One thing that always happens in baseball is slumps. It could be a slump hitting, or it could be baserunning where you’re just not locked in. It’s not an easy game, and it’s certainly not easy in a 20-game high school season, and it’s not an easy game over 162 games in Major League Baseball. And we all get caught up in looking back and feeling down in the dumps, particularly if you start the season poorly. The Red Sox had a player start the season 0-for-19. Every time you come up to bat, you’re seeing the scoreboard with those three zeroes on it. And that’s at the major league level in front of 30,000 people. Even though he’s a fan favorite, even though they were chanting his name, I have to imagine there’s a lot of self-doubt that accompanies that.

I see that with high school players who start off the season slowly, and they might draw a walk, and I hear them from the first-base coaches box, “I’m still hitless.” You can’t think like that. You have to think that perfection is logical to the point that you can actually attain it. And the point is, one at-bat at a time, and one pitch at a time, whether you’re pitching or hitting or playing the field, it’s always one thing at a time.

There is a great book from the 1980’s called Men at Work by the columnist George Will. It focuses on some legendary baseball players like Tony Gwynn, and Orel Hershiser, who had just had a 59-inning scoreless streak. One of his catchers, Rick Dempsey, says, “There are pitchers, who when you score a run off them, you can see it ruin their perfect day, and they lose their competitive edge, then the dam breaks and they give up six or seven runs.”

We see it when a guy balks in a run, walks in a run, or hits a batter with two strikes. Can he mentally recover from that blemish on the record? If I had a dollar for every time I see a pitcher walk in a run or balk in a run, and that not be the only run they give up in that inning, I’d have more than a few bucks piled up.

Orel Hershiser, when he goes to the mound in the first inning, was asked what he was planning to do. “I’m planning to pitch a perfect game”, he replied. “If they get a hit, then I am throwing a one-hitter. If they get a walk, it’s my last walk. I deal with perfection to the point that it is logical to conceive it. History is history, the future is perfect.”

There is a conversation with Pete Rose back when he was trying to set the all-time hit record. He was 14 hits away and 42-years-old and they asked him how many at-bats he needed to pass Ty Cobb, and he said, “Fourteen.” In his mind, he could theoretically be perfect and get a hit every time at bat. And so can you.

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The Competitor’s Brain, a podcast hosted by Loren Foxx, takes years of experience in sports psychology, including working with greats in the business like Ken Ravizza, Brian Cain, and Dr. Rob Gilbert, and assembles the highlights into an easy-to-digest three minute daily podcast.