O for 18? What Would You Be Thinking?
Author: Todd Thomas
If you started off your season 0 for 18, what would you be thinking? What would you do? I know a lot of players, parents, and coaches would start panicking and no doubt start over analyzing a players mechanics.
Carlos Pena of the Tampa Bay Rays started off this spring 0 for 18. They are not making any major changes. He’s just riding it out knowing things will turn. He remains confident and positive. If you react the way Carlos has reacted, you will last a long time in this game and have a high degree of success.
This taken from http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100314&content_id=8787240&vkey=news_tb&fext=.jsp&c_id=tb
..here is what Carlos said about his horribly slow start:
“It’s not about whether I hit .400 or .000,” Pena said.
“That’s old stuff. That’s when we were a little bit more immature that we based our progress on numbers. We base our progress on at-bats now, how good our at-bats are, how good our intent is, our plan is, how good the execution is.
“We all care about stats, don’t get us wrong. It’s just when you become obsessed with them that it becomes a problem. … It’s part of growing up.”
Pena doesn’t dwell on possibly not coming back to the Rays, he said. “Instead, I say, ‘Man, I’m going to enjoy today.’
And my only question after the day is over is, ‘Were you there today, were you present? Were you there 100 percent — heart, soul and body? Were you there? Yes? Good job.’ That’s it.”
Are you giving 100% effort in every at-bat? Are you focused only on the results only or how good an at-bat you had mentally and physically? Stay focused and stay confident. Play the game one at-bat at a time. One pitch at a time. Nothing before the next pitch matters anymore.
