From our armchairs, we as fans can get frustrated. Many of us will watch a baseball game and see a pitcher walk the bases loaded. Perhaps we’ll see one of a handful of “all glove, no hit” shortstops scraping by with a .250-ish batting average come up to bat with the bases loaded. We might, in not-so-polite words, call them something similar to a “scrub”, lament that our team “always loses because of guys like these”, then curse their contract, the front office, the manager or the baseball gods.

Lest we forget that the guy who is “scraping by” spent their entire lives at the ball field, away from their friends and families and children, to be one of the 700 best people on the planet at a game. Their late high school afternoons and early college mornings spent not as often at a party or at a coffee shop, but in the batting cage, doing fielding drills or in the weight room might result in nothing more than the honor of becoming the first strikeout victim of a future Hall of Famer.

We also forget that there are tens of thousands of ballplayers who don’t even earn the cup of coffee that even the briefest major leaguer savors a sip of. According to a 2013 report by Sports Interaction posted on USAToday, only 0.6% of American high school players and 11.6% of college players ever make the major leagues. For those lucky enough to stick, the average major league career is just 5.6 years long. Some of us have spent longer trying to graduate from college.

Baseball is a rough sport, probably much rougher on the players than the fans that root (or heckle) those ballplayers. The truth is there’s a lot of failure in baseball. After spending their entire life pursing their dream, they dig in their fingernails to hang on as tight as possible to their major league opportunity, all while “failing”. For hitters, they “fail” to reach base in over 60% of their at-bats or drive in a run maybe once every two games, if they are good (and lucky). For pitchers, they “fail” to win most of the games they pitch in. Ballplayers often fail. Some fail permanently.

Why do they go through that? If it’s the pipe dream of making money, the aspirations of many of those high school and college players get thrown out with the bathwater. Then perhaps, what motivates players to play, to put up with the slumps and the failures and push through them, is that very competition. The chance that on any given night, that they can do something good, if not great.

You have to love baseball and the competition it brings to keep you fueled enough to make it through the daily, monthly, yearly, life-long grind. Yeah, a grind, punctuated by long hours away from home and hearth, flying out to an East/West Coast game, plodding through offseason workouts just to be greeted in the trainer’s room after a hard-worked day riddled with missed opportunities, bad bounces and being a split second late on a 95 mile per hout fastball.

Troy Tulowitzki is one of those fortunate few who has not only worked, but studied his whole life, to become a great baseball player. Few players in recent memory can dominate both the offensive and defensive side of a baseball game like he can. Yet, even he has had his own struggles and failures, including a demotion to the minor leagues shortly after helping to lead the Rockies to the World Series in 2007.

So, I was curious how he got to be the player he is today and was fortunate enough to receive the opportunity to ask him. I wanted to get some insight into how one of the best players in the game “got good”. And, as an aside, I reflected on the answers he gave because I truly wanted to learn, not just about him, but about this game of baseball that I grew up loving. I put my thoughts in italics to make it a little easier to read.

Richard Bergstrom: What were you like in Little League in High school? Were you always a shortstop?

Troy Tulowitzki: It’s the only position I ever played. Even in T-Ball I was a shortstop.

RB: You lived in the Bay Area when Rockies Manager Walt Weiss was a shortstop with the Oakland Athletics. What do you remember of Weiss as a player?

TT: I remember him vividly, I watched all those A’s shortstops. I’d always go to batting practice and watch those guys take ground balls. So I remember Walt. He was a good player. A good winning player, a piece of the team. He’d be the first one to tell you he wasn’t a superstar but if you take Walt Weiss off those teams, I’m not sure they win.

Those A’s teams that Weiss was on (1987-1992) went to the World Series three times from 1988-1990 and returned to the playoffs in 1992 included the “Bash Brothers” of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and the best leadoff hitter and base stealer in history in Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson. Yet a young Tulowitzki, no more than 8 years old, made it a point to also watch Weiss with the .250-ish batting average. A good choice, since Weiss, in his postseason career, stole 8 bases and scored 18 runs.

RB: What is your favorite part about hitting?

