smoked and kept score on homemade scoresheets. I became THAT kid. Strat-O-Matic dice baseball games, baseball cards, autographs . . . the whole bit. I knew the batting averages of players whose careers dated back 40 years before I was even a glimmer in my parents’ eyes.

So, as we approach this year’s Opening Day, I look back on almost 45 years of Opening Days — bright sunshine, the smell of grass, the crack of a wooden bat, the introduction of every player and team staff member, and the beginning of HOPE. I know it’s a cliché, but every fan has hope on Opening Day.

Baseball is a 162-game chess match filled with anticipation and the highs and lows of triumph and loss. The Texas Rangers have never won the World Series, but every year the ride is a little different, filled with anticipation and its ups and downs. Last year, for example, our ace pitcher Yu Darvish was lost for the year in Spring Training and everyone wrote off the team. Instead of another “lost season,” the Rangers made the playoffs and were an inning away from the AL Championship Series. Go figure. My point is that to be a baseball fan you need to enjoy the ride.

I guess that point can be made about most things in life. When I began my career as a litigator in 1990 at the Texas firm of Hughes & Luce, I thought my first out of town deposition was a major event. I never imagined that 18 years later we would merge with the global firm K&L Gates; nor did I imagine that my job would currently include travel among the five continents in which we practice to facilitate globally integrated solutions for our clients’ strategic needs.

So what does my job have to do with Opening Day? Part of my current role with K&L Gates involves working with our associates and newly-minted partners on their professional and client development efforts. In this role, I challenge our attorneys to channel that “Opening Day” energy and optimism on a daily basis. I encourage them to avoid sinking into their standard daily routine, unconscious of the surrounding environment. Why? Because consciously connecting with colleagues and practices in other locations reminds us why we chose to join a global law firm. At an integrated law firm, 45 offices on five continents is more than a map full of dots: it represents an opportunity to learn about new legal and business opportunities in cultures very different from our own. It also makes work that much more interesting. The alternative is the mindless routine that so many of us fall into — forgetting to connect with the environment around us. In baseball, they call it the “dog days” — when players forget the hope and enthusiasm they had on Opening Day.

As our profession has become more global, it has clearly become more complex. Lawyers come and go. Firms enter new markets in rapid succession. I get the question all of the time: “How have you managed to stay at the same law firm for twenty-five years?” I try to treat every day like Opening Day. I try never to forget that we can’t always choose our circumstances, but we can certainly choose our narrative. Baseball teaches us that every one of those 162 games counts. The Rangers were buried in 2015 and managed to treat every day like Opening Day. I’m thankful they did.

I’m also grateful for the boyish optimism that led a small-town merchant on that day in the late 1800s to travel hundreds of miles to watch a bunch of men playing a game foreign to most of the people in the country. One decision and one moment changed my great-grandfather’s life and brought him the friendship of a lifetime. I guess that’s why I encourage our younger lawyers to make connections with those around them, to invest themselves rather than just going through the motions. In life, as in baseball, it’s all about optimism in the face of adversity. This is the year the Rangers will win the pennant. See you on Opening Day!

© 2016 The Texas Lawbook. Content of The Texas Lawbook is controlled and protected by specific licensing agreements with our subscribers and under federal copyright laws. Any distribution of this content without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.

If you see any inaccuracy in any article in The Texas Lawbook, please contact us. Our goal is content that is 100% true and accurate. Thank you.