Team Texas 2015: Mental Approach
Handling Failure
The proper mental attitude for a hitter is to first understand that you will fail more times than you succeed. Notice I didn't say accept failure, I said understand that you will fail. There is a big difference between the two.
To illustrate the difficulty of hitting a pitched ball, the greatest hitters that ever played the game "failed" nearly seven of every ten times they stepped to the plate!
The last player to hit for an average of .400 or better was Ted Williams, in 1941! Nearly 60 years have passed. Since then every player has failed a minimum of 60% of the time. Every single player for nearly 60 years has failed more often than he has succeeded!
That said, what is failure? In the scene I described earlier in the book about the hitter who made an out moving his teammate into scoring position, did he fail? According to his batting average, yes he did. But every member of his team congratulated him. This player did not fail. Just because you do not reach base safely does not mean you fail.
When you look at a strike three with two outs and the bases loaded, with the outcome of the game on the line, you have failed. You know what? Its going to happen. Nobody is perfect. If you swing at that same pitch and miss, have you failed? Yes. Should you stomp to the dugout, throw your bat, your helmet and kick everything in sight? Never.
Listen, don't think you have to show everybody in the whole world that you are upset at your failure to produce. Trust me, everyone in the ballpark knows how you feel. It isn't necessary to show them. You tried, you failed. All done, can't change it. Can't go back and do it again. Its over, forget it and move on. Did I say accept it? No, understand that failure is part of the game.
What I tell young players is this: If you tried your best and failed, that's the way it goes. Grab the barrel of your bat, run to the dugout and say these words "I'll get ‘em next time!" Say them out loud.
This is what is known as positive affirmation. You are telling yourself that you will do better next time. Be positive. Nothing negative should ever be spoken by a ball player on a ball field. Positive thoughts and positive statements get positive results.
If you learn at an early age to grab the barrel of the bat and run to the dugout with a positive outlook, you will carry that approach with you wherever you go. In competition, or in life. . .get ‘em next time.
Here's another scenario for you: Let's say it is late in the game, the score is tied, the winning run is on third and you are up to bat, you really smash the ball. The ball is sizzling towards center field. The short stop comes out of nowhere and makes a diving catch. You're out! Did you fail? No. Does your batting average say you failed? Yes. Get this straight, success and failure are not dictated by your batting average. Don't get caught up in that. You're goal as a hitter is to go to the plate with a purpose, get a good pitch to hit and hit it hard somewhere. Sometimes it will find a hole and sometimes it will find a glove. You have not failed if you hit the ball. Don't hang your head or cry the blues. If the defense makes a good play, tip your hat. Your job is to hit the ball, his is to field it. "Get ‘em next time!" If you maintain that even keel, you will be a better ball player because of it.
Don't get me wrong. . .I'm as competitive as they come. I understand that there is a tremendous amount of emotion in the game. More so late in a game, if the score is close. But throwing and kicking and spewing negative statements won't change anything that has happened. Understand that the greatest players in the game fail, more times than they succeed. Focus your energy on what is ahead, not what has already happened. What can you do to be successful the next time you come to bat? Think positive. Be positive. You'll be a better ball player and a much better person.
As I mentioned earlier, much of hitting is understanding the game. Baseball is a game of situations. Because baseball is a team game, a successful at-bat may not be one that results in a base hit.
Your time in the on-deck circle should be used to analyze the game situation. How can you help your team when it’s your turn to step into the batter’s box? Will a bunt help the team? A fly ball? Should I try to hit the ball to the opposite field? These questions should be asked, and answered, before you step in to hit.
How many times have you watched a ball game on television and seen a player get high-fives from every player and coach in the dugout for making an out? It happens. Do you think they were happy about the player being out? You bet they were! If he got high-fives, he made what is known as a "good out." One that helps the team win.
Analyzing the situation helps you go up to the plate with a purpose. In and of itself, this mind-set makes you a better hitter. Remember the quote, "You can’t think and hit at the same time," from earlier in the book? I agree with that. But. . . you can think before you step in the box and you can think before each pitch. The smart hitter is sought after at every level of baseball. Be a smart hitter.
How many times have you seen a ball player kneeling on one knee, seemingly doing nothing? He may even be resting his chin on the knob of the bat. What is he doing? Studying. Perhaps the most important thing you can do as a hitter is study the pitcher. He is the one that controls the ball. The one that tries to fool you bad enough to have you strike out, or have you ground the ball weakly to one of the fielders behind him.
How fast is he pitching? Is his fastball in your comfort zone, or will you have to make some adjustments in your timing to catch up to it? What else is he throwing? Does he have an off speed pitch? Does he throw it differently? How about a breaking pitch? Can he locate it, or does he just throw it up there? What pitch does he likely throw when he is ahead in the count? Behind in the count?
These are all factors that you should pay attention to. There are a dozen or more questions you can answer in the on-deck circle that will better prepare you for each at bat. Remember the quote, "Hitting is timing." Well, having a good idea of what a pitcher throws in a given situation will make it easier for you to time the pitch and hit it hard somewhere.
I realize that some of this thought process is pretty advanced, but it is provided here so that you can refer to it as you progress in your ability as a hitter.
One last thing about the on-deck circle: Use that time to be prepared for your at-bat. Limber up and pay attention to the game. This is not the time to flirt with your girlfriend in the stands, pose for a picture for your grandma, or do anything else that detracts you from the game. Hitting is a huge part of baseball. Pay attention in the on-deck circle. You will be a better hitter as a result.
The pitch count should have a direct impact on each swing you take at the plate. Certain pitch counts favor the hitter and certain ones favor the pitcher. Just as the smart pitcher takes advantage of the times he is "ahead in the count," the smart hitter understands when he has the advantage. In these situations, the hitter must capitalize. Or, at least, give it his best.
If you are ahead in the count 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, or 3-1, you should be looking for that "good pitch to hit." Something in your favorite area of the plate that you usually hit hard. Knowing your strong spot is crucial in this situation. If you have no idea where in the strike zone you hit best, then you cannot take advantage of the "hitter’s count" situations. These are the times when you can really look for a pitch and when you get it, really take a strong cut at it.
These "hitter’s counts" are not only ideal situations to look for a ball in a certain area, but are what are known at "fastball counts."
The pitcher does not want to risk throwing another ball and falling further behind in the count. So, you will usually get a fastball in these counts. If you know you are likely to get a fastball, your likelihood for success skyrockets ("hitting is timing".) In addition, on 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 and 3-0 counts, that fastball is going to be "fatter" (thrown more to the center of the strike zone). Strictly because that pitcher does not want to give you a base on balls. These are pitches you should be able to hit to all parts of the ballpark with authority.
On the 1-0 count, although you are ahead, it is early and the pitcher may take a chance with a different pitch. Or he may throw a fastball to a certain location. Certainly, your level of competition and age group play a factor in what might be thrown in these situations.
Up to the age of 15-16 the tendencies that I have described are pretty steadfast. Above that, and on up to the Major Leagues, pitchers have much greater control of a variety of pitches and may be willing to risk throwing something other than a fastball on a "fastball count."
The pitch generally thrown at these higher levels is that particular pitcher’s "best" pitch (which is another good reason to study your opposing pitcher while you are in the on-deck circle). However, studies show that a fastball is still the most likely pitch. Knowing that, and remembering that a large part of hitting is timing, you should look for the fastball. If you get anything else, unless it is so nice you can’t resist hitting it, let it go by.
This is called being patient and waiting for a good pitch to hit. At the very worst the umpire will call it a strike and you deal with the next count.
If you are even in the count 1-1, or down 0-1, you must adopt a different mind-set to be a successful hitter. Approach these counts with the idea that you are going to hit the ball "the other way." One reason for this approach is that you will naturally track the ball a fraction of a second longer, giving you more time to decide if the pitch is going to be a strike.
Additionally, this approach gives you the ability to hit pitches away from you, or on the "outside corner" of the plate. Pitchers like to nibble with borderline pitches to see if batters will chase them. If they do, the pitcher is in control. If not, he has to adjust. Pitchers generally like to nibble on the outside of the plate as that is the most difficult pitch to learn to hit. At higher levels of play the pitcher will "come inside" to set up something "outside" on the next pitch.
When you have two strikes on you it is imperative that you take a "battling" mind-set with you to the plate. This is "war" between you and the pitcher. Cut down on your swing, keep your head still, and intensely track the ball the moment it leaves the pitcher’s hand. Your goal is to "get a piece of it" if it is anywhere close to the strike zone. If you hit it fair. . . fine. If it’s a real tough pitch in a tough location. . .foul it off. The more pitches you make the pitcher throw in these situations, the greater your advantage. First, the pitcher cannot remain perfect. Sooner or later he is going to make a mistake and throw you a good ball to hit. Second, the more pitches you make him throw, the more fatigued he becomes, which may lead to more mistakes.
Brett Butler was perhaps the greatest hitter I ever saw at "battling" a pitcher with two strikes on him. He could foul off more pitches that were just too close to let go by than anyone in the game.
My philosophy has always been "don’t let the umpire decide," keep battling. Many a hitter has been called out on a third strike that was "close." Don’t risk it. Keep battling. Chances are you will get a better pitch to hit. This is "two strike" hitting, or "protecting the plate," a totally different approach than when you are ahead in the count.
A good hitter understands the game well enough to adjust his mental approach on each pitch, as the count changes. Nobody is encouraging you to be a "guess hitter," just understand the game and it’s tendencies.
If you notice, the one pitch count I haven’t addressed is the 0-0 count. The first pitch. There are two schools of thought about this pitch. Some of the great hitters adopt the position that they want to look at the first pitch. See what the pitchers got. Get a gauge for his speed, etc. Their thought process is that if hitting is timing they will be in a better position to time their swing.
I believe in the opposite, for two reasons: One, you should have been paying attention during your time in the on-deck circle. Or, if you are the first batter of the game, during the pitcher’s warm up. My point is this, study the pitcher, know him, he is your adversary.
The second, and most important reason, is this: Pitcher’s are instructed from Little League to the Major Leagues (and every stop in between) to get ahead in the count! "First pitch, first strike, first out" is drilled into them from an early age. It stands to reason that most first pitches are going to be "good pitches to hit."
I believe in treating the 0-0 pitch like a 2-0 pitch. Look for a fastball in your "zone." If you get it. . .smash it. Swing hard at this pitch. If you miss it, it’s 0-1 and you have two strikes left. If the pitch is not to your liking, let it go by. The worst it can be is 0-1. Plus, you had a chance to "look" at one to see what the pitcher has.
