Whoever said we could only ever talk about hockey in this column? Certainly not me. Nor did my Editor. So, today, we’re going to jump sports to the world of baseball as we learn some valuable lessons from former MLB Manager, Clint Hurdle, who is now also an Author! 

First, for a little background. Clint Hurdle was the Kansas City Royals’ first-round draft pick in 1975 and went on to have a 10-year playing career that saw him suit up for Kansas City, the Cincinnati Reds, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals. Once his playing career ended in 1987, he transitioned into the world of coaching. He started in the Mets’ Minor League system before moving on to the Colorado Rockies organization. Eventually, he became the Rockies’ Manager early in the 2002 season. 

Hurdle Managed the Rockies from 2002 until he was fired early in the 2009 campaign. He latched on as the Hitting Coach for the Texas Rangers in November 2009 before making his way to Pittsburgh to be the Pirates’ Manager in 2011. That run lasted until he was fired in September 2019. While he hasn’t managed since Hurdle has served as a Special Assistant to the General Manager for the Rockies since December 2021. 

Now, you may be asking, “What lessons can you learn from him, his story sounds like that of many professional sports coaches.” Well, what isn’t told in that brief background is how much Hurdle struggled with life decisions throughout his baseball career and how he has since managed to turn things around, thanks in part to the lessons he learned in his various jobs. And now that he’s turned things around Hurdle is sharing many of the lessons he learned with people via his new book (due out on February 11, 2025), “Hurdle-isms: Wit and Wisdom from a Lifetime in Baseball.” (To pre-order it, go to: https://a.co/d/aoTfxLE). 

The best way for us to convey those lessons to you is to let Hurdle “speak” directly to you, so we’re going to share his story with you Q&A style.

*Editor’s Note: Questions and Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Q: Why is now the right time to come out with your book?

Hurdle: “Well, the book is called “Hurdle-isms” and it will launch on the 11th of February. For the past, I would say the last 10 years that I managed, I had over a handful of people reach out to me about doing a book. I did a lot of corporate speaking in the off-season and I would run into people who had written books, into people telling stories, sharing experience, strength and hope and leadership ideas. I just never felt the time was right while I was working. 

“When I got outta uniform at the end of the 2019 season, I basically took two years off to plug back into my family and just kind of settle and see what it felt like to not be a Major League Manager for the past 17 years. So I found a different rhythm. I found a different vibe in the house and one of the guys who had reached out to me before about writing a book reached out to me again, but under the pretext of co-authoring a book about two guys chatting about life lessons learned in two different businesses. 

“Dave Burchett is my buddy and he was the TV Producer for Rangers games for almost 40 years. I got to know him in 2010 when I was a Hitting Coach there. I loved the guy. We built up a very solid friendship and relationship. So I entertained the idea and then I finally said, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’ So, we were attempting to write our book. Dave did all the heavy lifting. He had all the writing experience. He had seven or eight books under his belt. I was journaling. We were sharing thoughts and phone conversations and we finally got down to the point where we started looking for a publisher. But we kept getting the same message back; ‘two over 60-year-old guys sharing life experiences. The content’s pretty good, but it’s not gonna sell.’ 

“We really couldn’t get a publisher to buy it. So we were talking about self-publishing and then Dave encouraged me to try one more time with my good friend Jon Gordon, who’s a 17-time bestselling author. I didn’t really want to call in favors or ask anybody who I’d known who had written a book or had some success. I wanted to just do this with Dave and see if we could pull it off organically. Jon read the book. He said, ‘The setup, it’s not attractive to today’s generation right now with what’s going on. It’s gotta be a different vibe. It’s gotta be packaged a different way.’ He said, ‘Clint, truthfully, I’ve known you for 10 years. You should write a book.’ And I was just like, ‘No, Jon, I don’t wanna write a book. I can’t imagine how much work it is, the discipline.’ 

“Jon had come and spoken to our team in Pittsburgh four or five different times. Jon and I shared thoughts. We became friends. He goes, ‘I’ve written down some of the Hurdle-isms.’ That’s where I first heard the term ‘Hurdle-ism’, it was from Jon. And he goes, ‘You just need to write a book. You need to do it. You don’t need to talk about it. You don’t need to think about it.’ So he challenged me. 

“Basically, it was a 12-year-old pulling a double dog dare. And I said ‘Okay.’ I said, ‘I’ll try and write a book.’ He put me in touch with Wiley Publishing. I had some Zoom calls with them. And then Wiley said, ‘We like this content. We’ll help you write this book.’ So I began digging into my journals that I’d had from back in 2002 when I started managing. 

