The Daily Stoic - Ryan Lavarnway on Sports and Philosophy

Episode Date: September 24, 2022

Ryan talks to professional baseball catcher Ryan Lavarnway about his experience being the only professional baseball player with a philosophy degree from Yale, the intersection of sports and philosophy, the ups and downs of being a professional athlete, and more.Ryan Lavarnway is the current Detroit Tigers’ Triple A Toledo Mud Hens catcher and 2013 World Series Champion. He has held many valuable experiences, both in and out of the baseball field. A Yale University graduate, Ryan was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 2008 where he won a World Series in 2013. Since making his MLB debut in 2011, Ryan has played in 10 MLB seasons for eight different teams. He also first played for Team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic and was named Pool A MVP and rejoined the team for the 2020 Olympics.📕Pre-order Ryan Holiday's new book "Discipline Is Destiny" and get exclusive bonuses at https://dailystoic.com/preorder ✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little

bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday.

Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. If I could take you back, I guess this would have been 2012, and I went to pitch my publisher a book about Stoke Philosophy. This is the book that would become the obstacles away. I remember very vividly trying to make the compelling argument that this would be a book relevant in business, that philosophy wasn't just for the class, that it would be relevant in business. I could not have imagined that the book would then come out.

And a few months after its release, I would be talking to the New England Patriots who had read the book and I watched them when a Super Bowl and then the book would go to the Seattle, Seahawks, a bunch of other teams. And it would be this sort of incredible ride that the book has had. And this incredible peak for me into a world that I didn't know too much about, besides as a fan, of how professional athletes use sort of the tools of philosophies like stoicism to be better at what they do. I guess my point is it could seem like philosophy and sports could not have any less in common. And maybe you buy the argument, okay, some of these athletes have read your books,

but that's as far as the connection could go, well, my guest today is a World Series champion and a Yale University graduate with a degree in philosophy. Ryan LaVarnway is currently with the Detroit Tigers Triple A team. He plays Ketcher and he actually won a world series with the Red Sox in 2013. He was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in 2008. He made his major league debut in 2011. He's played 10 seasons for eight teams. He played for team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic and rejoined that Israel team for the 2020 Olympics. He served as a guest lecturer for a class at Harvard called baseball as philosophy. He's spoken at Yale Law School, Kent State, Indianapolis Public School Leadership Summit, and numerous

Jewish community centers and temples across the United States. So, fascinating conversation. I was very excited to have this, and I love this link between philosophy and sports. As I know, many of you do. You can follow him on Twitter at our LaVarnway on Instagram, or on Twitter at Ryan LaVarnway and enjoy this conversation. And it's just fascinating and inspiring to see someone who just loves what they do,

who doesn't quit, who's just chugging away at the game. And I think you're really gonna enjoy this interview. I'm gonna read you a quote from Marcus Aurelius, and you tell me if it doesn't sound like this is a guy who knew how to play baseball. All right, he says, if you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future in the past, and can make yourself, as impetically, says, a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness and concentrate on living what can be lived, which means the present, then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility and

in kindness and at peace with the spirit within you. Well, that's a lot to digest. Yes. It sounds like a guy that struck out three times yesterday and has to plague in today and needs to find a way to go out there and not live in what he did yesterday. I think that's right. And trying to do a very hard thing that you have only a few milliseconds to be able to do.

You know, that phrase, a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness. Obviously, part of that evokes like the idea of a ball, but the other part, to me, evokes the batter or the person on the free-throw line or the person about to give a speech of their life. Like, how do you get to that place where you've slowed everything down and you are fully in the present moment and you're doing whatever it is that you've practiced a thousand times? And hitting is such a thing where I've heard you quoted before as knowing that it's the hardest thing to do in all sports. And I think Yogi Berra wants to, you can't think and hit at the same time.

Yeah. So if you don't get to that point of perfect stillness and you're living in what happened yesterday or what you are worried about the next pitch or even if you made an error earlier in the inning, you're worried about the 50,000 fans at Eiki Stadium that are screaming at you instead of being in the moment relying on your training on your instincts. You have no chance. I imagine it's interesting for you sort of sitting behind home plate or squatting behind home plate if you will, but you're watching the pitcher go through

that and the batter go through that. So you're watching the pitcher get in their own head or the pitcher trying to get in someone's head. You're watching the batter trying to get out of their own head. And it's like you're there, they're opposing each other and you're ostensibly on the same team as as the pitcher, but you're also kind of apart from both of it. Like you have the most interesting vantage point in all of sports. I'd agree. And I think 15 years into my career,

I've gained the maturity and the experience to be able to help my pitcher who's side I am on, yeah, live through his experience with it in a more productive way. At this point, I almost act as if I'm an extra coach that gets to be on the field that's also up here with the pitcher. And I spend half of my defensive time during the game being a sports psychologist, being a philosopher, being a teacher, being a teammate. It's all wrapped into one role as a catcher.

Yeah, and you're watching the pictures come and go, right? So you're getting to see all the different ones, even perhaps in all in one game. And you're watching the batters come and go, well, what have you picked up as you've watched people try to do this thing. What strikes you about that exchange? I can only imagine the things you've seen. There are a few things that stand out. First of all, the batters give the pictures too much credit as that they're going to be their best every time. I'm expecting this guy to be the top-notch version of the highlight reel that I've seen that I think I'm going to face. For getting that the picture has his own doubt, his own body soreness, his own negative things happening off the field that are affecting

him, and the pictures do the same thing to the hitters. They assume that if they ever make a mistake, it's going to get whacked. That these hitters are going to be the best version of themself. Even when failing 7 and a 10 or in today's day, failing three out of four makes you one of the best in the game. The pitchers are assuming that that one out of four that they are successful is going to be any time that they make the slightest mistake. Interesting.