Rickey Henderson is the most prolific first pitch hitter that ever lived. He has more first pitch, first at-bat home runs than any player in the history of the game. Rickey is not considered a power hitter.
How then is he able to hold this distinction? I’ll tell you. . .he is a smart hitter. He looks for that grooved fastball on the first pitch. When he gets it, he pounces on it!
Very often the first pitch in an at-bat is the best pitch you will see. If you live by the philosophy to always "take" that pitch, guess how many times you will start out 0-1? A lot. Pitchers are not dummies. If you show a tendency, believe me they will try to exploit it.
On the other hand, if you are known for crushing the first pitch fastball two things could happen. One, they won’t give you a very good pitch to hit very often. Which means you will probably be ahead in the count 1-0 (depending on the umpire, or the quality of the pitch). Or two, you will see plenty of breaking and off-speed pitches on the first pitch. Which, again, the smart hitter can adjust to.
|
The swing is grooved, the concept of matching your swing plane with that of the pitched ball is clear and understood. The next step in the act of successfully hitting a pitched baseball is timing. Timing your swing so that it meets the ball at the proper impact point, at just the right moment. Not a moment too soon, not a moment too late. Hall of Famer, Warren Spahn, while speaking of pitching, actually gave great insight to the art of hitting when he made the statement, "Hitting is timing, pitching is upsetting timing." Hitting is timing! That seems too simple. How could it be so easily defined? I’ll tell you, because Mr. Spahn was referring to Major League hitters and Major League pitchers. People who should have the mechanics of their particular skills committed to muscle memory! There is no need to discuss "the attacking position", the stiff front side, balance, swing plane, the follow through, or any other mechanical function of the swing (except to fix a flaw). Hitting is timing! The swing is muscle memory. Hopefully, we have accomplished establishing the swing into your muscle memory via the earlier chapters in this book. Or, at the least, you are well on your way to developing a proper swing into your muscle memory. At any rate, this is the time to begin understanding the art of hitting, not swinging. The art of hitting begins with timing.
Let me start with describing the time frame of a pitched ball into the hitting zone. I have read numerous books on hitting and just about everyone gives a different time for the ball to leave the pitcher’s hand and travel into the hitting zone. Some people say .4 seconds, some say .5 seconds, etc. The real length of time it takes for a ball to reach the hitter’s zone is a matter of simple mathematics and can be easily understood by applying this basic formula: Distance divided by Speed equals Time. Okay, what does all of this have to do with hitting a baseball? Let’s see...
If a pitcher is throwing a fastball at about 85mph on a regulation size field, where the pitching mound is 60'6" from the front of the rubber to the rear of home plate, then it would take .485 seconds for the ball to reach the catcher’s mitt, if the ball were released exactly 60'6" from the mitt. Since that is highly improbable, other factors need to be taken into consideration when determining how long it takes for a pitch to reach the hitting zone. Consider this, most pitchers actually release the ball from their hand approximately 5 feet in front of the rubber. Using that number, let’s subtract it from the 60'6". Now, we have a distance of 55'6". The time it takes for the ball to travel that distance at 85mph is .445 seconds. We lost about .04 seconds there, but that’s not all. Consider that the approximate point of contact is about 12" in front of the front leg (assuming that the front leg is in line with the front of home plate) and that the plate itself is 17" deep. Hmmmm, 17 plus 12 is 29 inches, for simplicities sake, let’s call it 30", or 2 ½ feet. We are now down to a distance of 53'. At 85mph it takes a ball approximately .425 seconds to go from the pitcher’s hand to the hitting zone. These are Major League type of numbers.
Let’s look at Little Leaguer’s times: For 12 and under teams, the pitcher’s mound is 46 feet from the front of the pitching rubber to the rear of home plate. Let’s say a pitcher throws a 60mph fastball; 46 divided by 88.1fps = .522 seconds. Hmmm, those are pretty similar numbers! Okay, factor in the distance we lose because of the release point of the pitcher, and the 2 ½ feet from the back of home plate to the optimum hitting zone. Let’s assume that Little Leaguers don’t release the ball as far forward and cut that number in half, make it an even 2 ½ feet. That means we subtract 5 feet from the 46 feet and get 41 feet. Now, 41 feet divided by 60mph equals .465 seconds. Wow, that is only about .04 seconds different from the Major League formula. You know what that tells me? If you are a good hitter in Little League, and you continue to improve your swing and hitting skills as you grow older, there is no reason why you can’t also be a good hitter in the Major Leagues. Of course, pitcher’s get smarter and craftier and more capable of deceiving the hitter. Remember Warren Spahn? "Hitting is timing, pitching is upsetting timing."
As players progress through the different leagues, the distance between the pitcher and the batter gradually increases to 54 feet and finally to 60 feet and 6 inches. The formula remains the same however, and it is easy to see that the amount of time a hitter has to see the ball, recognize it’s trajectory, calculate that information, pass it on to the muscles, react and swing, is just a little less than a half of a second.
More math, the average human reaction time is 3/4 of a second. That’s .750 seconds. What does that mean if a player simply reacts to the ball from the time it is released? That’s right, if you are good at math, you figured it out. Go have a seat on the bench, strike three went right on by you before you could even swing. Hitting is timing. A batter must begin his swing at the same time the pitcher begins his motion. There is an old saying, and I am not sure which hitting instructor first said it, "When the pitcher shows you his pocket, you show him yours." In other words, when the pitcher kicks his front leg up to begin his delivery to the plate, the hitter should begin his "cocking" or "pre-swing" motion, preparing the bat for a swing at the ball. If he does not, it is physically impossible to react in time.
Learning how to time your swing is the art of hitting. If you work hard at developing a good swing by following the principles outlined in previous chapters, you have the makings of a good hitter. Understanding your swing, and the rhythm and timing of it, in relation to the pitch speed and location is the essence of hitting.
Ideally you would like to contact the inside pitch a few inches in front of the front leg. This allows the bat to accelerate into the ball and the arms to fully extend immediately after contact. To envision the proper hitting position, imagine a boxer standing close to his opponent and delivering a powerful punch to his opponent's midsection. The hip is rotated, the hand is facing up and the elbow is close to his body. Shortly thereafter the arms extend, which transfers a tremendous amount of power into the ball. This position, sometimes referred to as the "Power-V," is the ideal position to be in directly after the point of contact. Again, I will refer you to your favorite Major League hitter’s baseball cards. Flip through them until you find him in the point of contact with the baseball. I’d be willing to bet you see him in this "punching" position. Followed by the "Power-V" position; arms extended, chin down, top hand not yet rolled over, eyes on the ball. Can you imagine the speed that bat is traveling through the hitting zone? Mark McGwire’s bat speed has been clocked at 98mph! Couple that with the impact of a ball thrown at 90mph or more, it’s a wonder the ball is not physically out of round after suffering such a crushing blow!
There is really only one way to develop the proper timing of your swing: batting practice, batting practice and more batting practice! Preferably against live pitching and not a machine. Machines are good and serve the purpose if used properly. They can help you develop your swing and introduce you to a moving ball, but to really learn the timing of your swing, you need to see the motion of a pitcher and his arm, rhythm and release point.
The drills referred to earlier in this book are outstanding for grooving your swing, fixing flaws in your swing, and developing the ability to hit the ball to various areas of the baseball diamond. But. . . hitting is timing and in order to develop the sense of timing in your swing, you need to see live pitching. As much as possible, whether it be during practice or games, you need to see pitching and hit against pitching.
3D4LIFE has an incredible product we invented to assist in developing the timing in a hitter; The XLR8 Speed Balls. These Speed Balls fly at different speeds with the same arm speed - just like live pitching! The difference is anybody can throw these and have a changeup as nasty as Tom Glavine!. Your father, brother, sister, Mom.. heck even your Grandma can throw batting practice to you with the XLR8 Speed Balls.
Some how, someway, hit against a pitched ball. Develop timing. Hitting is timing.
How many of you have been in a position to win the game in your final at- bat? You know, 2 outs… bases loaded… your team losing by one run in the last inning. The other team changes pitchers as you step up to the plate. The “Big Kid” moves from first base, saunters up to the pitcher’s mound and starts throwing fastballs that look like BB’s streaking to the plate. How would you handle this situation?
Most kids will look at this situation with “Fear”: Fear of failure, fear of striking out, fear of being hit by the pitch, fear of letting his teammates, coach and parents down. There is nothing to fear. The game has not changed, it is still “see the ball, hit the ball”. The fear is created in the mind, it is a choice the player makes. He can choose to fear the situation or relish in the opportunity to win the game for his team. A conscious choice is made based on what he perceives the situation to be.
The poor player will look at this situation as a “no win” position; “That pitcher is a horse, look how fast he is throwing that ball. There is no way I can hit that. Man, this stinks… why did they have to put him in when I was coming up to bat?” All of that negative self talk does nothing more than perpetuate the likeliness of failure for the player. He is preparing himself to fail and justifying that failure in his mind. This is the wrong mental approach to hitting in any situation, let alone one like this.
So, what is the right mental approach? Positive self-talk is one of the most important ingredients to success in any sport, or life itself for that matter. If you believe… you can achieve! Don’t just say; “I can do this.” Believe you can! Take a moment to stand in the on-deck circle and study the pitcher, visualize hitting sharp line drives to the outfield every time he throws a warm-up pitch. Say things like: “Cool, I’m going to win this game!” See your teammates jumping up and down with joy. Joyful anticipation is the proper mental approach in these situations. You “get” to go up to bat and win the game. That is cool. Winners want to be in this position. Winners don’t fear failure… they anticipate success!
Armed with the proper mental approach, what about physical symptoms that can impair your performance? In the above situation the poor player with the improper mental approach actually initiates physical responses in his body that virtually put him against greater odds to succeed. His fearful and negative thoughts can create slower reaction of his muscles. He has created a tension level so high that his movements and reactions are stiff. This is the “choking” referred to by sports announcers on many occasions. The pressure felt by the poor player results in indecisiveness, impaired eyesight, jumbled thoughts (mostly negative), hyper breathing. None of these symptoms is helpful to the player.
