PREFACE

There have been days since November 2, 2016—the date my Chicago Cubs teammates and I won the World Series in the greatest Game Seven in history—when I have had to pinch myself. Incredible doesn’t even begin to capture the feeling.

I knew coming into the 2016 season that it would be my last as a player in professional baseball. I also knew I was on a team that was loaded with talent and was, from the opening day, the favorite to win the Series. It took a lot for true Cubs fans to believe those oddsmakers. I mean for 108 years the Cubs have left those fans brokenhearted. Could this team really do it? Selfishly, could I get the chance to go out having won rings in both Chicago and Boston?

Knowing this was it, I did a number of things in this last season I had never done. I made it a point throughout the year to enjoy the cities we traveled to—I toured New York, played golf at Pebble Beach, made the most of towns I really only had a hotel-room view of in the past. I was lucky that my family could travel with me far more than in any year since my wife and I had children. I also found an app on my phone that allowed me to keep notes, and I’ll be sharing entries from that “iPhone Journal” throughout this book.

But the biggest thing I did was reflect.

As it happened, a friend of mine, longtime Sports Illustrated writer Don Yaeger, caught me during one of those reflective moments with a crazy idea—maybe it was time to write a book. I have to admit, when Don mentioned the idea I was scared. I have seen people write books and it ruined the reputation they worked hard to build. That is the last thing I wanted to do. But the more the 2016 season went on and I received so much credit for things that others have taught me, I knew this was something I had to do. Key point here: This is a book about how people along the way affected me and helped me become a better teammate.

The idea of me writing a book might have, on some days, seemed ridiculous. Who would buy a book from a longtime backup catcher, right? But the idea Don came up with made sense. See, for all but a short stint of my career I have been a backup. I have never been an All-Star, never led my team in any offensive category. But my career was marked, especially over the last few years, by constant effort to get better both on the field and off. You see, because of an eye-opening experience with Theo Epstein, I made the effort a number of years ago to focus on being a great teammate. Then I went out and worked hard every day to be exactly that.

That’s another key point—being a great teammate is work, hard work. It requires intention and discipline, just like becoming a better hitter or a better salesperson. But it is a skill set that I believe others, like me, can learn. Don’s idea was that this book be about exactly that, passing along all that I’ve learned from others on an important subject: how to make yourself valuable, even if you’re not the most valuable. You see, the teammate I am today is not who I was fifteen years ago! I have tried to take how others have made me feel and use that feeling, good or bad, to be a better teammate. I have learned from some of the best, and share these stories about them here to say thank you for investing in me.

I agreed to write the book way back in the beginning of the 2016 season.

Then the magic carpet ride just kept going. The Cubs kept exceeding even the wild expectations that were being thrown out there and we were having fun doing it. The team’s enthusiasm became infectious, even to people who might not otherwise have been fans. I heard regularly how people enjoyed watching us enjoy working with each other.

Of all sports, I believe baseball has the greatest connection to the “real” world. It is a grind. If your team is good, you will still lose sixty times in a season. If you’re good offensively, you will still fail more than seven of every ten times you get a chance to do your job. To be successful as a team or as an individual, you have to be able to manage through lots of “dog days.” Imagine having to be encouraging to others while fighting through that grind as a backup! To be honest with everyone around you, humble no matter how good things get, reliable and consistent so that everyone knows what to expect, to willingly share your experiences with others—including those who might one day take your job!—to manage change with a smile on your face and stay engaged with everyone so that you can know how best to inspire them.

That is what it takes to be a great teammate.

Here’s hoping that as you read this book you’ll have fun hearing my stories and reliving the magic of the 2016 season. Just as important, I hope you take something away from the book about how to be a good teammate. That’s why I wrote it.

David Ross

February 2017