9-12-2009
Anybody who has ever played the game of baseball has experienced it. A 0-for-4 performance with four strikeouts. A 0-for-4 outing to go along with a couple of errors in the field, muffing an easy pop up or booting a Sunday hop grounder. A bad game is inevitable in the game of baseball, and chances are that you will have more than one game that you would just like to forget.
Have you ever seen have a player with a 1.000 batting average at the end of a season?
I didn’t think so.
How about a player with a 1.000 fielding percentage? That’s possible, but very rare. Some of what goes on during a game is out of your control. Maybe the grounder hit a small rock or a lip in the infield and the ball came up and hit you in the chest or ricocheted off the side of your glove. Maybe you lost the lazy pop up in the sun (referred to by many in the sport as the “sun ball”) and then retracked the ball on its way down only to have the ball hit the bottom of your glove and fall to the ground. Maybe you didn’t have an excuse and just didn’t get in the fundamentally correct position to catch the ball, resulting in an error. No matter what happened throughout the course of a game or practice on those bad days, or how it occurred, you can’t change what happened in the field or at the plate.
What’s done is done.
It may be painful, but let’s revisit those bad days for just a minute. What did you do after you struck out for the third or fourth time? Did you take your helmet off and hurl it in the dugout while grabbing your glove and walking to your position on the field? When the inning ended in which you committed an error or two, did you rip your glove off your hand and chunk it against the back wall of the dugout even before you got to the dugout where everybody in the stands could see it, all while walking back to the dugout from the field?
Guess what?
You might not have thought about it at the time, but somebody was watching you. While there are some things in sports that you can’t control, there are two things that you can: your attitude and your hustle. I can’t tell you how many times a coach or a scout came to talk to my teams (in high school and college) and told us stories about these two things specifically. One college coach (I can’t remember where he was from) told us about going out to recruit a specific player. The coach went to watch the player at one of his high school games. The player was hitless in the game and toward the end of the game; it was time for the player to go back on the field for defense. The player walked to his position on the field, and the coach who was there to watch him saw this. The coach immediately marked the player’s name off his list of recruits, left the game and quit recruiting that player. All because the player walked to his position on defense. It had nothing to do with the player’s ability to hit, field, run or throw because the player could do all of those things well or else the coach would have never been recruiting the player in the first place. However, in the midst of adversity, the player quit giving effort and quit showing passion for the game and, in the end, it ultimately cost him a potential scholarship offer.
No matter how poorly you may be playing, always hustle. The game of baseball deserves your respect and every ounce of energy that you have while you are playing it. Remember that no one player is bigger than the game itself. There have been many players that have played the game before you, and there will be many players that are going to play the game once your playing days are over. This game has been around since the late 1800’s and isn’t going away anytime soon. Don’t be that player that gives poor effort in an area of which the player has total control. Don’t be that player that didn’t make the team because he walked to and from his position during tryouts. Don’t be that player that gets his named crossed off a college coach’s list of recruits because he saw the player walking on the field. It may not be the easiest thing to do when you are frustrated with your play, but you never know who may be watching. It may not seem like a lot, but believe me, coaches and scouts at all levels take notice of how hard you play the game. It shows coaches that you are mentally tough and that you don’t let the bad days affect your attitude towards the game. It will also show coaches and scouts that you really want to make the team, or that you really deserve to get that scholarship offer. Ultimately, your hustle will show them how much you really love playing the game of baseball. When a coach or a scout comes to watch you play, he shouldn’t be able to tell whether you are 0-for-4 with four strikeouts or 4-for-4 with four grand slams. If you really are passionate about this great game, your attitude and your effort will be the same no matter what.
There are two rules in baseball: Have fun and hustle. It’s not hard.
Be good to the game of baseball, and the game of baseball will be good to you.
Davis
