Jim Palmer: Nine Innings to Success: A Hall of Famer's Approach to Achieving Excellence

In loving memory of my parents, Moe and Polly Wiesen, and my stepfather, Max Palmer

Contents

Foreword by Roy Firestone

Introduction

1st Inning: Learning

2nd Inning: Becoming Successful

3rd Inning: Perseverance

4th Inning: Building Trust

5th Inning: Excelling

6th Inning: Sustaining Success

7th Inning: Diversifying

7th Inning Stretch

8th Inning: Appreciation

9th Inning: Enjoyment

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Photo Gallery

Foreword by Roy Firestone

I’ve known Jim Palmer since I was a 15-year-old spring training batboy for the Baltimore Orioles, a role I played from 1970 to 1972. One of the reasons I went into broadcasting was because I saw in that clubhouse how the greatest players, on perhaps the greatest franchise in the era, went about their business…and I wanted to be a part of it by interviewing them.

The Orioles were about perfection. They had an astute and resourceful front office. They had a brilliant and mercurial manager in Earl Weaver and they had one of the most intelligent teams I’ve ever been around—before or since. The Robinsons—Brooks and Frank—Mark Belanger, Dave Johnson, heady players like Paul Blair, Andy Etchebarren, Boog Powell, and one of the most cerebral pitching staffs ever, featuring Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and, of course, Jim Palmer.

Perfection isn’t possible. We’re all flawed and mortal, and sports only magnifies our mortality and foibles. But the pursuit of perfection is what the Orioles were about. That’s why I think Jim Palmer, then and now, best personifies The Oriole Way. As a Hall of Fame player, broadcaster, and corporate spokesman, Jim has always been meticulous and passionate about excellence. He has an obsessive attention to detail and an almost superhuman compulsion to do things the right way.

Cakes, as we called him, and many still do, had matinee idol looks, an incredible work ethic, preternatural athletic gifts, and a deliberate, methodical approach to everything he did and does. Those qualities didn’t just manifest themselves on the pitching mound. He found excellence in public speaking, broadcasting, and baseball. He was the face of Jockey underwear for an astonishing 19 years, a spokesman for The Money Store for 12 years, and he’s currently in the midst of a 16-year relationship with Nutramax Laboratories. There’s a reason he has had such long relationships with these entities. He wasn’t merely a celebrity endorsing a product. Jim Palmer understood his brand and what being a brand ambassador meant. He represented the companies and himself with integrity, consistency, and smarts. 

Jim Palmer was one of the most graceful and elegant players I’ve ever known. He had an impeccable pitching motion and delivery. He’s insightful at the microphone and articulate and thoughtful in everything he’s approached. Some people looked at Jim as an almost flawless, majestic type of person. Those who viewed him this way don’t know his real story. They don’t know about his personal evolution.

Jim was adopted. As you’ll read in this book, he grew up in a loving family, but he never knew his true roots. He broke into the major leagues at age 19 and almost immediately was celebrated as the young star who outdueled the great Sandy Koufax in the 1966 World Series. But then things went south for him. He suffered devastating arm and shoulder injuries, which almost ended his career as dramatically as it had started. I remember Jim Palmer in the minor leagues when he was struggling to pitch. I vividly remember people in the media writing him off as washed up. He was just 21 years old.

Jim went through a pair of divorces, and, though he was and remains a doting father to Jamie and Kelly and grandfather to Maxine and Henri, the failure of those marriages haunted him. He was no longer Perfect Palmer. In fact, he would be the first to tell you…he never was.

That brings me to one of the most inspiring parts of the Jim Palmer story. Jim was married for a third time, to Susan Earle, a divorced mother of an autistic son named Spencer. Many men of Jim Palmer’s pedigree would not marry again, particularly a man well into his 60s to a woman with a child who required special attention.

Not Jim.

I’ve seen Jim around his stepson, and, believe me, he is there every day with enormous support, love, patience, and commitment. Jim and Susan nicknamed Spencer Indy after Indiana Jones, one of Spencer’s favorite movies and obsessions. At Jim’s statue unveiling at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Indy introduced his stepdad in a hilarious and touching way. When Jim got to the microphone, he was so moved that he could hardly get through his speech. I’ve seen Jim talk many times about Spencer. Almost every time he does, his eyes fill up and his voice grows thick with emotion.