And when you are overestimating your opponent, what is the consequence of that? What does that cost a batter or a pitcher? I think what it does is it makes the task at hand that much harder. What you're already doing, you're already playing against the best in the world. You're already doing the hardest thing that there is to do in all of sports,

and now you're adding pressure, you're giving the opponent too much credit, and you're not giving yourself enough credit. Right. Yeah, and I imagine that need to be perfect or to never screw up, it heightens the stakes to a degree that it doesn't allow you to just do the thing.

Like doing the thing well and consistently is unusual. That is elite, right? So the problem with being elite is that you're then, that's never enough. Then you're so tough on yourself that you end up not being able to be satisfied with your performance and thus get in your own head about it. Yeah, I heard you, I heard you were a few of your podcasts and recently where you were talking about not looking for the third thing. Yeah, I mean, doing the playing well, doing the thing at the elite level, doing it consistently and putting on a show for the fans, winning the game, that should be enough. And then the third thing, either asking for thanks is what you are speaking about in

your other show or looking for the contract or worrying about what's going to happen next off-season, the next endorsement deal. There's so many extra third things that could be added on that are more pressure versus just do your job, play well, play consistently. Yeah, that makes sense. There's a writing rule I've talked about a million times, but it's just a couple crappy pages a day. That's how you should measure yourself and like I've got to imagine like you get where you are in sports by having high standards by being tough on yourself, which is a virtue up until the point it becomes a vice, right?

And so what I try to think about as a writer is like just did I make a positive contribution today? And I know if I stay at it consistently, that will, first off, most people aren't doing that. Most people aren't making a contribution at all each day. So if I'm just showing up each day and doing my job, that's something, and that, if I do that over a long enough time period, it becomes something rather remarkable. But it also lowers the stakes I feel like,

because it just allows me to show up and work. And actually a lot of the time, the pages are not crappy at all, they're great. But by allowing myself room to do okay, you actually create the opportunity to do really well. There's batters that go every day and they take batting practice, right? You know, pictures, they go out every day and they take batting practice, right? You know, yes.

And pitchers, they go out every day and they throw the ball in the bullpen. And it seems like the most simple of tasks, but hitting, to me, is it's creative, it's reactionary, it's an active genius physically to hit a round bat with a round ball squarely while moving 100 miles per hour in unpredictable directions.

Sure. As you're going through batting practice, there's a part of it that is, I know these are the certain checkpoints in my swimming. If I get my hands to this position, if I get my elbow towards my center line, if I turn my hips at a certain rotational speed, there's also a feel to it.

It's artistic. Yeah. So a lot of people get in their own head of in batting practice when the stakes are low, they feel like they need to be perfect and they need to feel perfect when in reality it's preparation, not an indication of how you're going to do during the game when the lights turn on, when the most important thing, the only thing that really matters is what happens at seven o'clock when the game starts.

Right. People will live and die by batting practice or by their bullpen and let them let that affect them and their mentality going into the game. When you could see why that would be the case because like, let's say you're 12 years old, right? The kid who takes practice seriously at 12 years old, that's going to be the kid that

when they're no longer a kid is still playing, right? Like I remember I read something about Tom Brady where he was playing with some players in college or something and the coach was like, you have to understand most of these kids are not going gonna be playing this three years from now. So it's like you're taking it more seriously than they are. So this thing that is what allows you to do what you do, you almost have to find a way as you get older

as your life becomes more expansive, but then also as the margin for air becomes lower, you have to figure out a way to be able to not be so serious about it or you will, you will overthink it, you will also suck all the fun out of it and you'll get in your head about it. Absolutely. One of the sports psychologists that I had with the Red Sox has now gone on to write a book, Bob Tuxbury, and he always talked about finding a way to care without caring. Yes. And one of my favorite sports psychology books is the inner, the inner game of tennis by Timothy Galway.

Yes. And in the first couple of chapters, he talks about who are you going to be player A or player B? And player A tries to outthink his body and player B. Trust his body and just tells it the direction he wants it to move. And when I finally started to understand how those concepts worked for me in my game, it really was freeing, and it allowed my best ability to come out. Yeah, and it's like, it seems cliche when people are like, just have fun out there, whatever it is.

But like, if you're not having fun, you're probably not, you're probably doing something wrong. But also, is that the reward for success? Like, Like, I think about this as like, I like writing, writing is the thing I like doing. If being a pro at it comes at the cost of sucking all the joy out of it, not only am I probably losing something that actually makes me good at it, but I'm also punishing myself for having gotten good at the thing. Yeah, but you also have to remember that the stakes are higher. Sure. It's fun, as you become a professional, it's not the end-all-be-all result that you're looking for. You're looking to win a championship.

You're looking to earn a contract and endorsements to put a roof over your head and pay for your family, especially in the sports world where your window is so small. You're at your physical prime. You could be one of the best athletes in the world for only so long. Whereas most careers, most professions, the longer you do it, the better you get at it, the more money you can make and the more and more and more. Versus in the sports world, you really have to capitalize on that finite opportunity. That's true, although when I talk to athletes who have retired, the main thing I hear from them is that they say they wish they enjoyed it more while they were doing it.

So maybe fun is the wrong word, but it's the idea is like if you're torturing yourself while it's happening, you're probably not performing at your best and you're depriving yourself of the sheer absurdity and wonderfulness of this experience that you're having. I think there needs to be a balance for sure. I took an online class after I left Yale,

those actually offered through Yale, it was the science of happiness. And there's the eight traits that you could, or eight physical activities that you can intentionally partake in that are scientifically proven to make you happier. I took this over COVID when I think all of us needed it a little bit, right? And the three that really stood out and meant the most to me were gratitude, purposely making sure you savor the good moments, which to me just feels like gratitude in the moment and meditation.

Sure. And at the root, all those things what they have in common to me is presentness. So not wanting it to be different than it was, not looking forward to something in the future, not regretting something in the past, but just like actually being where you are in that moment, which if you zoom out, you're like, hey, I get paid to read and write books for a living, or like, hey, I get paid to do the thing that I love most in the world, in front of lots of people at this level or that level or whatever it is, but I'm still doing an incredible thing. And that's not to say that's the end all be all, but if you don't have that, I think

you are depriving yourself of a thing. And it's perspective. Yes. You talk a lot about momentum or air. I'm sure I'm butchering the pronunciation. But it's perspective. And once you think your career is over, which I have thought my career was over twice now, and I've been offered another contract.

