Desperately needing a strike out, you just served up a hanging curveball which was slammed against the right center field fence, or just badly misplayed an easy, third out, fly ball which allowed the tying and go ahead runs to score. How you handle these situations could determine your baseball future.
For most people, unless they're immature sore losers, it's usually easy to offer encouragement either verbally and / or by a slap on the backside of your teammate after he just made a horrendous error, but Not so easy to forgive ourselves. We need to clarify some of the reasons which cause the
why's and how's this can negatively affect performance.
(1.) The embarrassment factor: Regardless the player's personality, stay behind the scenes and just do my job, or the flamboyant "look at me" type of person, Nobody likes to look silly or inadequate in front of their peers.
An error in the first inning, which may or may not appear to have insurmountable consequences, can have devastating effects on the player's performance the remaining game if not taught how to "shake off" the negative feelings.
(2.) The "I let the Team down" factor: I have found this the prevalent issue for most negative feelings in a ball player. Nobody wants to disappoint anybody and especially their friends and teammates, because their failure directly affects the team's position or future.
This can have devastating affects on a player and his career and unfortunately I am an example of such consequences. Making a long story short, I was a 14 year old All-star third baseman who overthrew the first baseman for what should have been the game ending out, but instead turned into the game ending error.
Although nobody chastised me or whispered I lost the game, I was personally devastated and began "aiming" instead of "throwing" the ball to first base, which became so bad I was moved to second base in order to have a shorter throw.
There are as many reasons for losing focus as there are players, but much fewer methods for regaining their focus, and as a coach you must be able to sense the problem and teach quick solutions. Let's exam a few options.
(1.) Never think a player is too young to be affected by their error or failure. Education experts preach a child's personality and study habits are well developed by a very young age and waiting until a child is 7 or 8 to begin stressing education importance is far too late to drastically alter their attitude.
Why would a youngster's emotional and mental attitude in sports be different than for education? It's not. Although they are too young to be taught to throw a curveball, they are Not too young to develop mental and emotional toughness.
(2.) It's important to teach a "step back and take a deep breath" approach when dealing with focus. It's very, very rare for a major league pitcher to develop a mechanical flaw, unless extremely tired, while pitching. So why does a pitching coach call time out and go to the mound for a chat?
Sometimes it's for strategy, but 99% of the time it's to force the pitcher to stop his routine, allow his mind to rest and replace the racing thoughts of "losing control" of the situation back to the basics.
(3.) Stressing the Good in Bad factor: A good coach will know the attitudes of his players and how they handle misfortune or mistakes. Some players, although extremely competitive, still realize the game is just that, a game, and although not happy about making a mistake, it holds no far reaching affects on them.
Other players are not so lucky, as they have an inherent "I can not make a mistake" attitude. Don't try to make light of their error or strike out, thinking that will negate their frustration, as being hard wired the way they are... it won't.
Instead recognize the possible problem and defuse it with "positive praise."
For instance, an infielder fails to catch a ground ball which allows a run to score. Between innings call the player aside and praise him for going far to his right in his attempt to catch the ball. Tell him you're proud of his 110% effort.
Regaining quick focus in sports is important as the next pitch or swing of the bat is a mere minute away, but teaching methods of regaining focus on the baseball diamond will have far reaching affects on your players' lives long after they become too old to play organized ball.
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