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What You Can Learn From MLB’s Mental-Skills Coaches
Wall Street Journal ^ | June 11, 2018 | Sue Shellenbarger

Posted on 10/28/2018 9:04:37 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege

The Chicago Cubs are one of 26 Major League Baseball teams to employ sports psychologists or mental-skills coaches.

As in the workplace, the game’s great myth is that talent always wins. In reality, athletes’ hidden game, the mental one, can override some deficits in skill, says Bob Tewksbury, a former All-Star pitcher and current mental-skills coach for the San Francisco Giants.

Players must develop the ability to block out distractions, says Mr. Tewksbury, author of “Ninety Percent Mental..."

Ken Ravizza, a mental-skills coach for the Chicago Cubs, teaches players to stay aware of their mental state by imagining an inner traffic signal: It’s green when your body is calm and the mind focused. It turns yellow when your heart rate and blood pressure start rising and you begin having trouble focusing. It flashes red when you start believing your self-doubts. Your muscles tighten and you lose control.

Dr. Ravizza also has players choose a focal point to look at during tense moments, such as a foul pole or spot on their glove, and imbue it with special meaning. Tell yourself, “I have worked hard and I belong here.”

The best batters in pro baseball fail seven of every 10 times at bat. “Failing can be better than succeeding if you use it as a chance to work on what you need to learn...”

Hitters with two strikes against them seldom get the pitch they want...

Jonathan Fader, a former mental-skills coach for the New York Mets, coached a self-employed trader who worried so much about hitting his monthly profit targets that his performance began to slide. He advised him to let go of the outcome and focus on attaining the mental state he hoped to experience after he succeeded—calm, masterful and capable of quick, rational decisions.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Reference
KEYWORDS: baseball; mlb; motivation; worldseries
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1 posted on 10/28/2018 9:04:37 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Ironically, I was thinking of the distraction factor tonight as I imagined a Bosox pitcher having to tune out the organ “ Let’s go, Dodgers”.

Clap clap clap clap clap


2 posted on 10/28/2018 9:10:22 PM PDT by A_Former_Democrat ("Mods/Indies/Dems/Non-voters" JOBS or MOBS? Are CRAZY DIMS REALLY who you want BACK in POWER?)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Hey, batter batter batter...


3 posted on 10/28/2018 9:13:06 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Congratulations to the Boston Red Soxs.


4 posted on 10/28/2018 9:22:40 PM PDT by Biggirl ("One Lord, one faith, one baptism" - Ephesians 4:5)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Try this outline.com URL: https://outline.com/JPetu6


5 posted on 10/28/2018 9:26:25 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Vince Ferrer

Reminds me of Brian Regan comedy bit.


6 posted on 10/28/2018 9:30:54 PM PDT by beaversmom
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

I read a good article just recently about mental obstacles in baseball. It was a review of two books. I’ll try to find it.


7 posted on 10/28/2018 9:32:29 PM PDT by beaversmom
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

Confronting anxiety through baseball:
https://lithub.com/confronting-anxiety-through-baseball


8 posted on 10/28/2018 9:37:39 PM PDT by beaversmom
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To: beaversmom

https://youtu.be/WN-aCYVVtyo


9 posted on 10/28/2018 9:41:10 PM PDT by hardspunned
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To: hardspunned

Good scene. Looks like a good movie.


10 posted on 10/28/2018 9:45:24 PM PDT by beaversmom
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To: beaversmom

Great movie


11 posted on 10/28/2018 9:45:54 PM PDT by hardspunned
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

You gotta breathe through your eye lids. Just like a lizzard.


12 posted on 10/28/2018 9:47:25 PM PDT by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchanged our dreams for survival. We just have a few days that don't suck.)
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To: Biggirl

Hitters with two strikes against them seldom get the pitch they want...

= = =

Not in the WS games I just watched.


13 posted on 10/28/2018 9:52:39 PM PDT by Scrambler Bob (You know that I am full of /S)
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To: beaversmom
Maggie taunts Darryl Strawberry.
14 posted on 10/28/2018 10:43:56 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: Vince Ferrer

Thumbs up. Poor DS. ;)


15 posted on 10/28/2018 10:51:14 PM PDT by beaversmom
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Inside the World of Mental Coaching in Major League Baseball

https://www.si.com/edge/2018/05/02/bob-tewksbury-mental-coaching-baseball-jon-lester


16 posted on 10/28/2018 11:12:12 PM PDT by beaversmom
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https://www.mlb.com/news/darryl-strawberry-now-anti-addiction-minister/c-194344466

Yankees Magazine: Redemption story
From his struggles with substance abuse, Darryl Strawberry finds the happiness and strength to help others

Darryl Strawberry’s Saturday evening is nearly over, but the most important few minutes of it may be just beginning.