In 2013 Jim Palmer put some of his awards up for auction. The proceeds went to charity and the people who most needed the money. That’s the Jim Palmer I admire most. He’s been labeled as perfect and aloof, even distant. That’s not the Jim Palmer I’ve ever known—and I’ve known him since I was a teenager.

In this book Jim Palmer candidly discusses his greatest achievements, the roads to success, the hardships and personal struggles, and why—even now—the pursuit of perfection is the underlining ingredient in the Nine Innings to Success. Pursuing perfection isn’t just elusive. It’s unattainable. But in that pursuit can come excellence.

Jim Palmer’s story and Nine Innings to Success is about that. It’s about a personal commitment to be the best, about setting a plan and following it, and doing things the right way. It won’t always end with a plaque in Cooperstown, but the prize isn’t really at the end of the road. The prize is in the road to getting there.

—Roy Firestone

Sports commentator and former host of ESPN’s Up Close

Introduction

I remember my first minor league start like it was ­yesterday. It came in 1964 in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I walked the leadoff hitter and, after the opposing team pulled off a successful hit-and-run, I had to deal with runners on first and third with nobody out. At that point I couldn’t help but think, Boy, am I in over my head! Facing my first real test as a professional ballplayer, I got the next three hitters to strike out, pop out, and fly out. Disaster averted, I settled down and went on to win the game.

Nobody remembers how I pitched out of a jam in my first inning at Single A, but I certainly do. Throughout my career I would look back on that day as a reminder that success is a process based on thousands of moments, events, and outcomes. A couple of years later, when I got the ball in Game 2 of the 1966 World Series at Dodger Stadium, I faced a challenge not unlike the one the first time I pitched in Aberdeen—different scale, of course, but same mind-set. Though I was still a few days shy of my 21st birthday, I felt prepared to go up against the legendary Sandy Koufax on the biggest baseball stage imaginable.

In a few short pages, I’ll start walking you through what I call the Nine Innings to Success. As you’ll soon find out, walking is a key word here. Before I became the youngest pitcher to ever throw a shutout in the World Series, won 20 games in a season, or secured a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame, I was a skinny kid averaging more than a walk an inning in the minor leagues. And even after I experienced my first taste of big-time success in the major leagues, I nearly saw my career end prematurely due to injury.

Along the way, you’ll hear a lot about Earl Weaver and the other colorful characters I crossed paths with during my career as a player, broadcaster, and corporate spokesman for Jockey underwear, The Money Store, and Nutramax Laboratories. Earl and I had plenty of dustups, but our mutual admiration for each other and our commitment to common goals led to amazing success in the workplace. Despite our differences I like to think that I made Earl a better manager in the same way that he made me a better player. If only Howard Cosell had been present to do the play-by-play of some of our confrontations, now that would have been entertaining. My work with Howard, Al Michaels, and Tim McCarver in the ABC broadcast booth taught me a lot about relationships and workplace dynamics. It also gave me an ample supply of great stories.

I want to celebrate the game. I want to celebrate life. Each has its challenges, detours, joys, and moments of sadness. By adhering to a set of essential values, I believe we can take control of our own destinies and prepare ourselves for successful relationships and careers. I’m not naïve. I’ve seen too many people suffer too much adversity to think that anything is a given. I know there are no guarantees in life. Sometimes misfortune is unavoidable. But life’s unpredictability is why it’s imperative to take the steps necessary to control what we have control over.

I was fortunate to play on teams that ranged from very good to outstanding. In my 19 years in Baltimore, the Orioles posted a losing record only once—in 1967, a season when our pitching staff was decimated by injury. But in my current capacity as a television broadcaster for the team, I’ve seen the Orioles struggle through some lean times. I still feel greatly invested in the team’s fortunes and think a lot about the concepts of winning and losing and success and failure.

You’re not always going to win. In baseball that’s easily quantifiable. The team with the best single-season record in baseball history, the 1906 Chicago Cubs, lost 36 times during the regular season and fell in the World Series. On an individual level, the best hitters ever to wear a uniform made far more outs in their careers than they got hits.

Edward Bennett Williams, who owned the Orioles from 1980 until his death in 1988, helped me develop my ideas on what it means to be successful. He viewed the subject from the vantage point of an attorney who had fought many difficult and unpopular battles during a distinguished legal career. Winning and losing are not as black and white as they always appear, he said. In baseball the scoreboard tells you which team is ahead. But sometimes the final score doesn’t tell you the whole truth—just as a jury verdict doesn’t always tell you how well you argued your case. He made me realize that How did you lose? is a question that should be asked more often. Were you prepared? Did you commit yourself physically, emotionally, and intellectually to maximizing your potential? Did you do your best? If you answer those questions affirmatively, you should be able to live with whatever the outcome is. Williams liked to say you should put yourself in a position to live your life with no I’s and no R’s or no indecision and no regrets.