By contrast, the good player looks at this situation in a totally different light. He is excited about the challenge to win the game. He anticipates success and practices the proper thought process to guarantee him the best opportunity to succeed. He creates an inner environment that puts him at ease. Everyone has the choice to do the same, they can choose to fear the situation or accept it as a challenge. The winning player has that inner control of his thoughts and emotions.
The winning player may step up to the plate in the above situation and immediately fall behind in the count, 0-2. By stepping out of the box and gathering himself mentally, he still believes he can succeed. A deep breath, positive thought and self statement; “focus on the ball, hit it hard somewhere”, can go a long way toward success.
A good practice to get into for a hitter is to find a “safe zone” to focus on, when the challenge gets greater. This “safe zone” should be something that will always be there, your bat for instance. Nomar Garciaparra uses his batting gloves. He loosens and tightens them repeatedly as he gathers himself mentally. Most hitters step out of the box, take a deep breath and focus on the barrel of the bat as they regroup their positive thoughts. Whatever the action, the purpose is the same; to reinforce the belief that they will be successful.
In conclusion, remember that you create your own tension by choosing to place pressure on yourself. Fear of failure is the number one reason for this pressure. You make the choice to “fear”. You can just as easily choose to enjoy the challenge of the same situation. Practice the proper breathing and positive self-talk, develop a “safe zone” to focus on and you will be well on your way to the winning player that wins the game more often than not.
I find it interesting that so many coaches and parents are quick to change this and alter that when it comes to a young player's hitting. Young players are advised to open their stance, close their stance, keep their elbow up, keep their elbow down, squash the bug, don't squash the bug, keep their head in there, and on and on and on. In reality, to make a significant change in a player's stance or hitting habits takes a tremendous amount of time and effort on both the coach and the player's part.
I have found that as long as a young player has somewhat proper mechanics, that there is nothing glaringly wrong that may develop into a long-term mechanical flaw, the best way to "repair" inconsistency at the plate is to insure the player is "seeing" the ball properly. A famous quote from Pete Rose is "see the ball, hit the ball". Well, if you can't see it . . . you can't hit it. Most kids with good hand-eye coordination will hit the ball with some consistency as long as they are able to see it. The trouble is most kids are never taught the best way to see what they are supposed to hit.
The human eye is such that it focuses on the nearest object. A common flaw in well meaning parents and coaches is to instruct the hitter to concentrate on the release window (the point where the pitcher is likely to release the ball). Unfortunately, if a hitter is looking into that window when the ball is not there his eyes will automatically focus on the next closest object. That object may be a tree beyond the center field fence, a house or a mountain far, far away. Then . . . when the pitcher's hand gets to the window and releases the ball the eye has to refocus back to the release window and then to the ball which is streaking toward the plate. The result is lost time and inconsistency in reading the speed of the incoming pitch. The eyes are playing catch up to the object they are trying to "track".
The proper instruction is to have the hitter focusing on some part of the pitcher's body, his cap,chest or forehead. In doing so the player has established the proper focal point for his eyes. The proper distance is established for the initial stages of the tracking process. As the player winds upand begins to deliver the pitch, the hitter shifts his focus into the release window with the proper timing (as the hand enters the release window) and immediately focuses on the ball. This split-second difference in "tracking" the ball with the eyes results in a significant improvement in pitch recognition and translates to greater consistency in contact.
Often you hear great hitters remark that they are "really seeing the ball well right now," or "the ball just looks big to me right now." This is from the proper tracking technique combined with perfect timing in the shift from the pitcher's body part to the release window. There is no doubt that seeing the ball well has a direct correlation to great performance at the plate.
Coaches, the next time you see a little struggle taking place at the plate by your hitter, refrain from the normal adjustments with the stance and swing mechanics. Instead, take your hitter aside and ask where he is looking at prior to the pitch. Some proper instruction on the focal point can go along way to helping him to be a better hitter!
Many years before our time someone looked at a round object and decided to give it a name, the circle. Time changed that circle into wheels, balls, heck we even figured out that the world itself is nothing more than a big circle. A big circle of change. Nothing stays the same for long. So it is in baseball, especially in hitting a baseball.
Fortunately, somebody long ago decided to put a circle on the baseball field as well. They call it the "on-deck" circle, I call it the "circle of change". It is here that good hitters make the change from "player" to "hitter". If you have read many of my articles, you probably realize that I am a huge proponent of "seeing" the ball well to hit the ball well. The "circle of change" is where you begin the process of "seeing" the ball.
How many of you have sat in the backseat of your parent’s car on the way to a tournament? Let’s say you sat there for 2 or 3 hours looking out the window. Yet when you arrived at the ball fields you don’t remember a darn thing about what you were looking at on the way. How about at school? You read the chapter but you don’t remember a single thing about it when you get to the end. You looked at it, but you didn’t "see" it. In order to hit a baseball you have to "see" it, not just look at it.
While players are on the bench between at-bats most of them are watching the game, staying involved, ready to make an impact when their turn at the plate comes up. The process of hitting requires you to do much more than watch. Watching is good, seeing is better. Make the change in the circle. Start seeing the pitcher’s release point. Visually track each pitch from release point to contact or catcher’s glove. Begin to train the eyes to "see" and not watch. What is the fastball doing? See it. Is it tailing in or away? Is the pitcher working hitters inside or outside?
You have been blessed with the greatest, fastest, most remarkable computer of all time. It’s called your brain. The neat thing is you get to take that computer to the batter’s box each time you go to the plate. That computer can tell you every angle, calculate speed, spin, velocity and command your body to react properly to each and every pitch in order to make solid contact! It can do this in mere fractions of a second, every time! But first... it needs information, proper information. It can only receive this information from your eyes!
Pete Rose once said: "See the ball, hit the ball!" He collected more hits than any player in the history of the game. He didn’t say "Watch the ball," or "Look at the ball." He said "see" the ball.
Start seeing the ball in the "Circle of Change" and you will have much more success at the plate
The Brain: It Can Help and Hurt Your Hitting
Ever notice when you get into a slump in any athletic endeavor the amount of people are eager to help you? Fall into a 1-for-25 slide in baseball and it seems everyone has a solution for you, from your teammates to your coach to your wife. Your head is pulling out. Your stance is all wrong. Your bat is too heavy. You name it: Everyone’s identified the problem. The problem is, of course, that you can do more damage and prolong your slump by taking too much advice. Listening to everyone’s suggestions often only clogs the mind. This is when the brain can get in the way of hitting. If the brain is trying to process too much information, the message it finally sends to the body is slowed. And hitting is all about timing and quick reactions. You want that message from the brain to the body to occur instantly. The point is this: When mired in a slump, be wary of taking in too much advice. Don’t create an information overload.
Hey, the truth is, everyone goes into a slump. Everyone. Even the great hitters. In baseball, as with any other sport, you have to accept a certain degree of failure. As you’ve probably heard a million times, the best hitters in the game, the .300 hitters, fail seven out of 10 times. What keeps a great hitter great is his ability to fight through slumps. As I’ve pointed out before, there often is a mechanical reason for why a hitter isn’t hitting well. Maybe he’s not starting his swing soon enough. Maybe his top hand has become too dominant. But sometimes slumps occur simply because of your mental approach. You can’t be successful at anything unless you first believe you can be successful. Yes, I believe in mind over matter. Your brain can do wonderful things if you let it and convince it to.
Mental approach: Tunnel Vision is Good
One way to assure self-confidence is to always go to the plate with a plan. Have an idea what you’re going to try and accomplish in each particular at bat. Are you going try to move the runner from second to third? Are you trying to lift a fly ball to score a runner from third? Focus on your plan. All the hours of batting practice and perfecting your swing are now behind you. It’s just you and the pitcher. And know that pitcher. Do your homework. Know your enemy. Have all that information and data processed before you step to the plate. Once you get to plate, clear your mind of any unnecessary thoughts and simply focus on the plan. Sometimes you can avoid slumps or pull yourself out of a slump just by returning to the basics. Wipe out the past and concentrate on the present: This at bat. Forget about the past failures and tell yourself that you will come through in this at bat. You’re better the pitcher. Show him.
An excellent way to maintain that focus and block out all possible distractions is to use what I call the tunnel-vision technique. Envision a tunnel between the pitcher’s delivery point and the hitting zone. Mentally block out everything else around it. Your mind now will direct all its attention toward this tunnel. Track the ball in this tunnel. Prepare yourself to hit the ball when the pitcher’s lead leg touches down and the ball emerges from the tunnel and approaches you. Tunnel vision. The great thing about this approach is it not only eliminates all unwanted distractions, it can also improve your selection regarding which pitches to hit. If you can envision a tunnel that ends right at the strike zone, you probably won’t swing at many bad pitches because you’ve trained your mind not to respond to anything outside that tunnel. Any pitch that drifts out of the tunnel is ignored. Tunnel vision is a great tool to train your mind to concentrate on the task at hand.
So, have a plan before each at bat. And benefit from tunnel vision. Many slumps occur because hitters lose their focus or get distracted. That’s where the expression ``beating yourself’’ derives from. Believe me, there are enough people wanting you to fail (namely your opponents). Don’t give them any help.
A Little Cockiness is OK
Sports is as much a battle of egos as it is a battle of physical ability. I’ve always believed that. A big ego doesn’t guarantee you’ll perform better than your opponent but understand this: Lack of confidence and self-doubt will beat you every time. If you think the pitcher is better than you, you have virtually no shot at getting a hit. That’s why a little cockiness and swagger isn’t such a bad thing. Feeling good about yourself often translates into performing well. Of course, don’t go overboard. Overconfidence can beat you just as easily as having no confidence. Just tell yourself: Hey, the pitcher’s good, but he’s not that good.
Seize the moment
Some hitters and some hitting instructors adhere to one of the most befuddling philosophies in baseball: Take that first pitch. I’ve never understood that thinking. Why take a pitch when it’s possible that the pitch might be the best pitch you’ll see all week? This is an absolutely silly mental approach that can without a doubt contribute to slumps. If you’re a serious baseball fan, you’ve probably noticed that Wade Boggs always takes that first strike. In other words, unless the pitcher is incredibly wild, Boggs starts many at bats behind in the count and at a disadvantage. Once again, this is a baseball philosophy that complicates hitting rather than simplifies it. It’s a little bit analogous to starting with a crazy launch position. Yes, some hitters can start in a crazy launch position and then get their bat back to the proper launch position and still be successful. And yes, Boggs has delivered over 3,000 hits and enjoyed a very successful hitting career in the big leagues. But just think for a minute about how many great pitches Boggs has let go by. How many more hits could he have produced had he been more aggressive?
