PHILADELPHIA -- The road to greatness can't be traveled on talent alone. It's a journey of the mind, a journey of the soul, a journey that begins with an understanding of a single overriding principle:
You can't ever be great -- at anything -- unless you aspire to be great.
Well, allow us to introduce you to a guy who gets that. Every bit of that. He's your reigning National League pitcher of the month, a former No. 1 pick in the country and a man who has all the makings of The Next Huge Thing in this sport.
He's rapidly ascending Pittsburgh Pirates ace Gerrit Cole. He's now 5-1, with a 2.32 ERA, this year. And to understand where he's heading in this game, you don't even have to watch him pitch -- although we'd highly recommend it. Just listen to how people talk about him.
From Cole's manager, Clint Hurdle: "We had a conversation, I think it was after his game in Chicago, where I said, 'You looked like you got to a point in the game where you just weren't going to let anybody else play.' And he goes, 'Yeah, that's kind of what I tried to do.' And I said, 'I've only seen a handful of guys who could do that, young man. That was impressive.' I saw [Dwight] Gooden do it. I saw Nolan [Ryan] do it. I saw [Steve] Carlton do it. There came a point in time where they just said, 'I've had enough.' That's pretty good company. I know that. And I don't mean to do that. Just, you see things that you see. And you only see them with certain individuals."
From Cole's center fielder, Andrew McCutchen: "He looks like a guy who's saying, 'You can't hit me. You can't hit this stuff. You can't hit my fastball. You can't hit my pitches.' And that's great to be able to see that, because I love it. That's how I feel when I'm hitting. You can't strike me out. If you do, you didn't strike me out. I struck myself out. And that's what you see in him. ... It's great. He's a gamer. I love his mentality when he's out there on the mound."
From an American League scout: "If he just keeps going the way he's going, you're going to look up in a few months, or maybe a year, and put him on that short list of the very best pitchers in the game. He's got a chance to be as good as any of them."
And, finally, there's this, from Cole's pitching coach, Ray Searage: "What he has is God-given. It's in his DNA. He wants to be the best of the best. And I challenged him with that saying two years ago. I said, 'Instead of just being good, why don't you be the best of the best? God blessed you with something -- talent. So why not be the best of the best?' ... We were just talking about some old-timers, guys who are in the Hall of Fame: Nolan Ryan and the way he pitched. Roger Clemens. Pedro Martinez. And I said, 'You've got the talent to be just as good as them.' So I said, 'Why don't you be better than them? Why don't you be the best of the best, because you've got it.'"
Searage and Cole had that fateful conversation standing in the outfield one day during batting practice. It was Gerrit Cole's first season in the big leagues. His days pitching at UCLA were only two years deep in his rearview mirror. But those words -- "the best of the best" -- got his attention. Those names -- Nolan, Roger, Pedro -- got his attention. Then again, how couldn't they?
"He was amazed," Searage said. "He was like, 'Those guys are really good.' I said, 'They started out just like you. It didn't happen overnight. The baseball fairy didn't hit them over the top of the head and go boom, you're a Hall of Famer. They worked at it. And it's day in and day out. It's the grind. But knowing that the possibilities are beyond your imagination of what you can do, that's what you strive for.'"
And that, in fact, is exactly what Gerrit Cole strives for. That level. Those possibilities. Those careers. Except he doesn't just train his sights on the guys who have come before him. He turns his eyes to the best of the best RIGHT NOW.
Clayton Kershaw. Adam Wainwright. Johnny Cueto. Jon Lester. Zack Greinke. And his teammate/friend/guru, A.J. Burnett. Those are the names Cole drops. Those are the pitchers he's trying to emulate. What they've done -- that's what he wants to do. Where they've gone in their careers -- that's where he wants to go.
"There's getting to the big leagues, and there's staying in the big leagues," Cole said earlier this year, in a conversation before Wainwright got hurt. "And then, I think, you have to look at the top-tier guys, and you have to look at the greats in the game, and try to dissect what they do that separates them from everybody else.
"There's a baseline talent level, a baseline work ethic here, to be able to sustain yourself at this level. And I think there are guys like Clayton and Waino, those guys who just seem like they keep showing up every year and putting up these insane numbers, and we're all trying to chase them.
"And that's developed over a long period of time for them, their work ethic. And there are a lot of different separators. The mental game. And paying attention to detail. And taking care of your body. There are a lot of different variables. I think you not only have to be a good baseball player, but you have to be good at taking care of your body and doing all those other things ... that elevate you to that next level."
And so, at 24 years old, after just 48 big league starts, Cole has turned his attention to mastering every one of those separators.
The physical side? It isn't lost on this guy that his strength and conditioning coach, Brendon Huttmann, used to work closely with Kershaw in their days together with the Dodgers. So what a coincidence (not) that Cole has integrated many of Kershaw's conditioning drills into his own program.