Strawberry, 54, who is a Christian minister these days, has just delivered a powerful and emotional sermon on a back field at East Moriches Middle School on Long Island. Over the course of 45 minutes, Strawberry spoke about his struggles with drugs and alcohol, battles that nearly ended his life and turned what appeared to be a Hall of Fame baseball career into something less. He spoke about how finding God saved his life and gave him purpose.

Somewhere in the crowd of about 500 people from Suffolk County — an area that has lost more people to heroin overdoses than anywhere else in New York State in recent years — is a man in his mid-20s suffering from addiction. At the insistence of his concerned sister, the man reluctantly agreed to attend the mid-June event, set up by the South Bay Bible Church, and listen to Strawberry.

Desperate to get the man help, the frantic sister walks up to an area in front of the stage from which Strawberry delivered his sermon. She waits while most of the people in the crowd either shake hands with the former baseball star, ask him to sign an autograph or pose for a photo with him, and then she introduces herself.

She’s not interested in having Strawberry sign a baseball. She needs his guidance, and more than that, she needs Strawberry to speak with her brother one-on-one. Without hesitation, Strawberry agrees to do so, and he walks with her from behind the school to a huge grass field on the side of the building where the young man is waiting.

With tears in her eyes, the woman introduces her brother to Strawberry, and the three begin to talk while slowly making their way to a parking lot in the front of the school. When they get a few feet away, Strawberry stops.

“You need help,” Strawberry said to the man, who had already admitted that he uses heroin every day.

A conversation ensues between a man clearly in denial and a man who has been there.

In the somewhat loud and combative discussion, the man tells Strawberry that he had been in a drug rehabilitation center more than once and that he doesn’t want to go back to that specific place.

Strawberry counters quickly.

“I will find the right place for you,” he said. “I will make sure that you are in a center that is better than where you were before.”

The man comes back with another reason why getting help is not the best option.

“If my mother finds out that I’m using drugs again, she will kick me out of the house,” he said. “When rehab is over, I will have nowhere to live.”

“Listen to me,” Strawberry shouts. “You’re not making any sense. You’re going to die if you don’t get help. I will talk to your mother. I will do everything I need to do to make sure that you can still live with her. But you need to get help.”

Finally, the man is silent, and after a few seconds of being stared down by the 6-foot-6 Strawberry, some part of the message has gotten through.

“I will definitely think about it,” the man said. “I want to get better.”

Realizing that getting the man to consider returning to rehab is as good as he could do that night, Strawberry reiterates part of his message from the sermon and then provides the man and his sister with his contact information.

“It’s time to let other people help you,” Strawberry said. “It’s time to let God into your life. He will set you free. I’m no more important or special than you or anyone else who is dealing with addiction. If God saved me, he will save you.”

With the sun beginning to set on the bayside town, Strawberry finally makes his way to the parking lot — about 20 important minutes after he had originally planned to leave town.


17 posted on 10/28/2018 11:28:10 PM PDT by beaversmom
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To: CondoleezzaProtege
Consider writing a one-page paper comparing your thoughts, feelings and actions when you’re doing great vs. when you’re struggling...

"writing a one-page paper" - Now there's the problem for some of these guys.

18 posted on 10/29/2018 3:02:00 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Kill-googl,TWITR,FACBK,NYT,WaPo,Hlywd,CNN,NFL,BLM,CAIR,Antifa,SPLC,ESPN,NPR,NBA)
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To: Right Wing Assault
Yogi Berra knew about having the right attitude years ago. "Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical."

19 posted on 10/29/2018 3:05:35 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Kill-googl,TWITR,FACBK,NYT,WaPo,Hlywd,CNN,NFL,BLM,CAIR,Antifa,SPLC,ESPN,NPR,NBA)
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To: CondoleezzaProtege

In 1991, the PGA’s #1 player, Ian Baker Finch, won the British Open then developed the yips and lost his swing. He never won another tournament and between 1994 and 1997, missed 32 consecutive cuts before finally quitting the tour......It was all mental.


20 posted on 10/29/2018 3:27:34 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco
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