I prefer to preach aggressiveness at the plate. If you see a strike, if you see a pitch in your tunnel, go after it. Attack. Attack. Attack. Let me give you an example: How would you like it if suddenly the rules of the game were changed and hitters had to start each at bat down one strike in the count? How many hitters do you think would favor that rule change? Hitters would be furious. But that is essentially what you’re doing if your mental approach consists of taking that first strike. Being behind in the count, in essence, forfeits some of your power over to the pitcher. Being behind in the count makes you a defensive hitter. Bottom line? If you see a good pitch, hit the damn thing.
Two kinds of slumps
There is more than one kind of slump that hitters endure. Some slumps are simply numbers slumps. Sometimes you can be drilling the ball almost every at bat and have no hits to show for it. Sometimes you can have games in which you hit four line drives and each one happens to be right at a fielder. The next day, you’re 0-for-4 in the box score. Does that mean you’ve started a slump? Of course not. In reality, you’re actually in a hitting groove. The tricky part, however, is convincing yourself to ignore the numbers. That’s where trust comes in. If you believe in yourself and trust yourself, you will continue with the same mental approach even though the results aren’t rewarding. Some hitters, though, can get swayed into believing they need to start making adjustments because those line drives didn’t translate into hits. If you hit a line drive, you can claim victory no matter if it’s an out or a hit. Hitting a line drive or hitting a ball squarely is your goal. Don’t confuse achieving your goals with achieving a particular batting average all the time. Those line drives eventually will find a hole. Don’t worry.
The other kind of slump, naturally, is a 0-for-20 type characterized by weak ground outs and pop-ups. Typically, in this kind of slump, your mechanics are out of whack. Your swing is messed up. You’re chasing bad balls. Your mental approach is poor. By the time you’re 0-for-20, you’re suddenly believing you’re never going to get another hit. OK, now you’re in a real slump that you need to address. Just know the difference.
Success can breed slumps
Believe it or not, sometimes hitters fall into slumps because of success. What happens in this scenario is the hitter becomes so confident in his hitting ability – he may be raking every pitch thrown at him – that he suddenly believes he is invincible. The hitter then starts swinging at balls out of the strike zone. And it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what happens next. Once a hitter starts swinging at balls out of the strike zone, his swing starts to fall apart. This is the type of slump that a hitting instructor should be able to spot quickly. And fix quickly. Be aggressive at the plate and be confident. But be selective. Swing at strikes. Remember: You can’t put a good swing on a bad ball.
Be wary of too much advice
As I mentioned before, often times when you fall into a slump, you will start getting advice from every direction. Your hitting coach. Your teammates. Your relatives. Everyone suddenly has the answer. Well, the truth is, no, they don’t. Take advice only from those you trust, which, in theory, should be a short list starting with your hitting instructor. And hitting instructors, as I’ve warned before, don’t obsess or nit-pick your hitters during slumps. Look for simple solutions. Don’t overload the hitter with so much data to process that he starts to think too much during a slump about his mechanics. Quite often there are easy mechanical answers, such as starting the swing sooner. Or being more selective (swinging at strikes). And hitters should look within themselves for simple solutions, too. Block out all the ridiculous advice you may get from uninformed sources. Trust in yourself and your hitting instructor. The two of you should know the subject matter. So just identify the problem, mental or mechanical, and seek the simplest solution.
Slump busters
Once you’ve identified the problem, you’re going to need help from your brain to break out of a slump. You’re going to have to convince yourself mentally that you can succeed again. What I tell students and my hitters is that they need to accept a certain amount of failure. During the course of a season, failure is inevitable. So go easy on yourself. Accept some failure. After all, seasons are long affairs. They are marathons, not sprints. In the major leagues, you will get close to 650 at bats. During that span, you will slump. If you’ve convinced yourself of that reality, you’ve got a much better chance of breaking free from slumps. Accepting some degree of failure is step No. 1.
Baby steps
Step No. 2 may appear like something right out of a self-help book, but it has merit in baseball: Take baby steps. What I mean by that is when you’re trying to break out of slumps, seek small rewards at the beginning. Go into a game with a modest goal such as ``Today, I want to hit one ball right on the screws. If I can do that, I’m going to be happy and sleep well.’’ After a few games, you may tell yourself that you want to hit two balls hard. What this does is promote confidence. Slowly, as you continue to reach your modest goals each night, you begin to believe in yourself again. You are basically training your brain to think positively again. Instead of the negative thoughts that most likely were inherent during your slump, you begin to think you’re capable of succeeding again.
Another element to remember about slumps is that as painful as they are to endure, they do make you stronger. The adage that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is true. Being able to fight through slumps makes you a better overall hitter. It matures you. It prepares you for future potholes, future slumps. Once you get through one slump, you can always tell yourself you can get through another.
Situational hitting
We now turn to the other aspect of a hitter’s mental approach to the game: Situational hitting. Not all of hitting calls for line drives to the gaps or three-run homers, though, as a hitter, you certainly wouldn’t turn those down. But some situations in baseball call for a different mental approach depending on where the runners are on base and how many outs there are. There are situations when grounding out to the second baseman is certainly OK, especially if it advances a runner from second to third and there are still less than two outs.
The two most common forms of situational hitting come up when there is a runner on second base with no one out, and when there is a runner on third and less than two outs. In the first situation, naturally the hitter wants to get that runner to third anyway he can so the next hitter can possibly drive the runner in with simply a fly out. Does that mean the hitter should purposely swing weakly? No, because a base hit will not only get that runner to third, but it could also score him. But what we don’t want is a two-hopper to the third baseman or a routine grounder to deep short that doesn’t move the runner off second base. That is a wasted at bat. And that is called losing baseball. It is also selfish baseball and you see a lot more of it in baseball today than you did years ago.
So how does the hitter get himself in the proper mental approach to advance the runner from second to third? Use that tunnel-vision approach we have discussed previously. You’re looking for a pitch in a specific location – on the outer half of the plate. You want a pitch there because you’re going to attempt to drive the ball in a direction that will allow the runner to advance. That direction should be anywhere from the left of where the shortstop is positioned, not necessarily just to the right of second base, as you probably were taught at an early age. If you hit a ground ball to the left of the shortstop, the runner on second should still be able to advance. And don’t necessarily assume you have to have a ground ball. If you put a good swing on the ball and drive it to the outfield in our specified direction, the runner still should be able to tag up and advance. You’re still accomplishing your mission even with a fly out.
Back off the plate
What should you do mechanically to drive the ball toward this specified area? Naturally, you’ll want to release your bat slightly later than normal (delay your start) to avoid pulling the ball. But you also need to take into account the pitcher’s motives at this point. The pitcher obviously is going to make your objective challenging by trying to pitch you inside. He will likely pound you pitch after pitch inside. How do you combat his tactics? Simply back off the plate with your stance. A few inches should suffice. This should give you the room you need to direct those inside pitches toward the specified area.
Getting that runner home
The other most common type of situational hitting occurs when there is a runner on third and less than two outs. Chances are, in a tight game, the infield is drawn in, hoping to make a play at the plate on any ground ball. As a hitter, you’re now being called upon to drive a fly ball deep enough to allow the runner to tag up at third and score. To me, the best place to drive a fly ball is from left-center field to the right-field line. Once again, you’ll want to release the bat a little later so you direct the ball to the specified area. You’re also going to want to hit slightly under the ball so you achieve some altitude, but not so dramatically that you collapse your swing. Just a slight uppercut. You’re aiming to hit the ball somewhere between about 4 o’clock to 8 o’clock on the ``watch dial’’ of the baseball. Hitting the ball there will provide the necessary altitude you need to get that ball to the outfield deep enough to accomplish the mission.
Why would anyone switch hit?
I want to close this chapter on the mental approach to hitting with a discussion on the theory of switch-hitting. The longer I’ve been around baseball and the more I have studied the concepts of hitting, the more I have questioned the basic theory behind switch-hitting. In fact, I have reached the point where I don’t see the value of switch-hitting at all.
Think about this: Every switch-hitter who has ever played the game always has had a stronger, natural side of the plate from which he hits. Why would anyone purposely waste any at bats from their weaker side? Yes, yes, I know all the old-school theories on the value of switch-hitting: It is always better to have a breaking ball come toward you than move away from you, for vision purposes. And yes, it has been believed for years that it is far better to have right-handed hitters match up against left-handed pitchers (at least for offensive strategy) and vice versa. But the game is changing. And it has changed, thanks to the Lau System of Hitting. Statistics will bear out that hitters using the Lau method can hit right-handed or left-handed pitchers equally as well. This not only eliminates that whole righty vs. lefty maneuvering that managers love to overmanage with late in games, it eliminates the very premise of switch-hitting.
Let me explain it another way: The reason switch-hitting really became popular in the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s was because the primary school of hitting was the pull school of hitting, the Ted Williams pull school of hitting. Almost every hitter in the game was taught to be a dead-pull hitter. Of course, it’s a little tough to be terribly successful as a pull hitter against intelligent pitchers who are running curve balls away from you. As we have explained previously, when a pull hitter attempts to hit a curve ball away from him, the result is usually a weak ground ball. This is why switch-hitting rose in popularity. The dead-pull hitters found they could be more successful if they always had that curve ball coming toward them rather than moving away. So they switched sides of the plate. And even by hitting with their ``weaker’’ side of the plate, they improved their overall average slightly. But we no longer are shackled by just one school of hitting. We no longer are restricted by dead pull hitting. In the Lau System of Hitting, hitters can cover the entire plate no matter what direction the pitch is heading.
To further illustrate my point, let me ask you this: Who was the last switch-hitter to flirt with hitting .400? Yet George Brett has. Larry Walker has. Tony Gwynn has. None of these great hitters are switch-hitters. And all three use the Lau System of Hitting. It makes little difference to any of those hitters whether they are facing a lefty or a righty because they have or had the ability to cover the entire plate. Here’s a more recent example. Chipper Jones, one of the more well-known switch-hitters today, is far better from his dominant side, his left side. From the left side, he hits .320 with 25to 30 homers a year. From the right side, he hits about .220 with homers. So why does he continue to switch hit? Only he can tell you. Another example is Royals rookie of the year Carlos Beltran, who in 1999 hit .300 with 15 home runs and 88 RBIs from his dominant left side, but hit only .265 with two home runs and 20 RBIs from his right side.