I've got to play for another season. And having that perspective of feeling like I was out makes me feel so much more grateful to be in. Yes. At this point, I look at a teammate or a coach or even a fan at least once a day. And I say, I can't believe they pay me to do this still. Yeah, yeah. I was talking to Chris Bosch. We worked on this book together called Letters to a Young Athlete. But he's telling me this story of, it's an ordinary game. He's playing for the heat. They're coming off one of the championships and he laces up his shoes.

He goes out and plays. It's actually against the spurs, but he has no idea it's his last game, right? Because he doesn't know he's going to get a physical a few days later. The physical is going to find a pulmonary embolism or something like this that prevents him. He can't get medically cleared anymore. And that's the end of his career. It wasn't an injury. It wasn't a cancer diagnosis, but it was this freak thing that meant, hey, you can't do it

anymore. And that moment comes to all of us, right? Whether it's because you're, you, you, you found out you've cancer or you just go, hey, that was the last time a client ever hired me to plan their wedding or whatever it is, right? Like, whatever you do, at some point, it is the last time you do it. And there's a famous meme that's not real

because it's not in the movie, but it has the picture of the kids from the movie Sandlot. And it says, at some time in your childhood, all your friends got together to go out and play and you didn't realize it was the last time you would ever do that. And to me, meditating on that allows you, I think to be much more present, grateful,

and also locked in to the moment that you're in. And hopefully, I think makes you perform better. But even if it doesn't, you still appreciate the fact the gift of that moment altogether. I've definitely found that when I'm grateful or when I'm happier, when I'm more content or more at peace, I am the playing much better also. Yes. Yes.

And you're saying you're talking about when Chris Bosch didn't realize it was his last game. I experienced a moment on kind of both sides of that where my rookie year is as a Boston Red Sock. I watched Jason Verita call the press conference to announce his retirement after 15 seasons, three All Star games. He goes on to be a Red Sock's Hall of Famer. And just instinctively, as I'm watching this ceremony, I tear up and I say to myself,

nobody gets to do this. Nobody gets to choose to walk out on their own terms. Sure. Except for the everyone throughout the elite. Yeah, sure. And then now, my one of my teammates, I'm playing for the Jacksonville Jumbo shrimp. It's a great, it's a great mascot. She played football in college and then towards ACL. And then then began playing baseball. But he actually the other day mentioned to me, I don't remember the last time that I played football. I did it, I still don't know when it was the last time. And football was his first true loves.

And again, it's just a reminder, the momentum or the reminder perspective, someday your life will be over, so you should be grateful, someday your career will be over, so you should be grateful. And if you can keep that perspective, you'll be happier and you'll play better.

Yeah, because one of the quotes from Marcus that is like a momentum where he exercises is, consider your life is over. It's just come to an end and you'd be thinking about how sad you are, how frustrating you'd be thinking about that. He's like, okay, now you've come back to life, take what's left and live it properly. So imagine, like, I got to imagine that was that experience for you when you thought your career was over. And then the first game back, you're in a whole different headspace because you're playing on bonus time, right?

Like, it's all extra, right? Obviously, you still want to win, you still want to do your best, et cetera. But like, there is a part of you that somehow is, it appreciates just the existence of it at a level that ordinarily you'd probably take for granted. 100%. It's not just the first game of the season. It's the first game you get to still be on the field.

Yeah. And for whatever reason, you're just the way we're just talking about, it reminded me of a bell curve. And I feel like all professional athletes go through a bell curve ironically of how you feel about people asking for your autograph. Yes. At first you sign, people ask you for your autograph. I'm so happy. I'll sign for anyone. I can't believe they're asking me for my autograph. And then it gets to a point where like these people are selling my autographs, they're making a buck off me. I'm getting hounded. People are chasing me into the bathroom. I don't want to sign autographs anymore. And then I think eventually everyone gets to a point they're queer. When no one wants to autograph anymore.

Right. And now you're on the far side of the bill curve where if someone asks, you're so happy that they still want it, and I'll sign for everybody. Do you have kids? Have newborn. So it's the same thing with kids too, where it's like, at a certain point, they won't come in your bed anymore, or they won't ask for one more book, right?

Or they won't wake you up in the middle of the night, right? They won't, all the things that in the moment are not inconvenient, but you're like, you wish, you find yourself wishing that it wasn't happening. I try to remind myself that there will certainly be a point where I am wishing for this exact thing one, one more time. Even you bring them back, bring back in the momentum or anything.

At the end of your life, you would give any amount of money to have like one more day stuck in traffic, right? Or one more stuck on an airplane tarmac. It's sweltering hot and you're like, and especially think about that with people that you love. Like at some point, you would kill to have one more fight with your wife, right? Or whatever it is, right? Even that so, and you realize that from that perspective, there would be some point that you're grateful even for the so-called negative things, right?

Or the things you don't like. And so if you can find a way, obviously, they're still probably not going to be pleasant while you're in them, but you can at least get to a point where you're not wishing them away. And you have some kind of baseline gratitude. Like I think about this, like I get my kid all the way down and I know there's like an hour of daylight left, so I get him down and then I'm like, okay, if he's down, then I can get on my running shoes and I can go for a run. And then I'm like,

I go outside, I put on my shoes, I just start to leave. And I can hear on the mat, he just got up. And now I have to go do it again, right? That's like, obviously, what I don't want. But there's also going to be a point where I wish I could put him down to bed one more time, so I might as well make this that time. And try to save her. I might as well try to save her in the moment. Yes. Yeah.

I find myself when I'm petting my dog or rocking my newborn to sleep also, trying to make the moment last in my mind, like, how can I keep this for later? But with time, that's just not the way time works. All right. I got another stoic quote for you that sounds like a baseball player. This one much more directly. This is Epic Titus, the slave who influences Marx's realist. As you know, he says, you will find that skilled ball players do the same thing.

