Spring Training

It’s that time of year again, as pitchers and catchers report early for spring training and position players trickle into camp in preparation for the upcoming season. Professional baseball players say that spring training is the best time of year for them because it signals a fresh start, gets their competitive juices flowing, and offers the promise that once again everybody is starting over. This season, as every season, everybody has a chance. Everybody has a shot at the championship. For me, as a coach of youth baseball, it’s a chance for a valuable life lesson.

Eric Gagne was tendered a minor league contract by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Gagne has experienced the highest highs in his profession, having set franchise records for the Dodgers and records within Major League Baseball. He won the Cy Young award in 2003 as the best pitcher in the National League, and is a three-time All Star. Gagne has also struggled mightily in his profession, having been linked to steroid use and fallen to the ranks of the possibly washed up veterans. Gagne probably knows that he will either make the roster for the Dodgers in 2010 or be forced into retirement as a minor league player that nobody wants.

Sports can be painfully, brutally truthful. Every player, regardless of how gifted he may be, will be left behind by his sport at some point. Players who are truly passionate about their sport do everything they can to play as long as possible. And every time a player works out, he tests his body. Every time a player studies film, he pressures himself to get an edge. Every time a player takes the field, he wills himself to perform.

And every day a player stays in his sport, he is challenged by the other athletes around him. What a great life lesson.

The Dodgers will break training camp this season, and Eric Gagne will either be a member of the 25-man roster or he won’t. The opportunities for him to prove his worth to the team will have been taken. The judgment of his abilities will have been made. His future in Major League Baseball will have been identified. Gagne will be in the same position he had once been in as a young player when he tried out for his youth teams, his high school teams, and his minor league teams. He will once again be in the same position he had once been in when he tried out for the Dodgers in 1995.

We are all tested. Life continues to test us as we work to maintain our standard of living or improve our situations. We are challenged with raising families, maintaining relationships, and improving our communities. Life is full of tests.

So, as a coach, I will talk with my teams about spring training. I’ll talk about Eric Gagne and his work to make the cut. I’ll talk to them about facing the challenges of making their high school baseball teams. And I’ll talk with them about the work needed to get As or Bs on their math tests. Or the attention to detail they will need as they prepare for their SATs.

And I will certainly talk about the fulfillment Eric Gagne will feel if his hard work and determination land him a spot with the 2010 Los Angeles Dodgers.

Desire, Preparation, Confidence, Execution

Desire and execution: How badly do you want it and will you perform when given the opportunity?

There is no consistent performance without desire. It is possible to rise up unexpectedly and make a play by being in the right place at the right time. A player might even have a great day, in “the zone,” and perform well for a couple of hours. But nobody makes it to the Hall of Fame without desire. Nobody has won a season or series MVP award without desire.

Only through desire can an athlete wake up each day and find ways to become a better player. Only through desire can a player constantly study the game (his game) looking for ways to improve. Only desire makes a competitor think about his food, his sleep, his mental health and his responsibilities against the backdrop of his sport. Desire focuses our daily activities.

It may sound obsessive, and perhaps it is. Should I stay up late even though it may hurt my performance? Should I eat those french fries even though there is no nutritional value in them? Should I blow off my homework even though I may get a bad grade and get cut from the team? Should I hang out on the street corner and risk getting in trouble with the law? Should I play four hours of video games even though it may damage my eyesight? Should I not practice today because I can practice tomorrow? Or the next day? Or the next?

Without desire, there is no preparation. There is no studying. There is no practicing. There is no analyzing or consideration or understanding. Desire drives work. Desire fuels the repetition needed to become comfortable in competition.

It’s the last inning. There are two outs. The tying run is at third. The winning run is at second. A batter stands at the plate, waiting for a pitch. The pitcher toes the rubber, considering what to throw. The fielder looks around the infield at the runners and thinks about his options. Why is the hitter calm? How does the pitcher methodically review his pitch sequence and draw the nerve to throw an off-speed pitch? How can the fielder move smoothly to the ball, scoop it and throw it routinely to record the final out? The answers all rest in the hours of work, study, practice and preparation that each of these athletes pressed through on their roads to this moment.

Desire enables athletes to walk that road. Desire enables the preparation. The preparation builds confidence. The confident athlete is then free to perform. He can execute the play he knows without thinking.

Desire. Preparation. Confidence. Execution. All linked to success. How badly do you want it and will you perform when given the opportunity?

Pros Versus Joes (Amateurs)

The terms “professional” and “amateur” has been used to demonstrate a level of quality for some time now. We have come to assume that if somebody is good enough to get paid for something then he must be good. And for a long time it was a heavy blow if somebody said, “He’s such an amateur.” In reality, getting paid or not has no intrinsic bearing on quality.

I had one of my teams at a tournament a couple of weeks ago. As usually happens, I had the opportunity to meet and talk with a variety of coaches. In fact, I have long since lost count of the number of coaches I have had had conversations with (good, bad or in between). One of the great things about coaching youth sports is the opportunity to meet new people and hear different ideas.

