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 ...
Then how’d the Cubs choke 2 years in a row?
Truly beautiful. Thanks.
Other teams also have great talent and mental-skills.
‘Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.’
Everyone knows pitchers must breathe through their eyes.
Great land o’Goshen. No wonder the games take so dang long.
Jeez, just play the frickin’ game.
How about that Mets catcher who forgot how to throw the ball back to the pitcher. Ron Hassey, I think.
Mackey Sasser. Sasseritis. He now consults on these kind of mental blocks.
Steve Sax and Chuck Knoblauch were 2nd basemen who mentally lost the ability to make smooth throws to 1B.
Cubs would do better with a relief pitching coach. They need a hitting coach too.
It happened to me last summer. I was playing senior softball a few times a week and joined a 65+ fastpitch baseball league. Played SS or 3rd because I was one of only a couple guys who could make the throw to 1st. After about 4 games into the season, something happened in my head. All of a sudden I couldn't even play catch in warm up. I'd throw the ball in the dirt, over the other guy's head, way to his left, way to his right.....it was a nightmare. I found myself thinking about how to throw the ball rather than just throwing. I switched to the outfield to finish out the season then decided baseball was not for me.
I think there was a 2nd baseman that could no longer throw to the 1st baseman too.....
= = = = =
Believe it was Steve Sax with the Dodgers...
Also, Ryan Zimmerman- X3B of the Nationals got something in his head and he was fine throwing from a sprawled position on the ground, going to left or right and making outstanding plays but it got to the point if the ball hit straight at him, he would SET for throw and Lord only knew where the ball was going....
Strange...he now at First and fields and throw like the old days but - like you said - when he had a chance to ‘think’ about it at THIRD it was ‘Katy bar the door’.
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