It is not the ball they value. It is, it is how well they throw and catch it that counts as good or bad. That is where the grace and skill lie, the speed and expertise. And he says, let me get this. This is what we need. The star athletes concentration together with his coolness as, as if it were just another ball we were playing with too. Man, that reminds me of, have you read a Zen way of baseball? I saw a RO. Yeah, I have. Incredible.

I wish it was back in print. It's like super rare to find. I had a fan that has become a friend, send me his copy. Yes. And I read it this season and it just totally shifted my perspective and blew my mind that the picture is not your enemy. In some capacity, you are one and the same.

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I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. So he's talking about, like, we don't control what the other person does, but we control how we respond to what they do. And he says, in this sense, Socrates knew how to play ball well, right? His point was that Socrates, not just in the, in the, the repartee of his conversations, that he's always batting it back and, you know, the back and forth, but that Socrates,

the adversity and the difficulty of his life, he was always able to keep it going back and forth. And I like this idea that we don't control what happens, we control how we respond. So let's focus there, our energy on being adaptable, adjustable, creative, in that sense, as opposed to trying to control things or make them conform to how we would like them to be. And ultimately, in Socrates' example, it's not the argument. And the example of sports is not the ball or the act itself that you're trying to control.

You're trying to control yourself. And the way you control yourself will then produce the outcome that you want. Yes. And even if it only influences the outcome, it doesn't give you the outcome. It's the only thing that has any cause and effect to it. So it's like you can spend a lot of time emoting about whether the referees are terrible, about whether you're on a good team or a bad team, whether the manager has it out for you or not, whether the fans are treating you fairly,

whether you're getting paid enough, but none of that gets any traction, right? The only thing that gets traction is you focusing on what you do. And when it comes to baseball, you hit the ball, right, it's nine versus one. You have nine defenders. Sure, you're hitting a round, you hit the ball, right? It's nine versus one. You have nine defenders. Sure.

You're hitting a round bat with a round ball. You could hit it 106 miles per hour. You could hit it where it's a hit 99% of the time. But the defense of alignment just happened to be standing right where you hit it. Yes. Yeah. I have fathers of sons that I give lessons to during the winter time

They'll call me and they'll say hey little Johnny is hitting the ball really hard But he keeps lining out to the center fielder What can I do what can he do different and my joke is well? He's putting good swings on the ball, but his aim is terrible Right and then I was like well, how do I fix his aim? I'm like, you don't. Right. Once it, once it leaves your bat, it's totally out of your control. You've put a good swing on a good pitch.

You made solid contact. Now it's out of your control. And you've got to take it as a win. If you hit a line drive, if you hit a rocket somewhere, that is a win, regardless of whether it's a hit or not. That's what I try to think about as a writer. My job is just to make contact with the ball, right? Like, because I control that, you're right.

You don't control where, what direction it goes, you don't control if someone makes the catch of a lifetime, you don't control if a fan intervenes, you don't control if it fucking hits a bird. Right, you don't control, so many things can happen, but you control whether you make contact, and you have to trust that the majority of time making contact is enough, right?

Like over enough at bats, if you're consistently making contact, it's gonna get you where you wanna go, and you can't waste your time or energy or hopes or expectations on, you know, wanting more than that. Right. You make, you make the best type of contact that you can and then you let the chips fall

where they may. Yes. And there are those moments where you're sure you fucking nailed it. Like you got right under it, everything met. And those are going to be the ones that get taken from you, right? And if your heart is attached to whether that ball clears the fence or not, or whether that book takes off or not, or whether that attractive stranger you approach, reciprocates or not, then you have handed your happiness and your contentment and your concentration

over to fate or randomness or whatever. And it's gonna gut you sometimes. Well, and the thing with baseball is, baseball is the only sport where the field is not a uniform size. Oh, right. The same hit in one park could make it, and then that hit in a different park could not.

Exactly. And we're defensive alignments. They've employed shifts where they are trying to figure out the highest percentage of where exactly you're going to hit the ball. Yeah. For instance, last week I hit a ball with exact accuracy. We can measure. I hit the ball at 96.4 miles per hour at a 32.25 degree launch angle,

12 degrees inside the foul pole to right field. In 76% of stadiums, it's a home run. Yeah. The stadium I was hitting in, it got caught. So right now, I could either be devastated that this should have been a home run and now it's not even a hit from the best outcome to the worst outcome, or you got to say, good swaying bad aim. Yeah, this is true in the world of the internet, too, which is like, you make something, and then the algorithm decides, right? Like the algorithm decides whether that did 100,000 views or a million views. And of course, a million views is better than 100,000 views or zero views. But since it's not something you control,

you have to get to a point where the Stokes used the word indifferent, so that practicing indifference, or seeing them as indifference, like TS, not ENCE. And the idea that if it's not something that you control, it's not good or bad. So in your case, the good or bad of what you did was all the things you measured,

that percentage, that time, whatever, that it was an out or a home run, you almost have to, you try to practice a form of indifferent, you see it as an indifferent because ultimately once the ball left your bat, there wasn't anything you can do. It's not like you hit it up in the air and then you jogged to first and you got thrown out.