It seems to me that switch-hitting is yet another old-school philosophy that needs to be put on a shelf, right next to back-foot hitting and rolling the wrists over.
I Think there are times when hitters lose the realization that they are competing. I don’t think they place enough importance on this simple fact: You must compete against the pitcher for each and every pitch! Every single pitch he throws has one purpose; to get you out! If you are not placing the same amount of importance on each pitch, I guarantee you are at a disadvantage. You must compete. Every pitch!
If you are one of those players that only gets “fired up” for those at-bats that mean something at the end of the game. You probably better reconsider your approach to the game.
By competing for every pitch in every at-bat you can likely raise your batting average by .100 or more points! Think about it. Lets say you have 3 games a week for 12 at bats. Probably only 3 of those at-bats were “meaningful” situations. By “meaningful”, I mean some close game situation with a man on and a chance to make a difference in the game. In the other 9 at-bats during the week, you simply took a lackadaisical approach and got 2 hits. Lets say you also got a hit in one of the 3 “meaningful” at-bats when you were fired up and competing. So for the week you went 3 for 12: a .250 batting average. Not horrible.. Just not great.
Had you been fired up and competing on every pitch for every at-bat, you likely would have had at least one more hit and quite possibly 2! 4 for 12 is a .333 average and 5 for 12 is over .400! Those are pretty awesome numbers, don’t you think? Factor that out over the course of a season and you have the difference between an All-Star and an average player.
If that doesn’t convince you to compete, let me throw this one at you: You are standing up at the plate all by your little lonesome. You have your thoughts, your mental approach and your athletic skills to use in the best manner possible to try and have a Quality At-Bat as often as possible. Just you and you alone determine how successful you are.
Meanwhile, the pitcher AND the catcher AND sometimes even the manager are all collaborating to get you out! With every pitch they are scheming over what it takes to get you out. The catcher is watching everything you do. How do you react to this pitch? What kind of swing did you put on that pitch? Can he get you out with something soft and away or should they try hard and in? The pitcher is also ruminating over the same information from a different viewpoint. Plus, like I said.. You likely have a third individual involved if the Manager is into calling pitches, etc. The three of them can even hold a conference on the mound just to discuss HOW TO GET YOU OUT!
So, my point is; with all of this going on against you, when are you going to realize how important every pitch is and start competing against these guys on EVERY pitch? Don’t take a single pitch off . You are on the job. A job you chose. And guess what? Yea, a job you can lose because you are not competing on every pitch.
That’s right. Those guys are trying to take your job! You keep batting .250 when you could have been batting .333 or better and see how long you keep your job. I guarantee you somebody in your dugout will compete for every pitch if it means he has the chance to play every day.
Do yourself a favor and start looking at that pitcher like he is the guy responsible for taking the food out of your mouth, or the roof over your head. Place that kind of importance on it. Study him. You have all day to study the pitcher. You can study him while he warms up. You can study him while he pitches to your teammates. What is even better, you get to study him during identical situations that you will face. You get to study how he handles pitch counts with the bases empty, how they change when the bases are occupied. You get to study him like a book. Why are you not pounding this guy? Oh, is it because you are jawing with your buddy on the bench instead of paying attention to the most important adversary you face, the pitcher? Probably.
If mental approach is a huge contributor to your success on a baseball field (and it is!), then this section of the mental part of the game is as important as any other. You MUST compete. You vs. HIM. You vs. THEM. That is the mentality you should adopt. That simple thought process will put you in a fight or flight, juices flowing, enhanced state of awareness mindset that will lead to a much greater success at the plate.
You simply cannot afford to allow THEM to place a greater importance on every pitch than you do. If so, the law of averages will sway in their favor and your average will plummet. The game is hard enough. Stop making it harder. Pay attention. Compete. You’ll be a better hitter, I guarantee it.
Have you ever played the game inside the game? You know… the game between the pitcher and the batter. That really is “the game”. Ok, ok, you do have to field your position, throw accurate, know all of the defensive plays, offensive plays and be a team player. But.. if you just break baseball down to its bare bones, the pitcher vs. the batter is “the game”.
Besides, it’s a fun game if you think about it. The pitcher gets to heave the ball at any speed, any angle, with any spin and utilize most any manner of deceit while doing so. He does this with every intention of either striking the batter out, or inducing him to hit the ball weakly to one of his fielders. Oh, and when he makes a mistake and the batter thoroughly smashes the ball… yea, he still has those fielders to make spectacular plays behind him.
The batter? Well, he gets a big stick to try to hit that pitched ball “Where they ain’t” as Wee Willie Keeler so adeptly put it.
If you were to look at the advantages of each side, it sure does seem to stack the odds in the pitcher’s favor. Don’t you think? It’s no wonder that the gauge for a decent hitter in just about every league is a .300 batting average. Yea, that’s a success rate of 30%! A “failure” rate of 70%. Wow, not exactly fair is it?
So, what does a hitter do about it? How about deciding to play “the game”? There is so much more to being a good hitter besides developing a powerful, accurate and repeatable swing. You need to learn how to solve “the puzzle” to win the game. Or, at least give yourself a fighting chance. What puzzle, you ask? The pitcher puzzle… that’s what puzzle.
If all you are doing is taking a few swings in the on deck circle, stepping in to the batters box and taking your hacks, chances are you don’t have much of a chance. If you want to be one of those good hitters (you know, the guys that fail only 70% of the time), you better be doing a little bit more than that in your at bats.
For starters, what exactly is the pitcher doing well? Is he throwing a good fastball, or is his changeup working down exceptionally well? When is he throwing that changeup, ahead in the count, or behind? Is he hitting that outside corner on a regular basis? These are just pieces to the puzzle. There’s more…
How about the umpire? How is he calling pitches? Consistently? Consistently what.. inside, outside, high, low? You have to know the answers to these questions if you want to slowly start moving some of the odds over to your side.
And how about this piece of the puzzle: When you do step into the batters box, what is the situation? If there’s nobody on base.. you have to get on. Somebody is on.. you have to move them into scoring position. If they are in scoring position… drive ‘em in!
Oh, yea.. the fielders… the pitcher.. they know all of this stuff too. How are they defending you? How are they setting up their puzzle to try and beat you? Pitching you away into the teeth of the defense? Or, playing you to pull and jamming you inside? You need to know the answer to these questions too. IF you want to be one of those guys that fail only 70% of the time.
Are you starting to realize that there is a heckuva lot more to hitting then simply having a real sweet swing? Yea, there is. Don’t get me wrong, having a real sweet swing that is powerful, accurate and repeatable is really, really important. It’s just that it’s …well, only part of the solution to the big puzzle. Just a small piece you have to work with.
The rest of the stuff is game time information. It’s all there in front of you, unfolding one pitch at a time. Are you studying for success, or taking your chances when it’s your turn to solve the puzzle? Because, if you want success… you have to study, the whole game! The game is changing with every pitch. New pieces to the puzzle are added or subtracted, mixed and matched. The game is dynamic… in a constant state of change, until the final out.
Well, will you pass or fail?
One of the great barometers for a hitter is his ability to really tee off on pitches that look like they should be crushed. You know the ones I’m talking about. Say you are watching a Major League game on the tube, your favorite team is up to bat and your favorite player is in the batter’s box. The count goes to 3-1 and you are just waiting for that pitcher to make a mistake with his fastball. You know he wants to paint a strike somewhere and keep the ball out of the fat part of the plate, but as you watch the pitch release it is about as straight a fastball as you have ever seen… right down the center cut of the plate. Your eyes get big… and you know your favorite player’s eyes are big! He swings… and man oh man does he ever crush that ball waaaaaaay out of the ballpark.
A good hitter’s motto and one of the best compliments a hitter could ever receive: Crush the Mistakes.
How do you think that happens? Luck? Not likely. The more you hit, the more at bats you have, the more instruction you receive, the more likely you will begin to recognize the importance of looking for your pitch in your zone when you are in a hitter’s count. Then, because you are ready… you can take advantage of those mistakes when the pitcher tries to paint a corner and misses by about 4 inches. Yea, those 4 inch mistakes leave the ball right down the heart of the plate. You must be ready for them. You must take advantage of them. You must Crush them!
There is one constant ingredient in every great hitter; they understand and take control when they have the advantage. It’s not unlike a boxing match, if you think about it. The great fighters are able to capitalize on every little tiny mistake of their opponent. It doesn’t come by accident. It happens from training and imbedding the proper thought processes for each situation. You could go a step further and say that soldiers do the same in war. Ty Cobb was quoted as saying that baseball was a lot like war and that the hitters were the heavy artillery. Can you see where his mind set was?
What do you need to work on to develop this type of mind set? The same things police officers, war heroes, great fighters and great hitters work on; mental preparedness for any possible situation. You have to visualize situations, all types of situation that may arise.
Have you ever heard a player describe a tremendous at bat in a game winning situation, one where he came out on top? Has it ever sounded something like this: “Yea, I remember when I was a kid in the back yard playing whiffle ball with my brother. We used to pretend it was the bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, runner at 2nd and down by a run over and over until one of us hit a homerun to win the World Series!” That is a form of visualization and mental preparedness. You have to see yourself succeed in these situations. Actually doing it physically, even in a play situation is tremendous for your memory and plants the seeds for success in those situations as they occur in your real life.
Not to mention there are dozens of fabulous CD’s available that help you develop this mental skill. Two that immediately come to mind are the The Hitting Zone and Mental Visualization CD by Alpha Achievement and Quality At Bats CD from Steve Springer. Both of these CD’s are available in the HittingStore. The great thing about them is you can plug them into your CD player on the way to your game. I have seen tremendous success from some of my players after just such a trip. Yea, like it or not, I controlled what they listened to. I plugged in one of these CD’s on the way to the game and lo and behold, one or more of the players in my car had an awesome day at the plate. They work because the mind is a powerful tool and cannot differentiate visualized success from real success. The same positive reinforcements occur in the memory banks from either source. So, let me ask you… why wouldn’t you listen to something like this if it simulated the real thing?
If the more times you experience a situation leads to a greater recognition of the opportunity at hand… which generally leads to success, why wouldn’t you want more opportunities to experience something? Take advantage of the many tools out there to help you in your hitting, especially in the mental aspect. You want to have supreme confidence that you will succeed when you are in an advantageous situation at the plate. The more times you have succeeded… real or imagined, the greater your chance to repeat the same results.