At this particular tournament, I met a coach who is fortunate enough to actually earn a living from running youth baseball teams. In my short time with him, he struck me as a great guy, earnest in his work, and caring toward his players. I’m convinced he earns every penny of his paycheck.

As we talked, Coach lamented how difficult it has been lately in our area to attract and maintain players because “there are all these dads that get pissed off at me and think they can run their own teams.”

Both of my boys have played for professional coaches. Some of those experiences have been great and others have been acceptable. I have never pulled my kid from a professional coach because I was disappointed with the coaching. Or, more to the point, I’ve never pulled my kid from a team because I was angry with a professional coach. Dissatisfaction with a specific coach was never a reason for me to start coaching.

I started coaching youth baseball because I watched dozens of coaches over the course of six years before I became convinced that I couldn’t do any worse. When I saw coaches who were bad, they were really bad. When I saw coaches who were good, they were really good … but no better that I felt I could be. And pay (or lack thereof) made no difference in the assessment.

I watched Coach pretty closely when we played our game against him. I liked his demeanor. I liked his field presence. I liked the way he handled his players. During the three hours he and I shared the same field, he gave me every indication that he was a good coach. And he’s a pro.

I, on the other hand, am an amateur. I do not get paid. In fact, I lose money because of my involvement in this sport. I am an anti-pro. I am less than amateur.

But I do a pretty good job.

Before amateurs lost respect in our lexicon, they were revered. At least in terms of athletics. The amateur athlete was considered the pure athlete. Even the act of hiring a coach was unthinkable to a pure, amateur athlete. And, of course, that was an overly simplistic view.

Pay doesn’t matter. Quality matters. Pay may or may not follow quality, but quality always comes first.

Baseball's Life Lessons

Countless young boys want to be professional baseball players when they grow up. A very countable number of those will actually make it. This is indisputable and universally understood. What is less accepted is why. Most people have bought into the common wisdom that so few ball players succeed because the game is so difficult, and while that is true it is not the real reason. The vast majority of ball players never play Major League Baseball because it is not what they want from life.

It is a sad fact that parents spend so much of their time, effort and money setting their child up for a lasting career in baseball. It’s not sad to spend the time, effort and money. It’s sad to do those things for the wrong reasons. The game is not bad. In fact, I believe that baseball has unique lessons to learn that cannot come as completely from any other sport experience. It is sad is that the early years of a player’s baseball experience is solely focused on preparing him for a later career that may not happen. We all want to teach our young players how to play the game well, but our primary focus should be teaching the life lessons that baseball has to offer.

Every baseball player must learn to throw, catch and hit correctly. Those are repeatable, mechanical actions, and they must be executed reliably and consistently in order to achieve success. There are actions and process within the game that are practiced and drilled to develop confidence and ensure consistency. The same is true of any sport, pastime or profession.

On the other hand, not every sport, pastime or profession ends in failure as easily or as often as baseball. If a player is to succeed at this game, he must learn to reject failure and move forward. This aspect of the game, probably more than any other, is celebrated by coaches and players. It is the perfect example of what this game can teach.

Perhaps more importantly, though, are the simpler lessons. People are rewarded when they are mentally and physically prepared to perform. We all do better when we study and practice. Visualization of a task at hand helps us meet the task and succeed. All of this is true in baseball and in life. Any coach that doesn’t draw the parallels between baseball and other life experiences is failing as a coach.

I blogged earlier about coaches who treat their teams like PlayStation games, trying to move each player on the field in real time as if it were they who were playing the game. The argument can and has been made that young players don’t process information quickly enough to be successful on the field within the context of the game. I don’t dispute that. At the same time, young players are not stupid. They can process a mistake made and learn from the experience.

As in life, we learn best by making mistakes. As a coach, I let players make mistakes. It’s the best way for them to grow as people. And if they are meant to play baseball later in life, they will grow more completely as ball players as well.

Just Let Them Play

I see it all the time. I saw it again this past weekend. There are far too many “coaches” in youth baseball who wish that they were on the field playing.

My 11U team competed in a tournament and played a team from La Mirada, California. I mention the city only for point of reference. This team could have been from anywhere. The reality is that this happens a lot.

And before I get too far along on this rant, let me be the first to say that we meet many, many great people in baseball. It’s a wonderful sport with interesting people and rewarding experiences. The majority of players are great kids. Most of coaches are polite, hard-working, under-appreciated people.

But there are those who lack the perspective they need to teach our youngsters, and the fellow I ran into this past weekend is one of those. His type is the most bothersome of “coaches” in youth baseball. He roamed foul territory just outside his dugout and continually yelled instructions to his players on defense: “Take two steps back” and “remember to go to first” and “left, right, left” and “your elbow needs to be up when you make that throw” and on and on and on. All the things he should be repeating in practice, he repeated during the game.

Late in the game I asked the manager of the opposing team where he found his coach. I had a hunch about the guy, and it was quickly proven. “He’s very intense,” the manager told me, as if that was an excuse. “He’s that way all the time. Even when he eats a burger.” It turns out the guy played “pro ball” for eight years.

