emotions on the mound

You have to learn to control yourself. You have to come to understand pitchers need short term memory. Whether it's strike three or a homer you need to concentrate on the next pitch with the same degree of focus. Let your catcher do your thinking for you and focus on getting the job done, pitch by pitch.

Taught my son at a early age, the most important part of a pitchers body is not his arm or legs but what is between the ears. He has learned that lesson well.

thanks rjm. i am trying to work on that. i think the next time on the mound im going to try to think of everything i need to do for this pitch and nothing else. i think all the things i will think about are my mechanics and what i am going to do. do you think this approach will help?

and dad43, good job teaching your son but is there anyway you did or is it just gloating that your son doesnt have this problem? i dont see anything in your answer but maybe im just missing something

quote:

Originally posted by dad43:
Taught my son at a early age, the most important part of a pitchers body is not his arm or legs but what is between the ears. He has learned that lesson well.

When I hear parents talk about 9/10 rec ball being garbage and better players need to play travel, I think back to what my son learned in 9/10 rec ball. He learned he could make the best pitch possible, not get the desired result and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Now in high school when one of his fielders makes an error he's the first one to tell the kid to shake it off and get the next one.

ok now i get it thanks for the clerification rjm. thanks for the help

bigheat27-42.....Interesting question you posted. I am very impressed that you recognize it as a problem and are looking for help. I believe that sometimes athletes(baseball players) confuse their passion and intensity in competition, for displays of anger. ie "If we get angry, then it shows everyone, including ourselves, how much we care." Passion and intensity are neccesary ingredients to being a competitor. Anger is simply an excuse to lose control when things don't go the way we planned or hoped for. Maybe in many ways we(anyone) learn how to display our anger in a similar way to how we learn everything else, one step at a time.
If you consider the possibility that your display of anger on the mound was actually a result of years of learning how to become angry, especially in situations like the one you described, then you may have a solution for the problem. Learn how not to get angry, one step at time. I guess I am assumimg this is not the first time you have displayed your emotions on your sleeve and allowed it to affect your performance. If I am wrong in assuming this I apologize. If I am right however, consider the learning process that you have gone through, and are still going through, in developing your baseball skills. You learned how to catch, throw, field, hit and pitch etc. each year and each day and each practice you have had. You can learn how to control your emotions and your anger the same way, one day, one moment, one game at a time. It may not happen overnight but if you continue to work at it all the time, it will happen. One step at a time. Don't wait until someone, who holds your future in their hands, walk up to you and tell you, "We have to let you go. I'm sorry but we are looking for someone who can control themselves on and off the field" Tell yourself that you will not lose control, whatever the circumstances. When you feel it start to happen, regroup and stop it before it goes any further. Try not to let it get to the point where it becomes something that you are unable to or unwilling to stop. Do not let yourself justify it as it happens.
RJM has it right that you need a short term memory. As a matter of fact you need to have instant amnesia. Every piece of anger that you hold on to is one less degree of affective you will be on your next pitch. I don't know if this makes any sense or if it is of any help to you. I hope that it is. I wish you the very best in pursuing your dream.

My son had a high school teammate who just played his freshman year of college ball. In high school he was a pitcher-outfielder. He explained he chose outfield for college because he's too fiery and wired to be a pitcher.

i played outfield to get more playtime and i have the legs and arm, but i love pitching too much. im bringing some other issues on to the moud with me right now that i shouldnt be but am trying to solve this. thanks for the option anyway though

Roy Halladay uses the philosophy "Win each pitch". Nothing more, nothing less.

With that kind of thinking one should be able to forget what just happened (good or bad) and move on to the next pitch at hand.

Try and see what happens.

One pitching coach had my son take this approach on the mound:

Whatever your first pitch is, concentrate on throwing that pitch to that location to the best of your ability. If it works, take the same approach to your next pitch. When, note not if, but WHEN it doesn't work, take an extra moment to "get over it" and then adjust your hat or jersey or whatever works for you as a sign to yourself that the pitch is over and you're ready to move on...Then you begin as if it is your first pitch above...Seemed to help my son reach that state where he had a short memory when things went wrong - either by his doing or someone else's. As a 13U he was the team's #1 pitcher and had 7 complete games...BTW - he's now a lacrosse goalie - another position where you need the same type of short memory approach to your position!

Lots of really good ideas here for you.

After 25 years of study on basically this problem the best thing I've found is "tapping." I use a form of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) that you can read about at www.eftuniverse.com

It's purpose, and my personal goal for players, is freedom.

Freedom from fear, doubt, stress, frustration and anger and freedom to play with unstoppable confidence.

Also great is long slow deep breaths. Visualizing what you want to have happen, and acting as if you are unstoppably confident. Act the way you want to feel and the feeling will eventually come.

I actually just wrote an article on the mental game of pitching, it goes along with edict. When it comes to the mental game remember you can only control the controlables, there is no reason to get worked up over stuff you cannot control, it's just part of the game.

I once explained pitching to a couple teenage kids in terms they understood..."pitchers need to be "assassins" not Vikings".

I guess their playing video games made the analogy make sense as it worked pretty well for both of them. I sometimes wonder if they have shared the analogy with their college pitching coach. LOL. I hope not.

Chaos - sometimes pitching is chaos and you don't even know it until it is over and you are in the dugout. There is a way to develop a system that identifies these chaotic times quickly and gives you a way to change your mindset. Such a system has to have core beliefs. These beliefs allow the pitcher to focus on the process of making one pitch. These beliefs allow the pitcher to control the 2 things he can - his actions and his behaviors!
More at www.baseball-cap.net (The Mental Game)

If you ask young pitchers just going up to MLB what they notice about the guys like Lee, carpenter and Halladay, etc. is that they do the same thing day in and day out, their routine and how they prepare never changes,this preparation helps them to remain the same on the mound whether it's a going to be a shut out, complete game, perfect game or you are down in the hole by more runs than innings tossed, homegame, playoffs, rain delay, weekend or weekday, bad calls by the umpire, etc..
Struggling on the mound and trying to change things at that moment causes chaos, the time to change things is NOT during an outing, it's about refocusing for that outing, then going back to work on things in your daily routine to help for the next game.

Solutions for controlling your emotions sound easy, but in reality this is a very difficult thing to control.