If you are going to Crush the Mistakes you will need the experience of recognizing and taking advantage of your situation. You need to be relaxed and confident as though you have done this same exact thing on thousands of occasions. You need to look for your pitch in your zone up until you have two strikes… when you get it you simply cannot be surprised and miss! You must be prepared to get the mistake and Crush It! Just like you have done thousands of times in your backyard and even more in your mind!
If you are one of those hitters that is in a 3-1 count and says to himself, “oh, he isn’t gonna give me anything here. It’s a hitter’s count. He’s gonna nibble.” You are the same guy we all look at and say, “how the heck did he miss that ball right in his wheel house?” The pitcher was trying to nibble, he just missed. Because of your mindset, you weren't ready. You were surprised to see that ball right in your zone. You just can't do that.
Pitcher’s make mistakes, just like everybody else. In fact, have you ever tried to hit a target with a 90mph pitch from 60 feet? Even if you are Roger Clemens you are likely to miss by a few inches. You have to look for your pitch in your zone. When you get it you have to Crush It. You have to be ready for the mistake… look for the pitch in your zone and Crush the Mistakes
When I was a freshman in high school, I was 4' 11" and 90lbs and when I graduated high school I was 5'8", 140lbs. I didn't even start as a senior in high school. I went to Golden West junior college. My freshman year, when I was 19 years old, I got 3 at bats.
Thank God I grew 4 inches when I was 20 and went from a second string second baseman to an All Conference shortstop in one year. So, don’t let anyone tell your kid he is too small to play this game because nobody knows when he is going to grow except for God and that’s it. I promise you, nobody thought I was going to play in the big leagues (as brief as it was) when I was 19 yrs old!
I played 14yrs of professional baseball including 11 yrs in AAA. I got over 1,600 minor league hits and 4 big league hits, two with the Indians in 1990 and two with the Mets in 1992. But I figured it out when it was too late for me; IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MIND!
If this game wasn’t mental then every top 5 round draft pick should spend 10 yrs in the big leagues and they don’t. And someone tell me why David Eckstein was the MVP of the world series! I’ll tell you why…(Eckstein is about 5’7’ and weighs about a buck forty and looks like he’s throwing a wet bar of soap across the infield but gets it there every single time!), its because he is one of the top 10 competitors in the world that’s why. He can shrink two inches and play in the big leagues!
Now lets talk some hitting. If you asked me what one thing destroys baseball players more than anything else my answer would be “the batting average”, hands down. If I wrote the word CONFIDENCE on the chalkboard and said give me 10 things to create it, the batting average would be at the very bottom holding the whole list up!
In high school baseball you might get 10 at bats a week and in college you might get 15 at bats a week. Well, if you’re lucky enough to play professional baseball you are getting 5 at bats a day every day 7 days a week!! All of a sudden, we’ve only played 6 games and we’re 3 for 30 and so screwed up mentally we are calling every hitting guy in the world to fix us… including our little league coach! And its all based on the batting average and confidence. Everybody’s favorite day in professional baseball is opening day or the playoffs because there are no stats to screw us up! Then on day 2 we start beating ourselves up because now we’re 0 for 8 and in panic mode.
The combo to the lock is how do I get you and your teammates to do 4 thing s every day;
[1] walk up to the plate with CONFIDENCE every at bat, 5 at bats a day, every day.
[2] To do that you have to have an ATTAINABLE goal and that is to hit the ball hard. And that’s it! If you hit the ball hard then you win! We can’t control getting a hit, that can’t be the goal. As dumb as this sounds, its unattainable. Think about it, I hit 3 rockets right on the screws to the centerfielder and line out and I lose confidence because my batting average went down. That’s crazy! I beat the pitcher. The pitcher knows I beat him. His mom knows I beat him and I lose confidence when I should be gaining confidence! I’m locked in and ready for the 9th inning to be a hero.
[3] Attack the inside part of the ball. If I were to give you a hitting lesson, you would get sick of me talking about this. My analogy is; if Albert Pujols swings the bat as hard as he can swing it and can hit a ball 500 ft, then why doesn’t he hit 100 homeruns a year? Because, sometimes he’s on the outside part of the ball which creates hard hooking line drives and ground balls. He will “miss” balls that go out of the park when he gets to the inside part of the ball! I’m saying we have the same bat speed on a hard ground ball to shortstop (if we’re right handed), as we do on a line drive into the gap. Its just where we attack the baseball. Whether we hook it by hitting the outside part of the ball, or drive it by attacking the inside part of the ball.
[4] Help your team win that day, what ever it takes.
But what 99% of us do is the opposite of those 4 things! We walk up to the plate with no confidence (because our batting average is so low and bringing us down ). Our goal is to get a hit …which is unattainable! We hook the baseball and hit hard ground balls. And… its all about me and not the team.
Do the first 4 and see how you feel after a couple weeks. Like I said; Everyone’s favorite day in professional baseball is opening day and playoffs because there are no stats to get in your head.
Like my old friend Billy Beane (GM/PRES of the Oakland A’s) says; “Spring, if you knew this at 18 instead of learning it at 30, people might know who you are!” Thanks Billy.
Bottom line is: be a great competitor every day and stop thinking about your batting average! Its about the process, not the result. Players that worry about their batting average don’t want that 5th at bat when they’re 0 for 4. They’re thinking “if two more guys get on I have to hit.” When you say “I don’t care what my batting average is”, I can be 0 for 4 with 4 strikeouts and still be thinking “I need two guys to get on and I can be the hero!” That’s where you want to be!
In closing, STOP LETTING YOUR MIND GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR ABILITY - and always remember -THE BATTING AVERAGE IS TRULY SATAN……..seeya! Steve Springer
If I told you that the only thing any coach ever cares about is your production as a ballplayer what would you say? I mean, in the end... at the end of the season... look back and tell me how productive you were with two outs and a runner in scoring position. Or, how often did you knock the runner in from third base with less than 2 outs? Or, how many times were you able to move that runner up a notch so your teammates behind you in the lineup could hit him in?
In the end, my friend... it's all about how you produced.
That's in the end. How do we get there comfortable enough with our performance that we can look back and say... Ya, that is the formula for success. If I just keep doing that everytime, in the end... my production will be respectable and I will be a valuable part of my team. No matter what team that is!
Well, here is your best batting tip ever; Leave the inner third of the strike zone alone!
Let me explain:
1.Fewer pitches are thrown to the inner third of the strike zone than any other location.
2. Even fewer of those are actually strikes.
3. Most are simply "a purpose" pitch designed to get you out with "the next" pitch in the sequence.
Don't believe me? Well, here is a graph that illustrates the percentage of pitches by location compiled in a 2 year span in the Major Leagues. This is a representation of over 1.5 million pitches!
So, if you are a numbers guy... and friend, baseball is a numbers game... it is only logical to use the numbers in your favor. If most of the pitches thrown for strikes are from the middle third of the plate and away... look for them!
Have a plan!
Until you have two strikes on you, you can completely dismiss anything on the inner third! Well, not completely... you may be in a premier hitter's count and have a good feeling on the sequence of the pitches.. and "know" you are getting one on the inner third. Or, you may be so completely confident because you have been stroking balls from the middle third away... and are so locked in with confidence... the pitcher can throw anything at all and you'll rope it somewhere. That confidence comes from success. And I guarantee you will have success more often (statistically) if you will just concentrate... have a plan... to hit the ball on the outer two thirds of the strike zone to the big part of the field with less than two strikes on you.
Oh, gosh... almost forgot... there is one more benefit to this approach; Ever hear the saying "Keep your hands inside the ball"? Yea, guess what... if the ball is in the outer two thirds of the strike zone.. automatic! Your hands are automatically inside the ball. Think about it. The preferred and most successful manner of hitting the ball consistently is what.... keeping your hands inside the ball! The most strikes are on the outer two thirds of the plate. Hmmmm... something says the numbers are in your favor. What is productivity judged by? Yea... numbers.
So, bottom line is this; If you go to the plate with "the best hitting tip ever" as your plan... at the end of the season you will be able to look back and say... I like that approach. It works. It makes me a valuable member of my team, somebody the coach and teammates can count on with every single plate appearance. Plus, it's really very simple to have this approach on every pitch. One pitch at a time.
Here is your Plan:
1. Hit "What you Want" until you have two strikes.
2. What do you "Want"? A strike on the outer two thirds of the plate.
3. Something you naturally are able to hit with your "hands inside" the ball.
4. Hit "What you Can" after two strikes.
5. The strike zone finally gets expanded to include the inner third.
6. Don't discount that on hitter's counts.. or at-bats of extreme confidence.. you can "look" for inner 1/3.
7. Especially if outer two thirds approach has already produced a couple of great ab's in the game.
It's no surprise that Barry Bonds himself was struggling with hitting home runs in his attempt to catch Hank Aaron. Guess how he hit his 755th? Yea, opposite field on a 2-1 count. Hands were naturally inside the ball and bang! History is made!
Hitting is Timing. Pitching is upsetting Timing. The core of the game revolves around the hitter and the pitcher. It has, for over a century, been the most compelling aspect of the game of baseball. As a player you should recognize that this “history” essentially dictates the flow of the game between the pitcher and the hitter.
When you are capable of evolving mentally to the point where you recognize this, you place yourself in a position to capitalize on your knowledge of the game. Whether you are a pitcher or a hitter, history dictates the pitch!
As a hitter this is an incredible enlightenment. If hitting is timing (and it is), and history dictates the pitch… you should be able to take advantage of your athletic ability and perform at above average percentiles. What does this mean? It means you should be taking advantage of the percentages inherent in the game. Your “numbers” should be better than those from a player who has not recognized that the “game” of baseball revolves around numbers. The numbers are repeated, and have been repeated… and will be repeated over and over and over. If you pay attention to this history of repetition, your “numbers” should stand out.
Let me explain. What is a Fastball count? Well, history indicates that on a percentage basis… most pitchers will throw a fastball when they are behind in the count. The key portion of that statement is “on a percentage basis”.
Well, how is a hitter judged? By his percentage of success!
If you pay attention to the numbers, they can work for you. Your numbers will improve as a result. Ever hear the saying; “man, that guy really knows the game”? You want people to say that about you. So, you have to understand the “history of the game”.