Even in a Hall of Fame career, you get into ruts. You’ll read about times in my life when success seemed effortless and other times when just lifting my arm was a struggle. As a starting pitcher, I was handed the ball every four days and asked to go out and do a job. I had my fair share of 1-2-3 innings, but I also had to work my way out of a lot of jams. Going the distance was my objective every time I took the mound. I liked the challenge of trying to get a hitter out the fourth time he came to the plate to face me. And if you totally commit yourself to a goal both mentally and physically, you have a much better chance of achieving it. That was a pillar of The Oriole Way, which helps frame many of the discussions in this book.

The Orioles fielded some of the best teams in baseball during my playing career. Between the 1968 and 1985 seasons, we never finished with a losing record, a stretch that included six American League pennants and three World Series. That streak of winning seasons is the second longest in baseball history. You can’t win as many games as we did without talent. But our organizational culture played an equally significant role in our success. For the moment I’ll single out two players who exemplified The Oriole Way: Brooks Robinson and Cal Ripken Jr. Like me, they played their entire careers in the Orioles organization. You don’t see that much anymore in sports—or any other industry in America. I’m not here to promote blind loyalty, but I do believe that a positive organizational culture helps energize people and make them more successful. I’m proud that I wore the same No. 22 Orioles uniform for my entire career.

This book will address other questions, including: What do I want to achieve? What do I need to know to achieve it? How do I establish myself in the workplace? How do I react when I face an obstacle? How do my relationships with others help me succeed? What steps do I take to achieve true excellence? After I learn to perform at a high level, what do I need to do to sustain that level of achievement? Is it ever too late to try and establish myself in another field? And what role do gratitude and humor play in all of the above?

Not everybody experiences nine innings in the same order. I had already experienced success in the major leagues by the time I faced my greatest period of adversity in the form of injuries that sidelined me for the better part of two seasons. The steps I took to resume my career taught me perseverance. Cal and Oprah Winfrey’s hard times—yes, they both had them—came at the beginning of their careers, but both overcame early obstacles to achieve true greatness. More on that later.

Dr. Bill Engelhart, a friend of mine who was an obstetrician, and I used to playfully argue about the degrees of difficulty of our respective professions. He argued that his job was infinitely harder than mine. And I playfully disagreed. Does the wind ever blow out in the operating room when you’re delivering a baby? I would ask jokingly. Of course, baseball is just a game, and its results are frivolous when compared to the work product of many other professions. But sports offer a unique window into how we as a nation do business. Baseball is predicated largely on the physical skills of unusually talented individuals, but it’s the mental component of the game that keeps us so enthralled. Did the general manager construct a good team? Does the manager handle his team well and make smart strategic decisions? Is the team focused, prepared, and ready to fulfill its potential? Those are questions that apply to any workplace.

I played the game and have lived my life by a set of core principles and I look forward to sharing the wisdom and strategies that helped me excel on and off the baseball field.

Well, it looks like the managers are out on the field swapping lineup cards. It’s a beautiful day for baseball. There’s a cloudless sky, and it’s 75 degrees. Or maybe it’s not. In the game and in our lives, sometimes we bask in the bright sunshine, and other times we get poured on. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a guy like my former Orioles teammate Rick Dempsey around on those stormy days. Nobody made a summer downpour more entertaining than Rick. At the end of the day, a sense of humor is what sustains us. But you’ll have to wait until the ninth inning to hear more about that.

So let’s play ball.

1st Inning: Learning

Life is about opportunity. And if success is ­important to you, you’ll have no qualms about going wherever that opportunity surfaces. With that in mind, let’s take a trip back in time to the summer of 1963. The location: a tiny hamlet in southern South Dakota called Winner, a rural outpost tucked away off a lonely stretch of highway somewhere between the towns of Mission and Ideal. One name seemed to be a misnomer; the other had some symbolism. Was the location ideal? No, not really. But was I on a mission to become a winner? Yes, absolutely.

