Ninety Percent Mental by Bob Tewksbury

Author:Bob Tewksbury
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2018-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

8

From Bird Seed to Mind Food

When I walk into a minor league clubhouse, the scenes repeat themselves time after time. Baseball travel bags scattered across the floor of the musty locker room. Carpet dirtied with chunks of clay, the residue of dozens of spikes clomping across the floor. Crumpled paper cups littering the area near the wastebasket, so many missed “basketball shots.” Potato chips, pretzels, peanut butter and jelly laid out on a table. Players anywhere from the ages of eighteen to twenty-seven with hope in their eyes and hunger in their hearts.

Today, I am in the visitors’ clubhouse at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in Manchester, New Hampshire, and you can smell the peanut butter. I’m visiting the Portland Sea Dogs, the AA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, and they are here in Manchester to play the Toronto Blue Jays’ Double-A team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. It is midseason, a time when the grind of the minor league schedule starts to have its effect on the psyche of the players. So before the team goes out for pregame batting practice, I ask them to sit for a minute. I am curious to see what state of mind the players are in.

“Hey, how many of you guys feel like you are playing up to your potential?” I ask.

No player raises a hand.

So I go on to explain to them the three key pillars of performance. One is physical—weight training, cardio work, the obvious. One is fundamental—hitting, throwing, fielding, the things you practice on the field. And one is mental.

Then I ask for a show of hands. “How many of you think the reason you are not playing up to your potential is because of something physical?”

No hands go up.

“Okay, is it something fundamental that is keeping you from playing up to your potential?”

A couple of players slowly, tentatively raise their hands.

“How about this,” I ask. “How many of you think that the reason you’re not playing up to your potential is because of something mental?”

They all raise their hands.

This is the maddeningly elusive part of the game. Suddenly, the blueprint becomes fuzzy. The directions become murky. In just about every other area, you can quantify your work. In a slump at the plate? Come in early tomorrow and take a hundred swings in the cage as the hitting coach keeps close watch and spoon-feeds tips. Fielding not as sharp as you would like? The infield coach is available to hit a hundred ground balls to you in a private tutoring session before batting practice this afternoon. Running out of fuel as fatigue sets in toward the end of a long season? Add more pounds as you lift weights this winter and increase your cardio work to make yourself stronger.

But what if, amid the scattered potato chips and strewn Gatorade cups and surrounded by more talent than you’ve ever before competed with, you suddenly begin to have this inexplicable, gnawing feeling that your dream is slipping from your grasp? And,

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