Right. So, like, if you had run, right, that, you know, being safe at first is good or. If it was up to you, if it wasn't, you just got to see it as what it is. And with your example, 100,000 views versus a million doesn't change the content that you put out. The quality of the content itself is the same. Well, actually, one of the things you often realize are that I think you have to have enough perspective

to be able to notice is that sometimes you can do something that's fantastic or super proud of it. It's exactly what you wanted it to be. And it does a thousand views. And then another time you just throw something out there that you didn't think was that good. You didn't care about and it does a million views. You actually have to actively work

to ignore what the result is. Because to be who you result is because to be who you want to be and to be a person of integrity, you have to realize, no, I need to do things that I like that I think are good. I can't let this algorithm, which may or may not be totally random or may or may or not may not be biased by things that I don't really care about, I actually have to ignore the incentive that's being created here because it will inevitably lead me astray. I've noticed that as well with a couple of the Instagram videos and the Instagram Reels

I've put out, I've had three that have gone viral over a million hits that I thought were okay. Yeah. And then I put together a couple that I thought were really inspirational and really spoke to who I am and got nothing. Yes. And then you realize like, oh, you can become captured by this algorithm or this incentive if you're not careful. If you only make what you think people will want, you eventually end up forfeiting the thing that makes you you, which is the only reason they like to in the first place. So I always think like, do I only audience

or does the audience own me? And so I have to try to think about, look, I'm making stuff that I like, that I think is good. Some of the time that's gonna do really well. Some of the time that's going to do really well. Some of the time it's, it's going to not do so well, but this also goes to sports. Sometimes you hit a single and that's exactly what you needed. And then sometimes you hit a grand slam, but if you only swing for grand slams, you won't hit any singles.

Yeah. That's so true. And there's, there are hitters that commit to trying to only hit home runs and it's frustrating for your teammates. It's frustrating for the fan base. I don't know how it's not frustrating enough for those hitters to change their ways. So how did you come to study philosophy? I've got to imagine there's not that many professional baseball players with philosophy degrees from Yale.

There is exactly one in its me. I went to Yale and I thought I was going to be in applied physics major. I thought I was going to be on course to become a rock and scientists. They told us in our freshman orientation, kind of ego-tistically, that the degree is going to say Yale on it. So study what you enjoy because the major won't matter. And essentially they don't offer a business major, they don't really offer an economics major. So with the, what's it called when you just study all the arts, with the liberal arts college, it kind of can't matter what the degree is in. So I took a plethora of different

courses. My freshman year was the first time I'd ever taken a philosophy class. Intro to ancient philosophy and I just loved it. Took another one, loved it, and I couldn't keep up with the math anymore. So applied physics was out and philosophy was in. And who did you study? Like what did what? Who were your guys were your guys? I know they're not all guys, but most of them are guys. Yeah, I mean, the intro to ancient was obviously Plato's Socrates. It's been almost 20 years now since I've been in college, but I remember I really liked Kant. All the papers that I wrote, my teacher said that my superpower was taking these complex ideas and breaking it down so that it made sense.

Sure. And that was what I enjoyed doing. So I wrote papers and that was kind of it. Why do you think that people think it's so weird that a trained philosopher could be a professional baseball player. Like, I actually think it's not, I actually don't think it's the stereotype that athletes are dumb. I think it's more, to me,

well, let's say that is a stereotype. But I think the other stereotype at play there is that philosophy couldn't possibly help you in professional sports. I've gotten that question a lot over the course of my career. How do you use your philosophy degree to help you on the field? I don't know that I ever have. Or at the very, you know, I'm prepping for talking to you today.

I did figure you'd ask me that question and put some thought into it. And I think if I use my philosophy in any way, it's to think about every situation in a second direction. Like it's not always just the obvious thing that's happening to you. How else can I think about this and use logic or disregard logic and think about it in a separate way? Well, but it is interesting because in the ancient world, I think the sort of ball player

analogies is a good one. I make up that Epic Tidus is specific enough there that he's at least familiar with sports, right? Like, this isn't like, oh, we all say, oh, we're on the one yard line, right? Like, he's intimately familiar with the game, and we do know, you know, Marcus really is supposedly the historian Augustus as he's fond of boxing and wrestling and running and he played ball, he hunted.

Like, there is this sense that in the ancient world, philosophers were more active. They weren't like these Brainiacs who, you know, didn't know they're asked from their elbow, but the gymnasia was central in Roman life in a way that probably wasn't at the philosophy department at Yale. No, definitely not. And I know that because I am the only major league baseball player with a philosophy degree, a professor at Harvard who was teaching a class called baseball as philosophy brought me out to participate

in a lecture. And we discussed, they used baseball as a vehicle to discuss ethics. Yeah. And the topics for the class that I was involved in were, is pitchframing deceitful and lying? Ooh, and is there ever an ethically okay time to hit a batter? Right. I haven't thought about it since the discussion. It was a freshman seminar, but it boiled down to, is a strike, a strike in and of itself,

or it has only become a strike once the empire calls it. And do you then assume that if both captures are not trying to frame pitches and trick the empire that you're giving up an inherent advantage? Sure. Or, you know, more recently, if everyone in the league is stealing signs, is it cheating? What is under the impression that the league has condoned this behavior? Is it ethical? Or conversely, the calculation a lot of people would make,

is it then not stupid to not do it, right? So sports brings up all these ethical considerations and quandaries that I think we think are abstract but actually have implications in regular life too. Is it an inherent assumed risk that your science could be stolen and that you need to be vigilant and take the task of hiding them so that they cannot be stolen or are we at a more naive and innocent society where you can give science and everyone should just look the other way?

Well, I was writing about this this morning. I was talking about, I was actually, I have a chapter in the book that I'm writing now about Frank Robinson, the only guy to win the MVP in both leagues and World Series MVP to top it off. But he hits this ball, he's playing it Fenway, he hits it deep, deep into the field, he thinks it's going to clear the fence. So he's so convinced it's going to hit the fence that he's kind of half-runs to first base. It pings off the wall. They catch it and he has to settle for a single. And so the after the game, which the Orioles end up winning by like 10 points, so it doesn't even matter. He walks into the manager's office and he slams down $200 because finding himself for not having run out the hit, right? And so I'm interested in that kind of accountability

for oneself, like the sort of internal rectitude for the gray areas of the game. But then I was contrasting that with Patrick Reed, who's sort of the golfer, who's sort of been dog by these cheating allegations his entire golf career. And I found this quote that he said, he says, but he's been accused of a sort of not taking drops that are not deserved or not assessing penalties to himself.