Of all the summers of my youth, this one shaped up to be the most pivotal. I had just graduated from Scottsdale High School in Arizona, where I starred in baseball, football, and basketball. On the diamond I had established myself as enough of a prospect to earn a chance to try out for the Basin League, which was halfway through a two-decade run as a showcase for the nation’s top amateur talent. I ended up making the team. Of all the players who passed through South Dakota that summer, I was the only one who hadn’t entered college yet. My teammates in Winner included future Cy Young award winner Jim Lonborg, who at the time was just a humble biology major at Stanford.

The Winner Ritz-Carlton must have been booked because my teammates and I were all piled into the basement of a house with no air conditioning. The outside temperature would get up to 90 or 100 degrees during the day, creating a sauna-like atmosphere in the basement. Late at night, however, it cooled off enough to allow us to sleep through until mid-morning. At around 10:00 am, there’d be a knock at the basement door, and the poor guy, who I’m guessing juggled owner, general manager, manager, and wake-up call duties, would tell us to get up and report to our jobs, which the NCAA required that we have. Job? I didn’t know I had one. But when I arrived at the ballpark and was handed a rake, I figured it out pretty quickly.

My routine in Winner was simple. Before games I raked the mound. And during games I stood on the mound and hoped opposing hitters didn’t rake my pitches. That’s how the summer went. We ended up losing in the Basin League playoffs, but my performance got the attention of Orioles scout Jim Russo and Harry Dalton, who ran the organization’s farm system. It also drew the interest of Paul Richards, who had recently resigned as Orioles manager to become general manager of the Houston Colt .45s. I met with representatives from both teams when I returned home to Scottsdale, Arizona, and ended up signing a $40,000 contract with the Orioles. That was the best decision I ever made. As I once said in Sports Illustrated, if I had played my career for the Houston Astros, who didn’t win their first pennant until I was 60 years old, I would likely have had a good but not great major league career.

I’ll get back to South Dakota shortly. But for the moment, let’s move down the map to Thomasville, Georgia, the town where the Orioles used to send their low-level minor leaguers for an eight-week intensive course in the fundamentals of the game. In Thomasville, I got my first introduction to The Oriole Way. And from the day in 1964 that I showed up to camp there to the day that I retired from the game in 1984, I remained immersed in those principles. They shaped my career—and, to a significant extent, who I am. It wasn’t an accident that I never played a game for another professional organization.

In Thomasville the players didn’t live in a basement. In what may or may not have been an upgrade from cellar dwelling, they assigned us to an old army barracks that shared property with a facility that housed a bunch of World War II veterans. We dined in a mess hall and were roused from bed each morning by a bugle call. In that militaristic environment, the likes of Earl Weaver, who managed the Orioles’ Double A farm club in Elmira, New York, and Cal Ripken Sr., who helmed a minor league team in Aberdeen, South Dakota, served as our MacArthur and Patton. They imparted a number of lessons, including that Orioles farmhands didn’t cut corners. During an intra-squad scrimmage, I lined out to right field to end an inning. I ran hard out of the batter’s box but only made it halfway to first base before the outfielder snared the ball. At that point, I turned and headed to the dugout, where I grabbed my glove and went out to the pitcher’s mound. That night at dinner, one of our instructors, I think it was Earl, called me out in front of all the players for my perceived lack of hustle. Did you run that ball out? he asked me. We run balls out in the Oriole organization. We run all the way to first.

This was the first time I laid eyes on the little pudgy guy whom I would come to regard as both a nemesis and a genius. Earl had run the Thomasville camp since 1961. I didn’t get to know him well that spring and I don’t recall seeing his explosive temper on display either. I just remember we had an incredible two months. I learned a lot about the game from Earl, Cal, and the other instructors. And their teachings paid immediate dividends. Pitted against other teams’ best young players, we won 14 games in a row.

I thought I would have the chance to spend more quality time with Earl in 1964, but instead of getting assigned to his Double A team in Elmira, I received instructions to report to Cal’s A ball squad in northern South Dakota. The town of Aberdeen had mosquitoes the size of B-52 bombers, but it also had a great mentor who taught me life lessons that I would constantly harken back to as I went through my career. Cal distilled his message into a few commandments.

You’re never going to let anyone outwork you.

You’re going to be a great teammate.

You’re going to have fun—and part of having fun is winning.

You’re going to have a passion to get a little better every day.

Cal also reminded us to always credit the people who made it possible for us to play the game professionally in the first place: the fans. Without them we were just guys playing baseball in an empty stadium. It’s worth mentioning that Cal’s four-year-old son, Cal Jr., joined us for the summer and soaked it all in. As I watched him run