“Over a nine-month period, we were working with about three different editors at Wiley. Spellcheck, fact-check, date-check, content, narrative flow. I learned so many lessons and it just seemed the right time to do it. I’d been removed from the game for a while. I was able to settle into my thoughts. And as much as it is a book about baseball, it’s also a book about life. 

“I really felt compelled to share experience, strength and hope with some of the challenges that I’ve had to meet, some of the failures that I’ve had and some of the successes that I’ve found on the other side of that.” 

Q: How do you feel about Hurdle-isms joining the legacy of Yogisms and Stengelese?

Hurdle: “You know what, I really didn’t give it any thought. It was brought to my attention afterward. I know all about Yogisms and I know all about Stengelese. In a sense, it’s honoring men who have come before me in another way. These are statements and quotes that I’ve used over time that I’ve put into play in my personal life and my professional life. Most of my players have heard them, either in Colorado or Pittsburgh. People in my close circle who I’ve worked with have heard them, my family’s heard them. It’s just basically who I am. I thought it’d be a fun way to wrap it up and to put it out there.”

Q: What lessons did you learn from the miracle 2007 Rockies run and the Pirates’ playoff drought-buster in 2013?

Hurdle: “They were improbable, but if you’re inside the vacuum, you can see incremental improvement. In Colorado, we finally got to a point where we had changed our direction. We went through a rebuilding process. We brought up a heavy percentage of young, core players and pitchers who had success in the Minor Leagues together, put them in a Major League environment and watched them go through some growing pains. 2005 was hard. ’06, was some hard times, but you could see towards the end of the ’06 season that these guys were starting to get it, figure it out. Learning how to play Major League Baseball. Learning what depth was all about and learning how being a good teammate made a difference. Learning how to win in different ways. And then, when ’07 happened, they were in a good place as a group.

“We never got hot (through that season). We were always a couple games under or a couple games over .500 for five months. We just battled. We flat-out battled just to stay afloat. One of the things I would continue to share with our team was, ‘Hey, keep doing what we’re doing, ’cause we haven’t even got hot yet.’ I brought up some numbers that showed that every team gets hot in baseball. Even the teams who finished last have a hot streak. They’ll win seven, eight, nine, 10 in a row, but they don’t win a lot of games after that. We had not been hot. So, eventually, we got hot. We got certifiably hot in the middle of the month (September). 

“We went on a 21 out of 22 run that captured the city by storm. ‘Rocktober’ became a real thing. Not October, it was ‘Rocktober.’ The players just fed off each other’s energy. We had an incredible shutdown bullpen. Offensively, we had core players on the corners that provided offense. We had solid defense up the middle. 

“We were built in an old-school kinda way. We could beat you with small ball, we could beat you on the bases, we could beat you with the bat. But our pitching was our strength and you don’t hear about that often in Colorado. Our pitching was magnificent that year and it was improbable, but it was something that really, it didn’t catch the guys off guard. 

“They just had an inner confidence that became real. And then they had an attitude that they were gonna show people who we are. We’re not gonna tell people who we are. We’re just gonna go out, play and show ’em who we are.”

“(The 2013 Pirates were a) team that was coming off back-to-back hundred loss seasons. 212 (total) losses as a matter of fact. So there wasn’t a lot of hope. They were at 18 consecutive losing seasons. In back-to-back seasons, we started off very strong. We played better baseball. We did things better across the board. The starting pitching got a little bit better. We always had a good closer the entire nine years I was there. The bullpen was solid. We played pretty good defense. We didn’t have a lot of depth and we were young, so there was a learning curve. 

“2011, we got off to a good start, then we ran outta gas. 2012, we got off to a very good start and collapsed at the end. The lessons were learned by the core group of guys who were together from both seasons. There’s a certain thing, you gotta learn how to win, you gotta learn how to win in different ways. You gotta learn how to play tough Baseball throughout the summer. They call ’em the dog days for a reason and you gotta find a way to continue to lean into each other. 

“In both places, the common thread was the teamwork became real. It wasn’t one guy who had to do the job. It was a collective effort. And also there were some very shrewd moves by our front office. 

“We brought in A.J. Burnett and Russell Martin. Francisco Liriano was a free-agent pitcher. We had a very solid coaching staff. Again, we had good core players on the corners. We had solid defense up the middle. We had a catcher who was real in Russell Martin. A.J. Burnett brought an edge to our team we didn’t have before. They believed in themselves. It wasn’t like we got good all of a sudden. We started off competitive. We played a good solid game of baseball. We got our 81st win in Texas to break the 20-consecutive losing season streak. 

“We got our 82nd following right after that. The guys weren’t satisfied. They weren’t done. We got into the playoffs as a Wild Card team. Two of the most amazing games I’ve ever been a part of were Game 163 in Colorado, the way that ended with Matt Holliday’s slide at home. And then Game 163 in Pittsburgh, the blackout game where Cueto dropped the ball. Russell Martin hits the home run over the North Shore Notch and the fan base just erupted. They were building up to that the entire last six weeks of the season in Pittsburgh. It was an incredible home-field place to play with the vibe of the fans and a beautiful Ballpark. It became special again.”

