Consistency is The Breakfast of Champions
Last night, the Giants snuck another game from the Phillies. Oh, what a good game it was from a clutch play standpoint. There were so many situations that were crucial; it was a baseball fans’ dream (that is unless you’re a diehard Phillies fan).
Because I love the head to head strategy of baseball, I always watch how pitchers throw vs. how hitters work the count. There were so many situations last night that pushed the skill and focus of hitters and pitchers. The question I want to explore in today’s email is:
How do these athletes in the playoffs keep their composure in the face of such pressure?
Instead of looking at the mental side of it, I want focus on the physical preparation/skill training of great athletes. What we don’t see is all the work that goes on before games, after games, and in between. Once you understand all the prep work that goes into the strategy of each pitcher/hitter situation, it SHOULD light a fire under the butts of all those who want to play high level baseball. There is always work to do!
When I was playing minor league ball in the Mariners organization I remember getting to the park at 1pm regularly for a 7pm game. We spent time in the cages working on hitting different pitch locations, worked on a specific part of defense, improved our footwork with agility drills, and of course ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches during breaks.
Why did we spend so much time before the game? We wanted to repeat as many different scenarios as we could before we faced those same scenarios in a game when it really mattered. And because there are uncountable amounts of scenarios in a typical baseball game, we spent some serious time working on as many as possible.
Now, please don’t read into this and think that as a coach you need to hold five hour practices. You’ll fry your kids’ excitement for the game. I am advocating working intelligently and efficiently on understanding and teaching the mechanics of the game. The more you can help your athletes prepare their skills, the more consistent play you’ll get in pressure scenarios. That’s how these guys can look so under control in the playoffs, they’ve been in similar situations thousands of times before. Of course the playoffs increase the external pressure, but you get my point.
You don’t need to be the expert on hitting or pitching, but if you don’t know how to teach specifics well, find someone who does. This was our focus in our new DVD series coming out. We wanted to create a series of DVD’s that would show you how we teach what we teach as well as what to look for in your hitter/pitcher in order to help him most. You can also grab our pitching mechanics DVD here if you can’t wait.
Finally, if you want to truly watch a master of physical and mental preparation in action, you’ll get your chance tomorrow night when Roy Halladay takes the mound again for the Phillies. If you don’t know his story, this article is worth a read.
