Working to Potential (One Sixty-Two: Day One)

Writer’s note: This is the first in a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day One: Rickie Weeks, Milwaukee Brewers

Third marking period grades were due yesterday, so I spent my Thursday morning huddled over the laptop. I was inserting grade letters, absence numbers, and teacher comments for my students. In this age of computerized report cards, the teacher also selects from a group of comments, each of them given a particular number. As I scan through the list in search of the proper comment for each student, I try and avoid – as much as possible – the potent Number 4:

Not working to potential.

Ouch. It stings just to say the words. It speaks, to a degree, of personal failure. It also feels a bit like a lecture. And I’d rather talk with kids than lecture them. You also know that the teens who are not working to their potential have surely heard those words dozens, if not hundreds, of times from family members, friends, and other teachers.

So do they really need to hear it again? From me?

This year, the Milwaukee Brewers sent a 27-year-old man out to play second base on Opening Day. The young man has been playing regularly in the big leagues since he was 22, and the word that’s been batted about more than any other when referring to this man is, most assuredly, potential.

His name is Rickie Weeks, and while the scouts say he has all the talent in the world, he’s only hit over .240 once in a full season. He’s never hit more than 16 home runs in a year, and he’s never driven in more than 46. Last season, in the midst of what seemed like a breakthrough spring, Weeks sustained a wrist injury that ended his season.

He returned this year, and after nearly three weeks, he is playing about as well as anyone in the game. Hitting for average. Hitting for power. Scoring runs. Leading the Brewers’ dangerous offense from the leadoff spot. Weeks is playing, without question, like an All-Star. The Brewers have the ability to explode, as they did for 20 runs last night, with their second baseman leading the way.

So what happens when you do reach your potential? Do you erase the word from your memory? Do you finally rest easy at night? Or do you work even harder, in the hopes that you’ll never have to hear it again?

I’m guessing it’s the latter. Here’s to you, Rickie. Your report card so far is one to post on the refrigerator. No sight at all of comment No. 4.