LOVE YOUR RIGHT FIELDER

My baseball/fast-pitch softball career was slow developing. The Peter, Paul and Mary song describes my early years perfectly:

Saturday summers, when I was a kid
We’d run to the schoolyard and here’s what we did
We’d pick out the captains and we’d choose up the teams
It was always a measure of my self esteem
Cuz the fastest, the strongest, played shortstop and first
The last ones they picked were the worst
I never needed to ask, it was sealed,
I just took up my place in right field.

Right field, it’s easy, you know.
You can be awkward and you can be slow
That’s why I’m here in right field
Just watching the dandelions grow

Off in the distance, the game’s dragging on,
There’s strikes on the batter, some runners are on.
I don’t know the inning, I’ve forgotten the score.
The whole team is yelling and I don’t know what for.
Then suddenly everyone’s looking at me
My mind has been wandering; what could it be?
They point at the sky and I look up above
And a baseball falls into my glove!

Here in right field, it’s important you know.
You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw,
That’s why I’m here in right field, just watching the dandelions grow!

Baseball is a nine-position game and right field is one of those positions. No team would ever play a game with eight players, leaving right field empty.

Your organization has right fielders and their job is a lot more important than “just watching the dandelions grow.” The right fielder sweeps the floors at night, stocks the shelves, delivers the mail, changes the diapers (church nursery), mows the grass, brings in the buggies from the parking lot, etc., etc., etc. Try to operate without them and the dandelions will take over.

If you are the leader, LOVE YOUR RIGHT FIELDERS—you need them—their work is honorable and important. If you thank them, encourage them, and develop them, they’ll keep the weeds from taking over and may—like me—eventually move to center field and hit in the #3 position.

Another reason to love your right fielders? They are in good company out there. That’s where Michael Jordan played during his baseball adventure.

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