Aaaah, but… so sorry… it’s not really that easy. Knowing the “history of the game” is not just referring to the overall history of baseball. It is taking the overall history, using it to your advantage in the “present”… and then… making adjustments in the present game as a result of the history of the “present game”. Get that?
For instance, your first at-bat in the “present game” had this scenario:
One out and a runner on third base, in a scoreless game; historically, what would your job be? Hit a ball hard to the big part of the field and you can score the runner. Or, hit a fly ball deep enough to the outfield and you can score the runner. Guess who else knows this? Ya, the pitcher… the catcher… every coach on the other side of the field, etc. What does the pitcher try to do? Get you to chase something you will hit weakly to an infielder, pop up… or even better, strike you out (So, something low and likely away in the strike zone).
The Scenario continues; you are facing a fastball pitcher. You also happen to know that he has pretty good command of a slider. Two pitches to worry about. You know this because you are aware of the “history of the present game”. On the 0-0 pitch the pitcher attempts to put that fastball low on the outside corner and misses. You knew that you would likely get a fastball on the outer two thirds (overall history of the game dictates a higher percentage of fastballs on 0-0)… (Present history dictates something away from you that you can’t pull for a sac fly)… you saw that pitch from the point of release and knew it was out of the strike zone. Aha… 1 ball 0 strikes!
Can you tell me what you will get next? Overall History of the game says what? Yup… fastball, and… sure enough, something down and away to try to keep you from doing your job. The pitcher’s job is to execute the pitch. So, what are you looking for? You got it… fastball. Now, are you starting to see the pattern here? History dictates the pitch. If you know the pitch… you can be in time. Hitting is Timing!
Continue with the scenario; sure enough you get that pitch on the outside part of the plate… it is a fastball… but… uh oh, shame on the pitcher… couldn’t quite hit his spot… left it up in the zone and you roped it to right center for an RBI single.
Fast forward… your next at bat you again play the “history of the game” both past and present to assist you in picking the pitch… you are right again and bang another solid hit; 2 for 2 using good old fashion history and athletic ability. Pretty cool, huh?
Third at bat; your team is down by a run in the 7th inning, runners at the corners with two outs, same pitcher. Remember the history. Not just the overall history (which you have used to your advantage), but the present history. The pitcher, catcher and the coaches all know that you have been successful using the numbers of the game to your advantage. They have two choices… continue to play “by the numbers” and give you the pitch you should get based on the count (which over the “history of the game” proves to work in the pitchers favor)… or see if you can hit something you ‘aren’t supposed to get’.
Dig a little deeper into this and you will see that “statistically” you are more likely to receive a fastball on 2-0 or an off-speed on a 0-2 count. Why do you think those are not “always going to get” pitches? Because, on occasion the other team has to do something different based on the “present history” of the game! Whether, it is a guy like you pounding out 2 hits, or because the batter is so bad they can throw him anything and get him out. These are the “percentiles” that make up the “most likely going to get” pitch scenarios. Do you follow that? Overall history proves that if they simply stick to their guns and throw what they should throw when they should throw it “statistically” the pitcher will win. The difficulty of hitting plus the gloves in the field guarantee it!
So, back to your third at-bat; the pitcher starts you off with a nice curve ball. It drops in beautifully for a strike. As you should have been… you were looking for a fastball on that 0-0 count. The game is on the line and you want your pitch. Now the pitcher has the advantage at 0-1. Historically, you should get something off-speed, right? Should you look for it? Maybe. Is that a pitch you hit well? Have you been watching this pitcher closely enough throughout the game to recognize his off-speed? If not, the answer is … NO. You don’t have two strikes yet. Hit your pitch! What is your pitch: Fastball!
Sure enough… they are thinking of going “against” history because you have proved that you can hit the pitch that “history dictates”… here comes a fastball… BANG! Exactly what you were looking for! Home Run!
Is this an unlikely scenario? Not really. Watch baseball and you will see this scenario repeated time and again. It is the “history of the game”… both overall history and present history. If you are paying attention to the “game” you can play it like this more often than not.
What do you think that will do for your numbers? You got it; it will make you one of the percentage leaders. Isn’t that how we judge good hitters?
Jason Kidd sees more. He sees more on the basketball court, on the freeway, in the movie theater. After he and his wife watch a movie, he routinely asks her if she noticed some subtleties in the film's background. She rarely does, even though she has learned to look for them. Reporters who have spent time with Kidd say he invariably finishes their sentences, slightly under his breath, as a prelude to his answer. In a practical sense, this mental acuity allows Kidd to make high-speed decisions in the open court, decisions that go far beyond the mundane choices of shoot-or-pass. His refined sensory awareness is not limited to the basketball court; it's part of who he is.
This is why Kidd performs physical feats that can't be practiced, or repeated, or sometimes even believed. It is why some witnesses say he threw a pass on Feb. 22 against the Knicks that came straight out of Area 51. After a steal in the Knicks forecourt, 70 feet from his own hoop, he saw Lucious Harris down court, breaking to the basket through a floor scattered with Knicks and Nets. This is where the story takes on some fourth-dimension quality, and where it becomes slightly unbelievable. With the window of opportunity opening and closing in roughly half a second, Kidd wound up and threw a 60-foot bowling-ball pass -- complete with an Earl Anthony follow-through -- in the direction of Harris. Witness reports vary, but the ball bounced at least three times and was thrown with enough backspin to avoid defenders and somehow curve back -- on the third or fourth bounce -- to hit Harris in stride for a layup.
Unbelievable? Nets coach Byron Scott, who played with Magic Johnson, says, “I could see his body language, and I’m looking at this ball saying, ‘I don’t believe this ball is going to curve right to where Lucious can catch it.’ I’m watching this thing come down and I’m shaking my head. I told Jason, ‘That was one of the greatest passes I’ve seen.’ ”
Kidd sees the game of basketball in large chunks, as a movie, instead of the slide show that others see. Kidd knows, for instance, that Nets teammate Richard Jefferson prefers soft looping lobs and Kenyon Martin prefers them harder and faster. At game speed, even when Martin or Jefferson is trailing a play, Kidd can simultaneously see the situation (the potential for the lob) and accommodate his teammate’s preference. This split-second awareness is why Kidd occupies a rarefied spot in the basketball world. It is why, in a basketball sense, Jason Kidd is a genius.
The basis for this genius comes down to one word: Speed. But not by its traditional definition. This isn’t stopwatch, 40-yard dash speed. It’s brain speed, or how fast the mind puts the body in motion. It is memory, pattern recognition and preparation all mixed together. Physical speed -- the kind we can see and compute -- is the manifestation of what goes on in the mind beforehand. Mental speed becomes physical when Gary Payton, the human premonition, disrupts a three-on-one fast break by overplaying a passing lane and coming up with a steal. Or when Andruw Jones, seemingly off before the crack of the bat, tracks down a liner to the gap. Or when Allen Iverson, arms and legs in arbitrary abandon, embarks on one of his fearless rages through the lane.
Every time you watch, astonished, and ask yourself how did he do that, be assured it starts inside the brain. The best of the best are the ones who do their sharpest thinking when there’s no time to think. Put simply, mind speed is what we’re seeing when we can’t believe our eyes.
 |
|
| Jason Kidd has turned the Nets from duds to studs. |
Think of it this way: As you read this sentence, you recognize the individual words and comprehend their meaning simultaneously. You do not need to read the words once to identify them and then reread them to understand their meaning. Both cognitive processes occur at once.
The best athletes play their sport the same way, but in their case they’re merging the mental and physical. Take Kidd’s bowling-ball pass. “The thing that impressed me the most,” says Jim Spanarkel, a Nets broadcaster and former NBA player, “was that in a split-second, he had the ability to not only line up Harris down at the other end of the floor, but realize that the only way he could get the ball safely to him was to try a pass that I’ve never seen in 25, 30 years of watching basketball.”
This mind speed, immediate and confident, is the essence of athletic greatness. The best recognize patterns no one else sees, whether it’s Andre Agassi tracking the path of a 140 mph serve, Jeff Gordon weaving through the bumper-to-bumper grind of the Daytona 500, or Joe Sakic skating at full speed and backhanding a no-look pass to a teammate across the ice. These guys see order in chaos, the secret code embedded in a page of text. It’s what Kidd sees in the open floor, and what Barry Bonds sees from the batter’s box.
On Oct. 4 of last year, with the entire sports world watching as he went for homer No. 70, Bonds stepped up for his final at-bat of a three-game series in Houston. In his previous 14 plate appearances in the series, Bonds had been walked eight times and hit once. An Astros coach joked that the only way Bonds was going to get a pitch to hit was if it came from Houston’s “Secret Weapon.” That weapon was Wilfredo Rodriguez, a ballistic-armed kid up from Double-A. So the lefthanded Bonds would see nothing to hit, unless it was leaving the hand of a wild, over-amped lefty at 97 mph.
As if to add torment to frustration, there was Rodriguez trotting in from the bullpen. He threw his first warmup pitch in the dirt, and air-mailed another to the screen. Bonds stood impassively in the on-deck circle. Rodriguez, his heart no doubt racing at hummingbird speed, took a few deep breaths. When Bonds got into the box, he trained his eyes on Rodriguez’s release point, while also peripherally scanning for any tip-off movement (body leans, looks, small steps) from the middle infielders. In this case, there was little doubt that Rodriguez was going to come at him hard, and Bonds has developed a visualization technique to help him hit pitches that approach 100 mph. He envisions he is playing catch with the pitcher, using his bat as a glove. Catch the ball and off it goes.
The first pitch was outside for a ball. He swung through the second one, a 95 mph fastball. With the 1-1 pitch, Rodriguez threw another fastball, chest-high at 96, and Bonds cranked it 454 feet into the thick Houston night. The Astros pitched to him once in the series, and he was ready.
The record-tying home run wasn’t merely a memorable physical act; it was a product of years of intense research. Bonds’ approach in the batter’s box is similar to that of a scientist in a laboratory. As he begins the malicious twitching of his bat, he senses subtle movements from fielders, sometimes after the pitcher starts his windup. A shortstop who cheats to one side (it can be as minute as an upper-body lean) can signal whether the pitch will be hard or soft. Bonds is also the undisputed master at picking up repetition in pitch patterns. If a pitcher falls into the slightest routine with his pitch selection -- a first-pitch fastball with a runner on first, for example -- Bonds will recognize it and exploit it.
