Petrarch, Griffey, Bublé, and more

From: Seattle Sports Net

On October 8, 1995, Edgar Martinez hit a line drive double to left field. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if star center fielder Ken Griffey Jr. hadn’t scored from second to win the division title against the Yankees. It was in that moment that my favorite number changed from 1 to 24 and, even though I’m right handed, I started batting from the right side of the plate. Griffey became one of my first heroes and people that I would try to emulate in my own life.

While fumbling through a library in Liege, Francesco Petrarch encountered a collection of letters written by Marcus Tullius Cicero. As the story goes, Petrarch was impressed by the letters and began to emulate the ideas from the letters in his own works and life. He saw Cicero as a sort of hero, kind of like what Griffey was to me. As Petrarch continued to draw from stories of the past he inspired the humanism movement. Focus turned from the great works God had done to the great works that man had done. 

Thanks to Petrarch’s inspiration to emulate the past, Machiavelli tried to perfect leadership based on kings and emperors from the past, Sir Thomas More created his Utopia based on the greatest civilizations to exist, and musicians like Michael Bublé and Bruno Mars are emulating the great musicians from recent history like Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson. 

The humanism movement became much larger than the Italian poet, but Petrarch inspired, not just one but several generations of dreamers who, through a little narcissism with a dash of optimism, are creating, inventing, and doing great things.