The mental side? Cole is just as fixated on the part of these games that is played in the mind. So he's completely absorbed by every opportunity to watch the best pitchers alive reach for their own brand of greatness. If a Wainwright or a Kershaw is pitching, you can bet your iPad that Gerrit Cole is watching.
"The biggest thing that stands out for me from Wainwright is, I can't tell if he's pitching in April or he's pitching in October," Cole said. "His demeanor is his own brand. It's him. You know what you're going to get. ... It's just his ability, it always seems, to string a couple of things together. We can get a walk or a base hit. But his approach, his demeanor, never really changes. And he keeps coming at you, as if he knows it's going to work. And he knows those are the only two things you're going to put together. And he just seems to always be able to put his foot down when the door maybe starts to creep open. And Clayton -- he doesn't really let you open the door at all.
"And there are a lot of different ways to do it. I mean, Cueto is a different bird than Wainwright is. And Greinke is different than Kershaw. So there are a lot of different ways to go about it. But I think the common thing is attention to detail. And focus on every single rep, whether that's a [fielding drill], a throw, an arm exercise in the training room, a warm-up. Every single thing is done with high focus, high attention to detail, and done with a purpose, as if it's the most important single thing that needs to be done."
So when it's Gerrit Cole's turn to throw a bullpen session between starts, "he wants it to be the best bullpen he can possibly throw," Hurdle said. When it's time to practice, "this guy's practices are intense," his manager said. And when it's time to absorb the meaning of every trip to the mound, "he's grown in every outing because he's learning from every outing," Hurdle said.
One of the manager's rituals is to have a chat with his starting pitchers the day after their start, just so something emerges from those outings beyond another line in the box score. But Hurdle's conversations with his rotation's rising star often travel in different directions than even he anticipates, because he's dealing with a guy who is thinking through every moment out there.
"I think there are certain guys you can go different places with," Hurdle said of Cole. "He's got a lot of depth. And the awareness he has as the game goes on, he's able to hold on to. I've also dealt with athletes where, when you ask about yesterday's game they go, 'What?' ... because they just do it. But with Gerrit, he knows what he did, how he did and why he did."
That intelligence, that depth and that awareness were already there the day the Pirates drafted Cole at the very top of the 2011 draft. And the 100 mph smokeball that came with it was on vivid display a mere two years later, on the unforgettable afternoon of Oct. 5, 2013 -- the day this guy flashed across America's postseason radar screen with six dominating, two-hit, high-voltage innings against a Cardinals lineup that had thrashed Burnett for seven runs just the day before.
Afterward, names like Smoltz, Beckett and Verlander were tossed around in the who'd-that-remind-you-of conversations. But other than the pure, electric stuff, there is less resemblance than you'd think between the Gerrit Cole who put on a show that day and the guy who just won his first pitcher of the month award a couple of weeks ago.
"I didn't have as many weapons then as I do now," Cole reminisced this week. "And I didn't have that comfortableness I have now. That was the first time I'd faced the Cardinals. So Matt Holliday stepped into the box and I was like, 'Oh, that's Matt Holliday.' Now it's just a little different. I have a little bit of history with those guys. ... So now, it's about playing the game."
The Gerrit Cole of 2013 had a million ideas in his head about what he wanted to do. And thanks to the lightning bolts that kept flying out of his right hand, he was able to do enough of them to win an unforgettable October baseball game.
But this Gerrit Cole, the 2015 edition, has the consistent, repeatable delivery and the total grasp of the game plan to actually do those things. And if you've been paying attention since late last summer, you've seen the eye-popping results.
Since Labor Day, Cole has gone to the mound 12 times -- and gone 9-1, with a 2.62 ERA, 86 strikeouts in 75.2 innings and 12 consecutive starts allowing three earned runs or fewer. No pitcher in the big leagues has won more games than he has in that span. And don't be shocked if that trend continues.
"The one thing he's done this year that he's done better than he ever did before," Hurdle said, "is he's down more and he's up less. And that power slider is playing. I mean, those are weapons."
So now the question becomes: How far can those weapons, those smarts and that competitive inferno carry him?
It's actually shocking to look back at all the pitchers taken with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft over the past half-century and see that NONE of them turned into a Hall of Famer, or won more than 155 games in the big leagues. Only one -- David Price -- went on to win a Cy Young. Besides Price, just one other top pick -- Andy Benes -- ever won as many as 18 games in a season. And Cole is only the sixth to even win a pitcher of the month award.
But the new ace in Pittsburgh has the ability -- and the hunger for greatness -- to mess up all of those stats. And just remember you heard that here first.
"Oh, he definitely has the potential to do that," said Ray Searage. "And I hope he does."