All In His Head

How does your son do in practice? Is this only happening with the school team or does it happen with his summer team as well? Does he exhibit these tendencies in any other area besides baseball such as timed tests in school or situations where he is the center of attention or other performance related activities?

I have one of those infielders who is hard on himself. It has indeed gotten better with maturity, and with good coaching and the example of older, more experienced players who don't expect him to be perfect, but also don't allow him the luxury of pouting after an error because he still has work to do and they are counting on him. He is learning to strive for excellence, not perfection. That, I think, is the key. He'll briefly (and sometimes emphatically) show his frustration after an error, but then it's gone and he's in his crouch, focused and ready for the next play. Occasionally it does get to him, and can even translate to the next at bat. But I think it will continue to get better as he gets more mature.

There are lots of good books out there with strategies to conquer the mental game. Two that come to mind are The Mental Game of Baseball and Mind Gym. You can find them both at Amazon.com and other places. Even if you can't get him to read them, they'll help you talk with him. Good luck!

4gen during team practices my son does fine fielding and throwing. The practices that he does not do well doing is those days after he makes an error when i take him to a field by himself and i fungo him grounders, those he tends to not do well on. This happens in both school ball and summer ball. And as far as anything else besides baseball as far as i know this doesn't happen.

quote:

Originally posted by baseballdad11:
4gen during team practices my son does fine fielding and throwing. The practices that he does not do well doing is those days after he makes an error when i take him to a field by himself and i fungo him grounders, those he tends to not do well on. This happens in both school ball and summer ball. And as far as anything else besides baseball as far as i know this doesn't happen.

I'm only going to do the error part.

From what you say in games, he gets to nervous and tries to impress people. Tell him to play his own game. Tell him to be himself and just relax, have fun. When he's not making errors he's relaxed.

If he's "relaxed" and making errors it seems he needs more repititions.

Hope I'm some sort of help.

I just remember whenever I make errors I'm trying to hard to make the play or to much in a rush when I didn't need to be.

baseballdad11, look for a PM

baseballdad11,
This is ssmom's son. I just graduated from highschool and am going on to play college ball as a MI next year. My mom brought your comment about your son to my attention, and she asked me if I was your son's coach, what would I tell him?

So I told her that this is what I would say:

We all know that as soon as you make an error, and finish the play we can't go back and change it. It's just not possible. I feel that the worst thing that you can do is replay the play, over and over again in your mind. It causes you to loose focus in the game and it doesnt' get you ready for the next play.

What I do, is just sit back, take a huge breather, and prepare myself for the next screaming linedrive hit at me. As your son is still young and learning the game from different aspects, I'm sure he will learn to just relax and play the game with love and all the fun in the world. Plus nobody is perfect, that's why Derek Jeter who is one of the best shortstops of all time and 8 time All Star, commited 33 errors last season, and 6 errors in one week.
Just RELAX and play

Instead of playing with a sense of not wanting to make an error and please don't let the ball come to me again, you have to play with a sense of "I want the ball!"

Playing with confidence will result in a much better outcome!

Any updates. How is your son doing with fielding. It has been several months since your firt post.

Try telling him that even pro players make errors and that it is ok to make one. Tell him that if he makes a mistake just shake it off and get the next one

Sounds like he has decent skills, but might be struggling in the mental game.

Some great resources are "Heads Up Baseball" and Brian Cain's website.

These will really help him focus on one pitch at a time. We really work the mental game into our team practices, etc., and it has really made a difference using mental routines for hitting, pitching, and fielding.

Be aggressive and always attack the baseball. Expect it and want it. The best advice we ever got is from Steve Lombardozzi, former 2nd baseman from the Twins at one of his camps. He wrote on his glove "Go Get It" and he looked at his glove before every pitch to remind himself to aggressively make the play. Something to consider.

The game is not fun when you play scared. Even when you make a play you are more relieved you didnt mess up than you are happy you made a play. What your doing it setting yourself up for failure. Your playing afraid to fail instead of playing expecting to succeed.

The entire mindset of your player must change. You can hit him fungos all day and all night its not going to change one thing. He has to learn to attack the game and enjoy being aggressive. You either hunt the game or the game hunts you.

Quite simply he needs to stop playing like a _______ and start playing like a man. Tell him to read this.