Taking Aim at Success

I’ve only known a couple of baseball players who have combined a career in professional baseball with cattle ranching. And I’m one of ’em.

So it’s not unusual for someone to come up to me and ask me why baseball and beef? Why do these two disparate pursuits create such passion in me? What in the world do they have in common?

It’s hard to say which came first. When I was 10 years old and playing Little League in Alvin, Texas, I also was buying my first “herd” of three baby calves from a neighbor. I raised them myself; even talking my parents into letting me put them in our garage when a hurricane threatened our home on the Gulf Coast.

You could say I always anticipated being in the cattle business even after I was drafted by baseball out of high school. And I’m glad I achieved that goal. In a sense, ranching served as a diversion from the routine and pressures of baseball by enabling me to spend time in a different area.

I look at it this way:

When some people have a passion for golf, they get up in the morning and get excited and think their day is really special if they get to play 36 holes. I do play golf now and then, but you couldn't whip me and get me to play 36 holes. But, by the same token, I will spend the whole day looking at cattle. So that’s my passion.

Before Ruth and I had children, we’d go visit this older gentleman who had a Beefmaster operation in George West, Texas. I bought bulls from him, so we'd get in his pickup and go look at his cattle after lunch. Forty-five minutes after we started riding around, Ruth would be in the back seat of the truck sound asleep while I couldn’t wait to see more. And we’d ride around for hours.

You are what you do…

What it amounts to is that you get out of something at least equal to what you put into it. That observation is not only based on my personal experience, but also on teammates whom I have watched on a day-to-day basis throughout my baseball career. I saw the ones who were dedicated and worked hard, and then I saw the benefits they received by competing on that level. Other players might have been more talented athletically, but they weren't as committed, and, therefore, they were not as successful.

My philosophy today is that if I take the same work ethic and principles that deliver success, and I apply them in my daily life outside of baseball, then I have a shot at being successful in anything. And so that shot—the opportunity to create a winner—is the answer to what baseball and beef have in common.