Books have been written about it, and speeches have been given: Baseball teaches lessons that business leaders should heed.

Keep your eye on the ball. Build a good team of players who know the fundamentals. But have you ever heard the advice from a good baseball player who actually applied the Zen talk about baseball's yin to business's yang?

No? Then meet Edgar Martinez. The Seattle Mariners' star slugger, who retired after the 2004 season, is putting those hard-earned lessons into practice at his new promotional merchandise company.

Just call him Edgar. I felt compelled to do that earlier this year, when I met him and his partners to talk about Branded Solutions by Edgar Martinez, the company he started in December 2006 with the goal of providing promotional merchandise and apparel to Fortune 500 companies.

Edgar, now 44, is dressed casually in jeans and a buttoned short-sleeved shirt. Perhaps my need to forgo formality and call him by his first name is like the need to call Arnold Schwarzenegger Ahnuld. He invites informality. Edgar is affable, beloved by Mariners fans, rooted in his community, remembered as a relentless competitor on the field, and known as a gracious citizen in his life after baseball.

Edgar's office, tucked away in an unassuming Redmond office park, is softly lit and accented by hardwood floors. Inside, Jeff Holt, director of marketing, turns to me and asks if I want a drink.

"Yes, um, water would be great," I stammer.

"I'll get you something," Edgar says, getting up and returning with a Dasani.

Edgar, a former All-Star known for his clutch hitting, believes what he learned in baseball translates to his new business venture. To him, it's not rah-rah talk to be dismissed.

The first translation? Visualization. "In baseball," Edgar says, "you have to see yourself having success." So, if you want to hit the ball, you have to see how that fastball or curveball will come at you, your mind's eye training your body to connect bat to ball. "I needed to be the best hitter I could be," Edgar says. "I had that picture in my mind."

The same goes for setting goals in business, he says. "In business, you want to hit the target for the year."

Edgar wasn't hitting the target often enough with his first venture, Caribbean Apparel, a company he began more than a decade ago that focused on providing embroidery services to corporate, retail and wholesale businesses.

Edgar found new partners and changed the name of his company to Branded Solutions to focus on providing a full range of promotional products. "Now we are a fullservice merchandise company," he says.

As an example of what that means, Branded Solutions plans to work with Fortune 500 companies to display their logos on golf balls, hats, shirts or other items, and to support their product launches and special events.

Edgar put his own name in the new company's title to give himself an extra edge. "When the name is recognized, it does create an opportunity," he says. With eight employees and experienced new partners, Edgar hopes to see his new company grow at a far more rapid clip than his previous company did.

The second translation? Just as the game isn't over after everyone has left the field, work isn't over after the business day is done. Competition "makes you work harder," Edgar says; it "makes you stay longer and work out after the game."

Promotional merchandising may be one of the most competitive businesses out there, but it's also a good one for former athletes to get into, says Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. "You are probably a well-known name in corporate circles that can generate a lot of leads and referrals to get the business going," he says.