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.