Three Little Words Proven To Help Pitchers Succeed.
"I didn’t have a target. I didn’t even think about where I wanted to throw the ball. I was just hoping the ball would go into the strike zone.”
When Huston Street was a freshman playing for the University of Texas, the closer’s dad gave him advice before his first College World Series experience.
Street’s father was very familiar with high pressure situations. James Street was an All-American quarterback who led Texas to an undefeated championship season in 1969 and pitched the baseball team to three College World Series appearances. The elder Street knew a thing or two about how to perform in the moment.
According to Augie Garrido’s Life Is Yours To Win, James provided Huston with a mental exercise to clear all the distractions while on the mound.
“You’re gonna see all those people in the stands, and you’re gonna think, ‘This is the big show--I gotta do more,’” James told Huston. “All you’ve gotta do is throw strikes and get people out just like in all the other games you’ve played.”
He then offered this:
“Here’s what I want you to do. Pick out a stitch on the catcher’s mitt and focus on hitting it. Forget all those people and what’s at stake. Hit that seam.”
Street started by giving baseball advice as old as the game itself: Just throw strikes.
The intention behind it is well-meaning -- throwing strikes increases the chances of outs -- yet that particular goal does not necessarily aid the pitcher in performance.
For one, strike zones frequently shift in location depending on the umpire behind the plate. The invisible floating three-dimensional rectangle can be challenging to envision and, what’s more, getting strikes by way of missing bats means executing outside of the strike zone altogether.
Plus, and almost every pitcher in history will attest to this, that is exactly what they are trying to do each and every time they get on the mound.
In his book, The Mental ABC’s of Pitching, H.A. Dorfman recounted the story of former Astros’ pitcher Joe Sambito and his struggles in a pressure-filled major league debut.
“I was just hoping to throw strikes,” Sambito said the night of his debut in 1976. “I kept telling myself, ‘Just throw strikes,’ but I couldn’t. Later I realized what I had done to myself. I didn’t have a target. I didn’t even think about where I wanted to throw the ball. I was just hoping the ball would go into the strike zone.”
There is nothing wrong with encouraging a pitcher to throw strikes -- it is a good goal and a solid mindset -- but it’s not optimal for physical and mental performance on the mound. What made Street’s advice better was that by encouraging his son to pick out a seam on the catcher’s glove, he then has a tangible, visual target.
There are several reasons why this is important.
During competition, athletes can get overwhelmed with direction. It can be advice from coaches or from their own head. The more instruction bouncing around, the higher the chance of “micro-choking” -- the act that sport psychologist Gabriele Wulf says happens when our brains override our automatic movements that we’ve trained hard to instill.
Dr. Nick Winkleman, Irish Rugby Football Union’s head of Athletic Performance and Science, found that, from a coaching standpoint, cues should be limited to one or two focal points for the athletes.
The short-term memory system can only handle a finite amount of instruction. If pitchers start thinking about release point, keeping their shoulder closed, and trying to figure out where a strike is, they might get overwhelmed. Reducing the instruction to something simple and external (throwing the ball to the catcher’s seam) keeps the pitcher from overanalyzing their movements.
The thing about the human brain is that, evolutionarily speaking, our default mode is to lean toward anxiety. Our brains were designed to be suspicious of our surroundings. Predators were everywhere and we evolved to be cognizant of those dangers. Although that may have been useful for our ancestors, those anxious thoughts are often based on our projected future rather than the actual present moment.
Our brains have replaced jungle predators with modern worries -- such as failing in public. Even the most mentally strong individuals need to overcome this aspect of the mind. By having a focal point like a catcher’s seam, it connects your mind back to the present moment where you are in control with the ball and not thinking about potential future outcomes.
Not all games will be as intense as the College World Series as a freshman closer. But within all games exist moments that tax a pitcher’s attention: whether it is a runner on base, a parent is in the stands, or simply internal pressure to perform. When you find yourself in potentially overwhelming situations, you can always bring yourself back into the moment and clear the outside world by focusing on a small spot.
Hit that seam.
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