As the sun set on an October day in Texas, anticipation rose.
The Texas Rangers were about to take the field for their first home playoff game in three years. With a win, they’d advance to the next round of baseball’s postseason.
The ballpark was filled with 50,000 fans, all waving red and white rally towels. And I was one of them.
I’d scored my seat thanks to some good fortune. There had been a lottery for the opportunity to buy playoff tickets, and my name had been selected. All around me, fans who had come by their tickets the same way were remarking how fortunate they felt.
The game started. The roar of the crowd was deafening. And the view from down the third base line was honestly not all that bad.
But then, in the second inning, a beer vendor started walking up and down the aisles. He was directly in my line of sight as I looked out toward home plate where the action was.
I craned my neck to look around him, knowing he’d be gone in a moment.
But then a fan approached him in the aisle and ordered two beers. The fan, wearing the opposing team’s jersey, stood there while the vendor tried to serve him.
It was as if the fan was in the concession stand line. But he wasn’t. He was blocking the view of hundreds of Rangers fans. Fans who hadn’t paid hundreds of dollars to stare at him buying beer.
Eventually, some of those Rangers fans had enough. They asked the opposing fan to crouch down while he waited, so that they could watch the game.
The opposing fan replied by threatening to drop his pants. He then verbally abused all of the Rangers fans in the section, oblivious to the fact that he was vastly outnumbered.
It was all so childish, so comically immature. But it left an impact.
I’d paid top dollar to see playoff baseball. But my enduring memory of that experience are the actions of an idiot.
What were you thinking?
These words fill me with dread.
When I hear them uttered, it means that someone has just done something idiotic. And they’re getting raked over the coals for it.
You see, the answer to this phrase is self-evident. The target of wrath couldn’t possibly have been thinking. If they had, they wouldn’t have done something this dumb.
This critique itself doesn’t make me cringe. But what it symbolizes does.
It means there’s already been collateral damage from the idiot’s actions. It’s the ballpark fiasco all over again.
I feel for all those impacted by this self-absorbed behavior. Those who are essentially victimized by thoughtlessness.
And I seek to never be that thoughtless person. I yearn to never find myself rightfully called to the carpet.
Still, such plans are far from foolproof.
Back at the ballpark, behind that obnoxious fan in the aisle, a duel was going on.
Well, more like a series of them.
Each time a player strode to home plate and dug their cleats into the dirt, a new confrontation would begin. A high stakes battle between the batter and the pitcher.
The batter was looking for a pitch he could hit hard. And the pitcher was looking to make the batter miss.
Occasionally, one of these combatants would make the other one look foolish. The batter would drive a pitch over the heart of home plate to the outfield wall, 400 feet away. The pitcher would fool the batter into swinging at a ball in the dirt. Both of those things happened in this playoff game.
But sometimes, the pitcher or batter would do exactly what they wanted — and end up with nothing to show for it.
That was ultimately how the game got away from the Rangers.
In the sixth inning, with his team down by a 2-0 score, Texas starting pitcher Martin Perez returned to the pitching mound. He gave up base hits to the first two batters — both on pitches below the batter’s knees.
The ball was thrown where he wanted it each time. But it didn’t yield the desired outcome.
Perez was pulled from the game. Both batters he gave up hits to would ultimately come around to score when his replacement gave up a home run.
As I write this, Perez has yet to start another postseason game. Surely, he must think back on that night and wonder how it got away from him.
Truth be told, Perez pitched decently well in that game. His intensity, focus, and effort were where they needed to be.
But the results belied his best intentions. And for years, that disconnect cast a shadow over his career.
There’s a term that defines Perez’s predicament that October evening.
Thoughtful idiocy.
Perez was seeking to command the game. But he still ended up sinking his team’s chances.
Thoughtful idiocy is a bitter pill to swallow. It’s insidious, as it takes a good thing and turns it bad.
We are primed to be the opposite of that fan waiting for beer in the middle of the aisle. We’re supposed to be selfless, conscientious, and committed to the cause.
It’s tantalizing to tie outcomes to these attributes. Act absent-minded and suffer the consequences. Operate with thoughtfulness and reap the benefits.
But that’s not how it works in practice.
In truth, we can try too hard. We can push too far. We can get beat at our own game.
Sometimes this looks like Martin Perez on the pitching mound that October night. Minimal mistakes yield lopsided results — with thousands watching in disappointment.
Other times, it can be a bit more subtle. It might mean pushing ahead on a work project without getting the requisite sign-off. It might mean ramping up a workout regimen faster than your body can handle. It might mean trying a bit too hard to reconnect with long-lost acquaintances.
I know all these mistakes. For I have made them before.
That my heart was in the right place mattered little. The results told the story.
I was an idiot. Not for doing too little. But for doing too much, without even considering a sanity check.
You’ve got to be part strategist, part psychologist.
This is the unofficial job description for a baseball manager.
It’s only fitting. In a sport where 9 players take the field each night for six months, it’s a requisite skill. Especially when you consider how difficult it is to hit a baseball.
Yes, great baseball managers have mastered the art of nuance. They get their teams in the right tactical positions to win. But they also get their players in the right headspace to thrive.
The best managers must remain active without overacting. The must be thoughtful without overthinking.
Such skills are not relegated to baseball. Many coaches in other sports display similar nuance. So do many supervisors in office settings. And many parents in households across America.
Nuanced thought and measured action can help just about anyone thrive at their role. They can avoid the polarizing extremes of absent mindedness and of taking things too far. They can avoid both supreme dumbness and thoughtful idiocy.
But we can’t get to this point right out of the gates. Experience is an unrivaled teacher in this endeavor. And blunders sometimes provide the most vivid lessons.
When I recount my moments of thoughtful idiocy, I first feel humiliated. How could I have been so foolish? How could I have gotten things so wrong?
But then, I remember to give myself some grace. To treat the incident as a building block. To show the same level of dedication next time, but with a bit more restraint.
This is the roadmap to a better tomorrow. For me. For all of us.
But we must commit to it.
We must not bury our thoughtful idiocy. We must instead have the courage to address it and iterate off it.
There’s nothing dumb about that.