Right, so you see these headlines, or you hear people talking about kids throwing 75 mph in Little League, and then you watch the pros hitting nearly 100 mph. It sounds like just a number difference, right? Like you just gotta practice more, get stronger, and boom, you’re there. That always gets me thinking.
It reminds me of something I saw happen a few years back. We had this young guy join the team, super enthusiastic. Really sharp on the small projects we gave him initially. Handled them like a champ. Everyone was impressed. So, what happens? Management sees the ‘potential’, right? They think, “Okay, this kid’s throwing 75, let’s put him in the big leagues.”
They pulled him off the small stuff and dropped him right into the middle of this massive, tangled project we’d been wrestling with for ages. Like, legacy code back to the dinosaurs, undocumented everything, office politics thick enough to cut with a knife. It wasn’t just a step up; it was a different universe.
He thought he could just work harder, put in more hours. Like a pitcher just trying to grunt and throw the ball faster. But that wasn’t the problem. He didn’t have the experience, the techniques, the understanding of the sheer weight and complexity of the big game. It wasn’t about raw effort anymore.
What folks don’t see
It’s like that baseball jump. It’s not just about adding 20 mph. It’s about:
- Mechanics: Tiny adjustments that take years to master.
- Mentality: Handling pressure when the bases are loaded.
- Strategy: Knowing what to throw and when, not just throwing hard.
- Endurance: Doing it pitch after pitch, game after game.
- Support: Top-tier coaching, nutrition, recovery… the whole machine.
This kid at work? He burned out. Fast. Tried to muscle through it, got frustrated, made mistakes, lost confidence. It wasn’t his fault, really. He was thrown into a situation he wasn’t equipped for, based on success in a totally different context. They saw the 75 mph and thought MLB was just around the corner. They didn’t respect the gap.
So yeah, when I hear about that jump from Little League speeds to the majors, I think about that poor guy. It’s a reminder that scaling up, whether it’s throwing a baseball or handling bigger responsibilities, is rarely just about trying harder. There’s a whole lot more going on under the hood. You gotta respect the process, the learning curve, and the huge difference between leagues. Took me a while to learn that myself.