It’s extremely rare to run across a former major-leaguer coaching in youth baseball. On the other hand, it is common to find coaches (some getting paid) who played professional baseball at a minor league level. I’ve long since stopped being impressed by my peers who are former minor-leaguers. Not because they are necessarily bad coaches. In fact, many are very good. I’m just not impressed any longer because I’ve met so many of them.

But here is the point … Some of these former players are coaching and managing games as if they are sitting in the living rooms playing PlayStation baseball. If they could move their young players around the field with controllers, they would. I don’t know if they are bitter because they didn’t go as far in the game as they wanted. Perhaps they can’t let go of that feeling. Whatever the case, their players will not learn to think for themselves or synthesize their instruction unless they get to play the game on their own.

In the end, it all works out. With the help of their parents, players move from team to team until they find the right fit. Some players learn well when given continual instruction. Some don’t.

One thing is certain, though. The game is more fun when it’s played and not worked. Work during practice. Play during games.

Baseball mommies and daddies (I differentiate mommies and daddies from parents) can be very entertaining. Players, coaches and parents can all learn from baseball mommies and daddies. That’s why talking about them is a recurring theme here.

I ran into a baseball mommy the other day at a day camp held by the local university. She was torn between leaving and hovering. In the end, she decided to tell me how good her son could be at baseball if only he would buckle down and take it more seriously. I pointed out that her boy was just 8 years old.

Of course she hadn’t forgotten how old her son was. The problem she had was reconciling his chronological age with the fact that he had “played up” the previous season, as if playing up was a sign of maturity. Mommy logic dictated that her player was ready for “the next level” and he should behave as such.

I talk with a lot of mommies and daddies who are driven to find ways for their players to play up. In some cases, these kids are forced to play on teams two years older. I recall a daddy who wanted his 8-year-old to play on the same 11U team as his 10-year-old because the younger boy was the player with a “real future.” I suppose his older son was barely hanging on in a feeble attempt to play up just one year.

Playing up is a concept that has been around as long as there have been young athletes. Greg Maddux played up with his older brother Mike. Hockey, basketball and baseball prodigies have historically played on teams with older players at some point. In some cases, that is how prodigies stretch their abilities. Of course it doesn’t hurt that it makes for good media fodder.

The problem for mommies and daddies is that the vast majority of young players aren’t prodigies. These players can’t and shouldn’t play up. And virtually no player should play up on a regular basis before the onset of puberty.

The first goal for parents is to make sure children under 12 love the game. Unless kids develop a passion for their sport, they won’t play later on in life. It doesn’t matter how much potential they have or what kind of God-given physical ability they possess. Without passion, teenagers will drop their sport as soon as they are introduced to girls, beaches, hanging out, and the myriad of other distractions that come along with high school. I spoke with a mother the other day whose gifted son played football player and made varsity as a high school sophomore, but left the game and dropped out of school the next year because he had no passion for those things.

Nothing a young player achieves in baseball before puberty matters. The ability to pitch a complete game as a 12-year-old is worthless as a 15-year-old. The five homers a player hits in Little League do not translate to five homers in high school. The 30 stolen bases recorded at 11 mean nothing once a boy starts to get long and gangly.

Of course, all of this logic falls on the deaf ears of baseball mommies and daddies. After all, their child is one of the exceptions, one of the prodigies. All math and probability aside, their kid is The Natural. That is why their 8-year-old will play on an 11U team, practice three hours every day, and work out with private pitching and swing coaches.

The Measure of an Athlete

The core of sport is competition. Teams compete against other teams. Athletes compete against other athletes. We continually play games against like-minded and equal-willed competitors to measure ourselves and our abilities. Those athletes who avoid or reject competition are destined to live a life outside of sports.

I was lucky enough to be chosen to coach a select baseball team of young athletes. Some of these boys will play for their respective high schools. By the looks of some of them, I will not be surprised if they play baseball beyond high school. It’s a nice looking squad and I am truly honored.

One of these young men (we’ll call him Fred) had commitments that conflicted with the first few practices of this team. During that time, we drilled the players and tried them out at a variety of positions. A number of players were so smooth and polished at their professed spots that they took the inside lane at winning those positions. In fact, most of the defensive spots were close to set by the time Fred joined us.

In fairness to Fred, I asked where he thought he might be able to contribute best to the team. We drilled him along with the other players who were vying to start at those positions. Fred came close to winning a start at first base, but he fell just short. His defensive and hitting mechanics were smooth, but another player was stronger and more consistent. In the end, Fred became a substitute.

Players compete for positions on teams. This process is ongoing and iterative. Teams form an original line-up based on internal competition. Then they adjust those line-ups as players get better or prove to be worse. We measure our players and their abilities in an effort to make our teams as successful as we can.

Fred decided to leave the team. He felt our selection process was unfair. He chose to quit rather than fight for a starting position.

Fred’s choice is similar to those made by athletes every day. Some athletes quit their chosen sport when they are young, while others leave when they are older. The Darwinian aspect cannot be ignored. In the end teams get better because they have a stronger group of players, and players get better because they compete against consistently better athletes. All of this is a bit sad because we would like to see everyone play, but reality is not that way.
The measure of an athlete is what sport is all about.