TT: It’s a one-on-one battle to try to beat that guy. I think competing is probably my favorite thing about hitting.

RB: What did you find difficult as a hitter?

TT: I think failure. Dealing with failure. Most people in this locker room had a lot of success in their early years so when they get to the big leagues and deal with failure or even the minor leagues and deal with failure for the first time, it’s tough to take. It’s probably the biggest adjustment I think.

In a comment on former Cubs outfielder Corey Patterson, Baseball Prospectus once wrote that “What distinguishes a typical major leaguer from a typical minor leaguer is the ability to learn and improve.” As a young Cubs fan experiencing not only Patterson’s struggles, but those of Mark Prior, Kevin Orie and Felix Pie, Tulowitzki’s comments hit home for me.

RB: Do you have a favorite pitcher to face?

TT: In the big leagues, they’re all good pitchers and they are there for a reason. I don’t have a favorite and at no point in time do I go in to a game thinking it’s going to be easy.

RB: What is your favorite play to make on defense?

TT: Any double play, probably, is a big moment. It gets the momentum on our side. Two outs for one play.

RB: What is one thing that was hard for you to learn to do as a fielder?

TT: I put in a lot of work at fielding so, I felt like if there was any part of my game I was most prepared for, it was on the defensive side of baseball.

One thing that came across to me during our interview was how refreshingly frank Tulowitzki is. I like how he acknowledges when he is good at something and also how he does not take other major league pitchers, regardless of “star” status, for granted.

RB: What is one thing you think high school players could do better?

TT: Hard work. A lot of big leaguers will say that. But put in the time and trust that the work will pay off. If you outwork people you will get to where you want to go most times. Trying to emulate your favorite players is always important, whether it be a pitcher or position player, it will help your game.

As Thomas Harding reported in March of 2004, Tulowitzki’s favorite player is Derek Jeter. Tulowitzki said “Ever since I’ve known this game from a kid, Derek was always in it,” Tulowitzki said. “Watching him, playing against him, trying to be like him, it’s always been in the game for me.”

Compared to other players, Tulowitzki has already accomplished a lot in his career. I was at the game on August 11th, 2009 when he hit for the cycle (and as a side note, was the first use of video replay at Coors Field). He’s the 13th Major League Baseball player ever to complete an unassisted triple play and, ironically, was also a victim of a triple play later that year.

So I asked him…

RB: Which of your accomplishments are you the most proud of?

TT: Probably winning, probably going to the World Series, especially in my rookie year. I know it’s not easy to get to that point and to do that in my first year is pretty cool and it’s something I’ll always remember.

As in the above links, in each article he was gracious about his personal accomplishments, preferring not to distract from the team and from winning.

RB: What do you think is the strangest play you might have been involved in? Either in the majors or the minors or little league or something you wouldn’t expect to see on a ball field that surprised you?

TT: I’m not sure about the strangest play. The scariest was by far was when Juan Nicasio got hit in the head. It was probably the most shook up I’ve been on the field. We didn’t know if he was going to make it or not. He ended up breaking his neck. It’s not answering the question, but it’s probably the most I’ve ever been shellshocked on the field.

I guess I expected a funny response. What I got instead was a great, personal response. I watched that play on television and will keep rooting for Nicasio. The idea that particular incident, among all the baseball Tulowitzki has experienced, stood out to him humbled me.

RB: Do you think the game of baseball has changed since you grew up? If so, how?

TT: Yeah, it has changed. If you look at how it’s ran, all the drug tests that we do each and every day and I think it’s changed for the better. Hopefully it keeps improving until there is no doubt that players aren’t cheating.

RB: Not counting winning the World Series, what is one thing you would like to do or be a part of in a baseball game that you haven’t done yet?”

TT: I think being a part of any win is special. That’s what I come to the park for every day. Just to win in general is always nice. It’s been good so far this year.

Jeter was a winner. Weiss was a winner. Tulowitzki grew up watching both those guys and is trying, still, to emulate them. So many players who struggle in the minors or get booed in the majors keep trying, keep grinding it out and winning even a single baseball game can be a validation for all the hours and years of effort. That’s why even the best players find winning special.