Today is Friday, so this post is on interpersonal competence.
Interpersonally competent people build strong lasting relationships with the people in their lives. Giving of yourself with no expectation of return is one key to building strong relationships. Today, I’d like to tell you a heartwarming story about a man who is willing to give of himself with no expectation of return. That man is Clint Hurdle, Manager of the Colorado Rockies.
The Rockies are the feel good story of baseball this year. After 12 years of not making the playoffs, they are in the World Series for the first time in their 15 year history. And Clint Hurdle is their leader.
Being the Manager of a Major League Baseball team is an exhausting job. Yet, for the past two years, Clint Hurdle has been taking time from his busy schedule to visit a sick kid. The boy was Kyle Blakeman, a 15 year old who passed away on August 28 of renal medullary carcinoma, a very rare form of cancer – so rare that only 100 cases have been confirmed worldwide.
Two years ago, Clint Hurdle was in the grocery store when Kyle’s mother introduced herself and told him that Kyle was a big baseball fan, and about his disease. She asked if Clint would visit her son. That one visit turned into quite a friendship. Over the next two years, Clint Hurdle visited Kyle 20 times.
On August 24, Clint Hurdle was visiting Kyle, who by then was in hospice care. The Rockies had just lost a tough one. Their playoff hopes were slowly slipping away. Clint asked Kyle if he could give him a little luck. Kyle told him that he always wore number 64 on his football uniform. That night, when he filled out the line up card that he has to give to the umpire before every game, he wrote and circled the number “64” next to the team’s name.
The Rockies were losing by four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning, but rallied to win that game. Clint Hurdle went back to the hospital at 11:00 that night to give the line up card to Kyle.
Ever since that night, Clint Hurdle writes and circles number 64 on the Rockies line up card. They’ve won 21 of 22 games since he started doing so.
This is a great story that brought tears to my eyes when I read it. It only adds to the Rockies amazing 2007 story. But that’s not why I bring it up here. If the Rockies had not made the playoffs this year, no one with the exception of a few people close to the Blakeman family and the Rockies, would have known that Clint Hurdle had been visiting this young man for two years.
Clint Hurdle is an interpersonally competent guy. He gave of himself with no expectation of anything in return. He did it because he’s a good guy. The Rockies are in the World Series. Who knows if they will win. But I, for one, think they have a lot of good karma floating around them because of Clint Hurdle’s friendship with Kyle Blakeman and that circled number 64 on their line up card.
Go Rockies!
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense. Check out my other blog: www.CommonSenseGuy.com for common sense advice on leading people and running a small business.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand – my fundraising page is still open. Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.
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