And remember, this all happens in a matter of milliseconds. A major league fastball, thrown at 90 mph, travels from the pitcher’s hand to the plate in approximately 400 milliseconds, or about as long as it takes you to sneeze. Someone as advanced as Bonds, whose bat speed is unparalleled, takes 190-300 milliseconds to decide whether to swing the bat and another 160 milliseconds to get the bat to the ball. As the numbers suggest, a significant amount of the work has to be done before the swing. When he hits, Bonds is not simply reacting to the speed and location of the pitch. He has, in effect, seen it before it’s thrown.
Mind speed provides the framework to explain the way Marshall Faulk runs with the football. It might look random, but Faulk bases his water-bug moves on a number of nearly instantaneous observations. Before the ball is snapped, his mind takes a series of snapshots of the defense -- starting with the defensive linemen, then the linebackers, then the defensive backs -- and plots his course accordingly. In an era of max speed, with 260-pound inside linebackers running 4.5 40s, knowing tendencies and spotting patterns can mean the difference between being the best offensive player in the game and being a second-stringer. “Some guys have tunnel vision, but Marshall sees everything,” says Rams running backs coach Bobby Jackson. “I think he sees not only the guys approaching him, but the guys to the side of him and the guys behind him.”
Consider this move Faulk performed late last season against Indianapolis: Breaking through the line of scrimmage on an off-tackle play, Faulk found himself behind Rams center Andy McCollum, who had just made contact with a Colts linebacker. McCollum and the linebacker separated, and at that moment, with barely a body’s width separating the linebacker and the center, Faulk split the gap between the two and gained another 10 yards. “He went through them like a dart,” Jackson says. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
More than foot speed or strength or nerve, a move like this takes the kind of mind speed that blurs the line between thought and action. How much time did he have to see the separation, make the decision and split the difference? Probably less than a half-second. Faulk’s physical skills aren’t carrying him; he’s not the fastest or most punishing back on his own team, much less in the entire NFL. In fact, the growing Faulk legend might simply be a triumph of the imagination. Despite the barely organized chaos of an NFL running play, with 22 bodies in various stages of commotion, Faulk’s assumptions are uncannily accurate.
***
What Kidd, Bonds and Faulk know, on some level, is that we’re all too slow. Don’t take it as an insult; it’s a physiological fact. You’re too slow, but so is Kidd. Charles Woodson is too slow in his backpedal, and Mike Cameron is too slow getting a jump on a fly ball. Bonds’ bat? Too slow. Faulk’s feet? Too slow. Oscar De La Hoya’s hands? Too slow.
Laboratory tests of human reaction time prove it. It’s always agonizing to inject science into sports, but the scientific truth is this: We’re all wired a bit slower than we’d like. The time it takes to commit a quick action -- a punch, a first step, a head fake -- is roughly 100 milliseconds. The time it takes to counter the action -- to try to block the punch, for instance -- averages 200 milliseconds.
It was once proposed that Muhammad Ali’s greatness was due to his remarkable reaction time. The time it took for him to respond to a punch thrown his way averaged 150 milliseconds. Phenomenal, but still not fast enough. If George Foreman threw a big right hand in 100 milliseconds and Ali didn’t recognize it in advance, his 150-millisecond response time was worthless. It’s something we all know instinctively, and science proves it: Mental speed is not only preferable in sports, it’s essential. Physical gifts aren’t enough.
U. of Oregon psychology professor Steven Keele has conducted laboratory tests on reaction times, using both visual and auditory stimuli. His subjects were asked to touch a screen when a certain visual stimulus appeared, or to respond audibly when they heard a certain sound. His results lead him to say, “If an athlete is reacting only to what he sees or hears, he’s going to be too slow. Nobody would deny the importance of quickness in sports, but the quickest person in the world will be demolished every time if his cognitive skills aren’t good. It’s as simple as that.”
In professional sports, everyone is gifted physically. Among the gifted, there is a distinct separation between the 98% who are merely exceptional and the 2% who are truly great. Mind speed gets close to answering one of sports’ nagging questions: Why do athletes possessing similar physical gifts -- speed, strength, jumping ability -- vary so widely in performance? We say Jerry Rice works harder than anybody, but there are those who work as hard and possess greater physical skills -- size, speed, elusiveness -- who will never step onto an NFL field. Line up eight USBL point guards next to John Stockton. Even if you could remove the age factor, Stockton would most likely be among the slowest of the group. But put them on the court and Stockton would do things the others haven’t even considered. His mind simply works faster.
***
Willie Jorrin is the undefeated WBC super-bantamweight champion. In the weeks leading up to a fight, he lives an ascetic lifestyle, eating one meal a day to manage his weight, running as many as 12 miles a day, keeping a manic gym schedule. Moreover, he seems to relish the unique brand of torture that comes with the training. On a recent afternoon in his Sacramento gym, Jorrin worked out nonstop for 90 minutes -- shadow boxing, sparring, 15 continuous minutes with the jump rope, followed by a medieval selection of abdominal work.
But what makes Jorrin a champion isn’t his training regimen or his strength or his willingness to take a punch. What makes him a champion is his ability to see an opponent’s punches before they even start. Anybody with the proper inclination can train himself to be supremely fit and generally fearless. What separates Jorrin, though, is the speed at which his mind functions.
Jorrin, 31, is a remarkably elusive fighter, an expert at dodging and blocking punches. His 122-pound body and hands are jackrabbit quick, but his mind is faster. While most boxers look their opponent in the eyes, Jorrin’s gaze remains fixed on an imaginary X that crosses his opponent’s chest. Every punch starts there, he says, with a muscle twitch or flex that foreshadows each left jab or right cross. Like Bonds reading a pitcher, Jorrin’s observations are so elevated that he can focus strictly on this quirky trigger mechanism. Experience has allowed the rest of his game -- footwork, positioning, hand speed -- to work as if on autopilot. “I see whatever’s coming, doesn’t matter what it is,” Jorrin says. “Your chest doesn’t lie.”
On Sept. 9, 2000, in Manchester, England, Jorrin won the WBC title with a 12-round decision over Britain’s Michael Brodie. The fight turned in the late rounds, when Jorrin’s technique paid big dividends. One benefit of focusing on the chest is that it allows Jorrin, peripherally, to see and assess his opponent’s feet. Boxers are trained to be implacable. They don’t show pain, and the good ones are so accustomed to being battered that the consequences barely register on their faces. Their feet betray them, though, and when Brodie’s feet began to search for balance in the ninth round, Jorrin took over. He says, “If I had been watching his eyes, like most fighters, I never would have picked up on it.”
Timing and awareness are vital elements of mind speed. Charles Woodson can be beaten deep by a receiver, sprint to recover, and on a dead run dive with an arm outstretched to deflect a pass at the last possible millisecond. How? By reading the receiver’s eyes and hands, and even basing his dive in part on the growing amplification of the crowd.
The faster an athlete’s mind works, the slower the game appears. Players talk about being in The Zone, when everything slows and the baseball or the basket or the receiver seems huge and inviting. Oakland’s Eric Chavez is just starting to see the game slow as his mind picks up speed. In a recent game against Seattle, Chavez lined a two-out, two-strike single to left in the seventh inning off Seattle’s Arthur Rhodes, a hard throwing lefty who’s tough on lefthanded hitters. Chavez hit a hard slider on the outside corner, a tough pitch made tougher by Rhodes’ ability to throw a 95 mph fastball. “It wouldn’t have happened two years ago, or even last year,” says Chavez. “I wouldn’t have touched that pitch.” What’s changed? “I’m picking up everything faster,” he says.
Like reading words across a page, when Chavez sees a 95 mph fastball, he can identify it and respond simultaneously. There is a physical element to this -- refining the mechanics of his swing, for instance -- but most of it is mental. “Every year, the game seems slower to me,” he says. “When I was a rookie, the guy throwing 95 looked like he was throwing 100. Now 95 looks like 90. If I’m seeing it real well, it seems like 85.”
A’s rookie first baseman Carlos Pena sees Chavez’s development as a model for his own. “When I’m going poorly, I’d rather work on my mind than go to the batting cage,” Pena says. “What makes you sweat doesn’t always make you better.” Pena watches film to pick up pitch patterns and visualizes himself succeeding in various situations. He also does eye exercises to enhance vision and concentration.
What Chavez is doing -- and Pena is hoping to do -- is increasing the speed at which he recognizes pitches, shaving precious milliseconds off the hitting process. This is why a pitcher who can control four pitches is inherently more dangerous than one who controls just one or two, no matter how hard he throws. At the big league level, the mental advantage of increasing the number of patterns you force a hitter to read and recognize is greater than the pure physical factor of speed.
It’s why Greg Maddux consistently makes hitters look foolish with an 87 mph fastball, and why A’s closer Billy Koch, whose fastball routinely tops 100 mph, sometimes gets rocked even when he has his best stuff. A hitter spends more time attempting to identify Maddux’s pitches than he does reacting. In this way, Maddux’s 87 -- with the possibility of three other pitches roaming in the hitter’s mind -- can seem faster to the hitter than Koch’s 100. Oakland’s David Justice, a 14-year veteran, is an unapologetic fastball hitter. Matter-of-factly, he says, “If a guy can throw four pitches for strikes, more than likely he’s going to get me.”
The best of the best are those who possess the mind speed to complete one action while thinking of the next, and maybe the one after that. I remember watching Kidd at the Arena in Oakland when he was in the ninth grade, standing at the top of the key and threading a lefthanded bounce pass to a player cutting to the basket from the right baseline. It was a 20-foot bounce pass, through several bodies, delivered with the timing and precision of a trained sniper. He gave no indication he was aware of being the youngest player on the court, in a state final, in a sold-out NBA arena. Even then, as a 15-year-old, his mind was the fastest on the floor.
Mind speed resists concrete definition, but we know it when we see it realized in physical form. For the fastest athletes, competition is close to an out-of-body experience; in their minds, what they’re doing is already done. “You try to stay at least one step ahead, if not two,” Kidd says.
This concept is often associated with words like “instinct,” “feel” or “knack.” It’s Jorrin seeing the punches before they become punches, and Faulk seeing holes that exist only for him. It’s how Derek Jeter can stray 150 feet from his customary position to track down an errant throw from right field and somehow backhand it to the plate to save a playoff game. Speed, as it is employed by the elite, carries an element of the extrasensory. We’re all too slow, but the best of the best have figured out how to compensate for nature’s deficiencies.
They’ve learned how to cheat science.