And he says, if you take what you think is a correct drop and it turns out to be an incorrect drop, that's a rules infraction and there's a penalty. He says it happens all the time. He says cheating is only when you intentionally try to gain something on the field. And I was thinking, you know who makes a distinction between cheating and rules infractions? A person you can't trust. You know, like, like that, so to go to exactly what we're talking about in that class at Harvard, like, there's all, like like is it cheating in the abstractors or does your intent impact whether it's unethical

or unjust or not? Yeah, it's the intent and it's also the definition of when does it become cheating or what is the spirit of the role versus what is the letter of the rule? Yes. The Patriots being a Bill Bellichuk, someone who I admire, is not exactly admirable in this context, which is he always seems to find a way to literally interpret the rule to the team's advantage, even though it's almost certainly violating the spirit of said rule.

And fans of him would say that that makes him a genius. And the haters of him would say that makes him a villain. Exactly. And I think the question is, who are you as a person? Right? Like, it's not whether Bill Belichek is an evil genius or a regular genius. It's when it comes to gray areas and the rules, when you are self reporting your income on your taxes, right? Do you give yourself the break or do you stick with the spirit of said rule? Yeah, or do you pay extra? I think that's a really good example because everyone can feel that. Everyone pays taxes. Right. Everyone can relate. So are you going to volunteer to pay extra when it really comes down to you, how ethical

are you when the rubber hits the road? Well, and it's interesting, right? It's like, when it's us, we go, well, oh, I'm good, so I can do this unethical thing at the, but you would want the person in charge of your tax dollars to be the kind of person for whom there is no gray area where they would not give breaks to themselves. Do you know what I mean? It's like we admire it and we admire a certain rectitude and sportsmanship and other people that we often don't actually demand of ourselves. Would judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions?

Yeah, and it's like, look, slapping down a $200 fine because you didn't give your best is not actually what being your own referee looks like most of it. The instances where you're having to be your own referee is that matter are like, what about when it actually costs you something real? Like, you think about the golf, like a golfer hypothetically who loses the US open by one stroke, and that one stroke is a result of a one stroke penalty that they call them themselves that nobody else saw, right? That's where it matters is like when it costs you. Yeah. And with like Frank Robinson, you said that they ended up winning the game by 10. Yes, but he still did it. Yes.

It was in a matter. Right. And would he have dogged it if it was a close game or would he have run hard when the stakes were on the line? When just in case that bounces off the green monster, I need to make sure that my butt is on second base. Frank Robinson the rookie, would the coach have find him? Probably, right?

Frank Robinson the multi MVP is the team going to let him? Probably, right? Frank Robinson, the multi MVP, is the team going to let him get away with it? And the question is, just Frank Robinson let himself get away with it, even if someone else was willing to look the other way. You know, it's like freebies. Do you accept them or do you pay for them, right? Even though you know the reason they're giving you the freebie is because it's not actually free. Right, or if the person in front of you paid for your star, but it's do not pay for the guy behind you. Yes, exactly. So let me ask you, you've had an interesting baseball career in that you, you know, you went to Yale, that must have been cool, you play in the majors, but you've bounced up and down a bunch of times.

What keeps you going? I imagine the level you're playing at now isn't quite as glamorous as it has been in other points in your career. It's definitely not as glamorous. I was up at 3.30 this morning taking a flight back home here where we flew southwest in middle seats, had a layover versus at the major leagues, you fly on a private chartered flight. I think what it boils to is that I love playing the game, and whether I'm in the major leagues making seven figures or I'm in the minor leagues,

flying the Southwest flight or riding the bus, at the end of the day, I still get to play baseball on a daily basis. I still get to run around the outfield in the afternoon and think, this is my job. They pay me to do this, and I will do this for free. If I didn't have responsibilities, and I was a retired person, I would play baseball. Yes.

Do you feel like you have a choice? I don't mean that financially. I you feel like you have a choice? I don't mean that financially. I mean, like, are you one of those people where you're like, I am good enough to play baseball. I love playing baseball. It's by calling. So I'm going to play baseball

until I can't play baseball. Or like, I guess what I'm saying is like, sometimes when someone's really good at something, it becomes almost like a compulsion. In a good way, but it's like they can't not do their thing. I think it's a choice because even my agent who gets theoretically paid off of my contracts, and since 2017 has been telling me to start thinking about transitioning into another role, whether it's coaching or becoming a general manager of a team or something outside of baseball entirely, he's trying to come at it from the perspective of, you are one of my only players

that can do something else with the Yale degree, with you can speak English pretty well. And if it's going to take you five years to establish yourself in a secondary career, wouldn't you wanna start that at 31 versus 40? Right. But my wife and I love playing baseball and we love having an off season. And now that we have a newborn baby, my child was at a game at four days old.

Yeah. And she sat behind the net and all the safety precautions that come with that. But my wife was saying, this is what I enjoy to do as well. And when I see you out on the field and you look up at the stands and you give me a little nod, I fall in love with you all over again. And when I'm on the field and I'm looking up at the stands to see my wife, my support system up on the stands, everything is right in the world.

No, I relate to that. It's like when you have a gift, it feels weird to reject that gift. Do you know what I mean? The gift of being able to do the thing that so many people would kill to be able to do and you actually, and you still enjoy it. It feels weird to be like, eh, I'm gonna go do nothing instead.

Yeah, and I remember when I was 23 years old, getting to AAA and knocking on the door of the big leagues, I saw a 30 year old player and I was thinking to myself, he was in AAA, I was like, a 30 year old, if you're in AAA, just go home. Right, like let the 23 year olds like me take over the game were the next generation. And now that I'm turning 35 pretty soon, I'm like, why would I go to something else? You two, yeah, yeah,

the 23 year olds that are on my team now, they're calling me dad, they're calling me grandpa. They joke about how my college highlights must have been on in black and white. Like the old jokes, now I take the old jokes as a compliment. And I think to myself, I hope that you are still playing when you're my age. There, Lou Gareg is a character in the book that I just finished.

