From Clubhouse to Conference Room: How Professional Baseball Prepared Me for a Business Career

Lessons on feedback, teamwork, and staying hyper-focused from former San Francisco Giants player Jeff Burke

Photo: Tim Cattera

This month marks two years since I received the news that would change my life: The San Francisco Giants were releasing me as a player. Read: I was fired. This was the end of a dream I’d been pursuing my entire life.

In terms of my career, I was back at zero. Imagine going from the top 1% of your craft to a brand-new starting line with no direction. To illustrate just how lost I was, my first post-baseball venture was working on a cattle ranch in Montana. After shoveling manure and getting tossed off my horse for two weeks straight, it was pretty obvious that being a cowboy was not my next step.

Eventually, I returned to San Francisco to start a very different kind of career: I spent 11 months at Cisco, then pivoted to management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group.

When I left baseball, I retreated to the first bullpen I could find. Let’s just say it was not the best fit. Photo courtesy of the author.

As I look back at the past two years, I’ve come to realize that baseball prepared me far better…