A blast from the past was waiting for me at the airport and offers us all a reminder to use when we engage developers.

You may know that I’m a baseball fan. I even made a special trip to see ​the final game in Oakland​.

In fact, it was while looking for my friend in baggage claim that I saw another familiar face.

He was walking toward me, wheeled suitcase rolling behind him. The first thing I noticed was that he only had one arm. But then, instant recognition.

I knew him.

Dave Dravecky was an All Star pitcher, a lefty who threw four different types of fastballs. When diagnosed with cancer in his pitching arm, it looked like his career was over.

He had surgery to remove the cancer and much of his deltoid muscle. Less than a year (and plenty of rehab) later, he miraculously returned to the mound. He threw 98 pitches over eight innings and got his team the win.

Five days later, he was on track to repeat. He’d allowed no runs over five innings. But then came the fateful sixth inning. As he delivered a pitch, his arm snapped. The bone had been weakened by cancer treatment.

Dravecky would retire later that year. Then, with infections and cancer plaguing his arm, he’d have it amputated.

Now, a couple of decades later, that was the guy walking toward me in baggage claim.

“Dave?” I said before even thinking about it.

“And you are?” he said, as if he might know me.

I introduced myself and told him that he helped me become a fan. I shared that I was in town to see a game. Before long, we were in a lengthy discussion like you might expect from any two baseball fans.

It’s typical to turn sports players into idols. To make them seem like more than a person.

Marketers can make the same mistake with developers. They lump them together as some amorphous force.

Obviously, developers are people. But it’s easy to forget that when you are trying to market to them.

When you remember they are people, you realize you can:

• Talk to them
• Ask them questions
• Identify their frustrations

Or hopes or dreams or goals or reasons why they care so much about that one Python library.

The one-armed man at baggage claim talked to me like we were two normal people. Because that’s exactly what we are.

Before we parted ways, I asked to take a photo with my new buddy Dave.

I swear he’s having almost as good a time as I am.