Position and opportunity, patience, and when the time is right—go!
Turns out, stealing bases on the ballfield is a pretty good metaphor for life. Tim Locastro knows all about it, since he holds the current record in Major League Baseball for consecutive stolen bases (28!) to start a career.
When the Toronto Blue Jays drafted Tim in 2013 after his junior year at IC (and let’s not forget, Division III is not your typical pipeline to the Big Leagues), he spent years bouncing around the minor leagues with different clubs, awaiting that moment all players hope for: getting called up. Those years on farm teams offered valuable lessons.
“If you're not able to adapt to change, it's very hard to make it in baseball,” Tim says. Because change can come in like a high, tight fastball. You can go to bed one night and the next morning find out you’re being sent to the other side of the country to join a team of total strangers.
It was a hard lesson to learn at first, he admits, but words of wisdom from his father proved invaluable: “Control what you can control.” Tim made the most of all his professional opportunities by focusing on being a good teammate and contributing to the collective effort, regardless of which team he found himself with.
“Move forward and help. If you help the team win games, you're going to get noticed. I can guarantee that,” Tim says.