I'm doing a series on the Cardinal Virtues. So first, I had a courage, then I just finished self-discipline. And the moment that Lou Gareg knew he was done, like when you look at his, actually, let me pull it. I'll tease it, because people might like my listeners might like his, actually, let me pull it. I'll tease it because people might like my listeners might like to listen, but let me, let me give you this. This is pretty incredible. All right. This is, so he finds out that he, he doesn't quite know that he has

Alzheimer's, but, or, sorry, that he has ALS, but this is his schedule in August 1938 when he it is starting to course through his body. The Yankees played 36 games in 35 days. 10 games were double headers. In one case, there was five consecutive days of double headers. He travels to five cities covering thousands of miles by train and he hits 329 with nine home runs and 38 RBI's. So it's not that his body is failing him completely, but the day he decides he's done is that he catches a ground ball.

The ground ball comes, he catches it, he gets the out. And his team threw him such a celebration that he knew that clearly he'd been blowing it more. Do you know what I mean? Like he basically he does something so ordinary and they were so patronizing about how good it was. That's how he knew he was done. Which to me is a nice little benchmark. It's not like when you when you've actually suck, it's when people are condescendingly telling you you still have it. It's the sarcastic applause when a picture walks through

you guys in a row and then throws a strike. You get applauded for something that's so average. Yeah, you know you are reminded of how much you were just sucking. Yes, exactly. Have you thought about what you'll do after you retire? Like what you wanna, are you one of those guys that's like a lifer, like you wanna be in baseball forever

or you wanna do something very different? I thought for a long time that I didn't wanna be a lifer. And then the last two winners, I sat at a desk and sold mortgages. And I don't think that sitting at a desk is kind of in my DNA. So I may look into coaching, I may try to get into broadcasting.

I think there's something related to the game. It's also gonna be a decision that is made with my family in mind. I have a daughter now. I've been dragging my wife around the country for 11 years. We've lived in 15 different states. So hopefully I can play for a couple more years.

I still think I'm pretty good, but trying to start getting some of the other things going in the meantime. Yeah, it's also weird like when you love what it is that you do, you'll do it kind of any level like your point about like Hey, like if I I'd be playing baseball for fun on the side, so why wouldn't I continue to do it? It is it is I think when you're younger you're like oh, I would never Degrade myself by doing it that way, but as you like it's the same when you have kids

You're like oh, I would never do that I'd never do that and then as soon as you have kids, you're like, oh, I would never do that. I'd never do that. And then as soon as you have kids, you're like, if that's what I had to do, I would do it in two seconds, right? Right. You realize that a lot of your reservations or inhibitions about things, it's either ego or insecurity or just straight up ignorance. And it changes once you actually face that predicament or dilemma or trade-off. Yeah, if I still love playing baseball and I'm still good, why not?

Yes. Yes. Although, to me, what I don't envy about sports, there's a lot of envy about sports. It's fun, it's clear, the obviousness of winning or losing, et cetera. But just the awareness of it must be hard. And then I've got to imagine sports or broadcasting. Like I remember I was asking some NBA player. He was like, I was like, are you going to be an assistant coach?

And he was like, I get paid millions of dollars to travel and be cheered for now. Now I'm going to do the same thing, but for none of the benefits, you know, like he's like, I'm not going to be on the road, you know, 40 games a year to be a coach, which I thought was interesting. But the grind of it, I imagine, is compensated more readily by the joy of connecting with the ball. You'd have to find whatever the new version of that is. Yeah, I think as a catcher again and as the veteran player that's helping the young

pitchers through a game, I do appreciate and enjoy the coaching aspect that I'm already partaking in with my younger teammates. Sure. So I think if I could find that sort of joy and coaching and connecting and leading men, I think I could see that, but you're right. You get paid as a player to have the sacrifice system miss every birthday to miss every wedding. It's not the same as a coach where the schedule is still just as grueling. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Or the announcer. It's like, no one's here for you. You don't even get to take credit if they win or lose, right? Like, I guess it's insulating in the sense that neither the law, the law isn't on you either, but also you're traveling around and you don't even get the thrill of participating. No, but you do get to connect with the fans and you get to bring the game to the fans in a way that they don't experience it the thrill of participating. No, but you do get to connect with the fans, and you get to bring the games to the fans in a way that they don't experience it

without the broadcaster. That's true. And you still get the lights and the feeling before the game starts, and you get whatever that addiction to the rush of the ritual or the church part of it. Yeah, the thrill of competition. Yes, yes. And yeah, if what you really enjoy

is watching the game evolve. And yeah, I guess that's the thing. You have to figure out what is success to you in the thing you're doing. So in baseball, or, sorry, as you're an athlete, it's usually winning or your individual performance. Then a coach, it has to be, you know, connection and leadership. And then, you know, maybe like what motivates a Troy Ackman now, it's got

to be won the huge contract. But two, it's the riddle of the game and figuring it out and figuring out how to communicate it to people, Just like, I'm sure you're a Yale philosophy professor. They know they're not breaking new ground philosophically. What they're doing is introducing the philosophy to generations of young people and you never know where those young people end up. And opening people's minds to new ideas. Yes. I feel like that's the same idea with commentating

or broadcasting is you're trying to teach the game to an audience or share insight with an audience that they wouldn't otherwise have. Mm-hmm. And you can find a way to get competitive in that regard with yourself. And for instance, this past week, our broadcasters didn't travel on the road with us.

So I volunteered to do the radio pregame show. Yeah, it would be good to get some reps in. Maybe if any of the shows were good, I could use it as a resume going forward. And I recorded six of these things. Two of them were excellent. Two of them were not very good at all. And two of them, I took notes and tried to get better. And the two that I absolutely nailed, I felt the thrill of victory, similarly to what I felt on the field of,

I came out of commercial very well. I asked good questions, good follow up questions, and then I sent it back to commercial. And whereas yesterday I stumbled, trying to wrap up my thoughts. I stumbled coming out of it. I said thank you too many times, whatever. So there's a thrill there also.