Q: What are some life lessons you learned while managing?

Hurdle: “When I say you need to learn how to lose, you need to lose. You need to understand why you lost. For me, from a baseball perspective, it was always about meeting the demands of the game. Did you throw first-pitch strikes? Did you get the lead-off hitter out? How many guys did you walk? Did you play good defense? There are tipping points throughout the game where you need to meet the demands of the game. When you meet the demands of the game, you put yourself in a pretty good position to win. 

“So, in life, it’s the same thing. You make choices. We have freedom of choice down here on Earth. What we don’t have is the freedom to decide the consequences of our choices. And that’s what I learned over time. I made a lot of choices that turned out not to be very good choices and there was collateral damage that came with those choices. 

“Whether it was for me personally, for my family, for people I love, or for people I cared about. You learn as you go. I talk about winning and learning. I don’t talk a lot about winning and losing, because the only time you lose, for me, is if you don’t learn something. And of course, I did do some of that where, if I didn’t like something, I’d usually try it twice to make sure I didn’t like it. I was a very stubborn guy in a lot of different ways. I felt like I knew what was best for me and I learned over the years. Sometimes, I still don’t know what’s best for me.”

Q: Which life lessons do you most want to share with other people?

Hurdle: “There’s two different sets of lessons and they need to have three small parts. But number one, I learned in recovery that I cannot control what other people say, think or do. For much of my life, I tried to control what other people said, what other people did and what other people thought. I tried to leverage everything out of every situation for my betterment. The game wears you out. Those activities wear you out. The mental strain wears you out. 

“By the end of the day you are worn out and it becomes so competitive you don’t even realize that the only person you really compete against is yourself. So that would be the first one, that I can’t control what other people say, think or do. I let all that stuff go. That would be the first step. 

“The other step is what I’ve used with anybody I’ve tried to develop a relationship with for as long as I’ve been in coaching. There were three questions I had as a young player. The sooner I found out that I could get those three questions answered, for players and coaches who I’ve worked with, the better off we both were. 

“Number one is, ‘Can I trust you?’ Number two is, ‘Can you make me better?’ And number three is, ‘Do you care about me?’ I’m of the opinion that nobody will let you coach them until they’ve decided to trust you. I’d listen to some guys, but if I didn’t trust them, it didn’t go very far. But if I trusted a guy, there was probably nothing I wouldn’t try. I’d watch how he’d work. Is this coach about me? Is he coaching for himself? Is he a transactional coach or is he a transformational coach? Is he actually trying to help the players get to the best situation or is this about him winning another ring? Him getting another contract? 

“So, earning their trust is most important, number one. By earning their trust, they’ll give you a chance to coach them up down the road. By showing them that you care about them, other than their specific skillset, that earns you street cred with them. What about the guy (behind the skills)? He came from a broken home. He helped his mom raise his two sisters. He likes to read books. He likes to get away from the ballpark. He’s got a dog. You pick up these little coins and things about somebody. So, when you go to talk to him, you’re not talking to him about the game. 

“Have you ever had a coach in your life where, when he started walking to you, you just dropped your head and went, ‘Oh no, here comes coach?’ You don’t want to be that guy. But those would be the biggest things I would wanna share with people. I can’t control what other people say, think or do. And I try to get those three questions answered in any kind of relationship I’m in. Can I trust you? Do you care about me? And can you make me better?”

Q: Would you ever want to manage in MLB again?

Hurdle: “It’s something that I’ve been thinking about more often now. For the last three years I’ve worked with Colorado, they invited me back. I was there for a long time, 14 years. I work in our player development side because that’s the side I wanted to work in, with our young players, our young coaches and our young managers. So my finger’s been on the pulse of the game. 

“There’s still a handful of Managers in the big leagues right now who I talk to. There are people, former General Managers of mine who I stay in touch with. I think I’m in a spot where it would be an act of G-d. It would have to be the right situation, the right time. But I would consider it. I would not say I’m 100% out, but I’m not expecting another opportunity either. It would have to be the right situation with the right group of people and we’ve got a lot of common fabric in the goals that we’re gonna try and accomplish together.”

There you have it, a litany of lessons that can affect a broad spectrum of life, both on the ballfield and away from it. There are no shortcuts in life or in the game and Clint Hurdle has spent many years learning everything he is now expounding in this interview as well as in his new book. It just goes to show you, you’re never too young or too old to learn something important that can have a big impact on your life.

photos provided by Clint Hurdle.