For New Author Clint Hurdle, A Timely Return To The Reeling Rockies

Clint Hurdle is a book publicist’s dream: A first-time author who lands a high-profile new job almost immediately after his book hits the shelves.

Of course, the new high-profile job is helping steer the Colorado Rockies out of a miserable start that has them on pace to lose more games than any baseball team in the last 125 years.

Which means there are no book tours and signings but plenty of opportunities for Hurdle — the former manager of the Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates who returned to Colorado as a hitting coach Apr. 17 before becoming the bench coach for Warren Schaeffer following the firing of manager Bud Black on May 11— to deliver the messages in “Hurdle-isms,” which was released in February by Wiley.

“I’ve done hard before,” Hurdle said at Citi Field earlier this month prior to the Rockies’ game against the New York Mets. “My first tenure with the Rockies as manager, it was hard. And then in Pittsburgh we did hard together. There’s an old saying you make your plans and God laughs. ‘You think you’ve done hard?’”

With that, Hurdle laughs.

“‘No, no, son, I’ve got a hard for you,’” Hurdle said. “That’s kind of where I’m at right now.”

The book, consisting of 25 “Hurdle-isms” divided into five parts — spring, summer, All-Star Break, fall and off-season in honor of the baseball calendar— was born out of a lifetime of lessons absorbed on and off the diamond by Hurdle.

He was drafted in the first round by the Royals in 1975, made the cover of Sports Illustrated with the headline THIS YEAR’S PHENOM in 1978, managed the Rockies to their lone World Series appearance in 2007 and directed the Pirates to their only playoff berths this century from 2013-2015.

But he’s also the player who never collected 500 at-bats in a season and made his last big league appearance a month before his 30th birthday, the manager who was unceremoniously fired by the Rockies and Pirates and the man who has been divorced twice and arrested twice for driving while under the influence.

“I think one of the most encouraging things has been I’ve gotten responses back from boys and girls, males and females, teenagers, men and women in sports, out of sports, educators — all across the gamut,” Hurdle said. “So from my perspective that’s been encouraging, because it’s a book about lessons learned. I try to tie a professional point and a personal point with each one of them.”

Each Hurdle-ism is tinged with a reminder to maintain a positive attitude throughout times both challenging and prosperous. Hurdle-ism no. 2, “Shower Well,” urges readers to leave bad days behind once they are complete. Hurdle-ism no. 10, “Build Your Mount Rushmore,” advises people to surround themselves with a versatile group of confidants who will offer honest feedback.

Hurdle-ism no. 20, “Don’t Lose Your Stuff,” starts out as a tale about remaining patient with children who lose expensive items and morphs into a lesson about maintaining composure. Hurdle-ism no. 19, “Honor the Exit,” uses his firings by the Rockies and Pirates as examples of departing a job in a grateful and non-contentious manner.

“Not all 25 fit everybody,” Hurdle said. “Some of them, it may have happened to them before or it’s happening to them now. And some of them actually say ‘You know what, if I run into this, I think I’m better prepared on a way to attack it.’”

Several of the Hurdle-isms are particularly relevant for the Rockies, whose 13-55 record has them on pace to finish 31-131 — or 10 games worse than last season’s Chicago White Sox, who lost the most games since 1901.

Hurdle coined Hurdle-ism no. 18, “We Don’t Have Time to Have ‘Just Another Day,’” in spring training 2012 to reinforce to the Pirates — who were in the midst of 19 straight sub-.500 seasons, the longest streak in American pro sports history — that they needed to show improvement in some way every day.

“We need to look at today as the day we take a step forward,” Hurdle said on June 1. “As I’ve said to anyone I know well enough, they go ‘Well, what does this year look like?’ I said ’It’s going to be a complete summer of teaching and coaching and much patience is going to be needed.’”

Hurdle-isms no. 14 and no. 15 — “Build The House” and “There’s No Guarantee You’re Going to Get to Sip Lemonade by the Pool” — are reminders to stay focused on the small details of the Rockies’ rebuilding job, even and especially if the task is so large that not everybody involved at the moment will get to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Hurdle’s decision to emerge from his semi-retirement gig as a special assistant with the Rockies and return to the bench at age 67 is rooted in Hurdle-ism no. 13, “Honored to Serve. Humbled to Help.”

“I didn’t see this coming,” Hurdle said. “When people that you love ask for your help, you have options. You either direct them where they can go for help and tell them other people that can help, or you can just run to the storm. A term that I use is buffalo run to the storm so they get through it quicker. Cows run away from the storm and end up staying in it longer. So I ended up running through the storm.”

Writing the book also provided Hurdle an opportunity to live Hurdle-ism no. 7, “Develop a White-Belt Mentality.” Hurdle’s son, Christian, is a karate student who reminded his Dad that living as if he’s wearing the white belt — the belt presented to karate newcomers — offers a chance to continually learn new things.

Hurdle initially wanted a ghost writer but was encouraged by Jon Gordon, a friend and best-selling author who coined the term “Hurdle-isms,” to pen the book himself.

Hurdle, who has journaled in longhand for decades and shares daily thoughts with a group of friends on an email chain, said he wrote the book while on flights going to and from the Rockies’ minor league affiliates. When publishers initially turned down the proposal because Hurdle wasn’t active on social media, Christian helped Clint establish accounts on Instagram (Clint.hurdle13) and the site formerly known as Twitter (ClintHurdle13).

Hurdle said he enjoyed the editing process and took pride took in writing 20,112 words for a book whose proposal called for 20,000 words. He also said he isn’t a procrastinator, which means most of his fellow writers could surely use some Hurdle-isms on how to be more punctual.

So might there be more books — Hurdle-isms or otherwise — in his future?

“We had probably 50 whittled down to 25,” Hurdle said. “I’ve had probably two dozen people say ‘Hey, you need to share this (Hurdle-ism) because it was a good experience.’ So we’ll see.

“I’m taking it one step at a time. And we’ll see if there’s any interest in another book along these lines and then do the journaling. Who knows?”