Well, and just the puzzle of the new thing, right? Like when you've been playing baseball for what, 30 years basically, it's not that you ever have cracked it, but you're at a level of competence. You've been above a level of competence since probably you were 10. Do you know what I mean? Where you've been good since you were 10. So to be bad at something,

I can roll it a bit on New Year's Day and be top 5% in the world. Yes, right. So to be bad at something or out of your element on something, there's a certain aliveness that comes from that, that you just don't get, except for in the rarest of moments in your profession. Like, okay, yeah, you've never,

like, being in a world series would change, you know, like that moment or some totally new configuration or whatever might be different. But the being in unfamiliar waters or territory, there's an aliveness to that. Yeah, absolutely. It's the same, it's like when you move, right? It's like you've lived here for 10 years, and now you're in a new, you don't know where anything is,

and you don't know new, and you're like that weird period before you're like, oh, I've got, I'm getting the hang of it, that limbo period. I think like, I was reading like, Tiger Woods is reinvented as swing like three or four different times and then it keeps, you know, doing dumb stuff

that forces him to reinventing his game entirely for other reasons too. But I have to imagine the silver lining and even coming back now is that the game is different. Like it's a different puzzle that he's having to attack because he has different weapons and there's different things you can't do as a result of what his body's undergone. That must at least have the benefit of being stimulating. It's probably frustrating, but also stimulating.

What are the four levels of unconscious, unconsciousness, consciousness? You know, I'm talking about where do you... Yeah, the skill acquisition of me as a baseball player at this point, and you as a writer at this point, you're consciously conscious of what you're good at and what you're doing and what makes you successful. You try to learn a new skill, you have to start the process all over again. Yes. You don't realize that the thing you're doing, not how you're cheating, but you're using your expertise always to make it easier.

You know, I can think, as a writer, there's obviously a hard way to do it and an easy way to do it. And since I know, not only know there's a hard way and an easy way, there's probably a part of me that subconsciously is making decisions that keeps me on the easier part of things. And when I did a very different book a couple years ago,

there was a totally different genre. And it was like, oh, I didn't, like, I had to rethink all the things because all the decisions I might make earlier to my advantage, I can't. You know, it's like I'm playing against the win now, I'm playing away from home, you know, I'm playing, all that stuff is there. And then there isn't, yeah, there's like I'm playing against the win now. I'm playing away from home. You know, I'm playing all that stuff is there. And then there isn't, yeah,

there's an aliveness to getting to do it that way. I've tried to write a children's book based on my experience playing for team Israel. Of course, if you have any advice as a writer. Well, I've done two children's books. I did one about the boyhood of Marcus Relius and then I just did one about Epic Titus. It's the same thing where like suddenly, you know, let's say a book, the opposite goes away is 50,000 words. My kid's book on Marx

really is 500 words. So it's like one, you have one percent of the space to do the thing, but it's still, two of the person, it's still a book. And it has to get you from beginning to end. You just, you just have so much less room to do all the things that you do. And actually it was interesting when I went to my publisher with the idea for the book, it was probably a thousand words then. They were like, we love it, we want to publish it, but we wanted to be 10,000 words. We wanted to be more of a story than a picture book. And I was like, I totally get what we're saying,

and I know I could do that, but the challenge of that is not interesting to me. So I want to do it this way, right? This is what I felt called to do. But I did find that reading the book to my own kids over and over and over again was really helpful because like they just did not give a crap and they would tell me that. Do you know what I mean? Like like every time because they'd already heard it before and because you know they wanted to hear about other things, I had a much less forgiving audience, so it was always about like sort of pairing it down. Then I would say the other piece of writing advice on a kid's book,

which is true in all writing is that you might have heard this, but it's show don't tell. So anytime you're explaining, you've already lost. It's like you have to demonstrate the thing. So you don't say what the character is doing or why they're doing it or what's happening. You have to find a way to have them do it in as little space as possible. Yeah. Okay.

What is the, what is the arc of the children's book? It's autobiographical and it's a concept about how growing up I always played baseball. I always wanted to get the big hit and by getting the big hit I would feel like I belonged. And then the overlook I made it to the top of the mountain. I won a World Series with Boston but I still felt like something was missing inside of me. So then I played for Team Israel, a new type of team, and it didn't matter who got the big hit, who sat on the bench, everyone belonged, and then through the course of everyone feeling like a part of the team, we had this magical Cinderella run back in 2017 where people called us, the Jamaican Bob's, the team of baseball, and we shocked the world.

Interesting. Yeah, when I was writing, the girl who would be free, I was talking to this guy, Adam Rubin, who wrote this book, Dragon's Love Tacos, which is one of the biggest kids' books of the last several years, and he was saying, he's like, you have to figure out what the character wants and then what is stopping them from getting what they want. And that is the tension of a story, right? So what is it that they want? Like what is the thing that's driving them

and then what is it that they're up against? And it's the, if you understand those two things at their most basic level, then you have the engine of something that can carry a person from the beginning to the end. Because that's what your book does, right? Your book, you open the book and something happens, like Like why what is carrying me from page one to page 50 or one page one to page 15 or page one to 500? What is the arc that's driving that person? That's what you have to figure out and I often find when something's not working. It's because

I don't know or the off the person doesn't know what that is. Right. It's a bunch of stuff. You know, if you can't give a specific answer, then you haven't figured out what that story is about. That makes sense. Well, that sounds fun, man. And I'm sure it will humble you in many different ways.

It has. it has. I heard a couple of thanks with no thanks from publishers already. The main thing I have found is, first off, you gotta do what you wanna do if people like, if someone wants to buy it or not, that's secondary, but the main thing you'll find is like they want an audience, they want a platform.

Like, why are they going to buy this book from this person? That's the main thing. But I also tend to find that, like, if it's just an idea, whatever, but you've got to make the thing exist, then you have more leverage. Yeah, I've written it. Yeah. Well, amazing, man.

This was really cool. And I'm so glad we got connected. Yeah. Well, amazing, man, this was really cool. And I'm so glad we got connected and can't wait to see what comes next from you. I do. I'm so happy to have met you. I appreciate your time and for having me great to meet you. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music App today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.

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