Casey Bass: Today I am at ClubHouse Gas. We talk with the baseball coach about the mental aspect of the game. How to help your players develop mental toughness, and it's all right here on ClubHouse Gas.
Baseball umpire: Safe!
Ron Smith: If you cannot deal with failure, and if you look at each time if you making out as failure, it's going to be tough, and it's not going to be much fun, it's a very, very difficult thing. As a ball player you've all experienced this I am sure, another difficult part of playing baseball is, in that first inning you are playing shortstop, and you get that ground ball, and it goes through your legs, and maneuver out there and you are saying, gosh! I hope that guy doesn't score. Please, let's get out three out somehow before that guy scores, or give me another ground ball quickly. And you may not get another ground ball until the eighth or ninth inning, and that whole time you are thinking, man, you know, and that is, it is so tough, you have to be mentally tough.
How do you become mentally tough? Do you guys have an idea? We've got a real small group here. Do you have an idea, how do you become mentally tough? Fellows, anybody back there, any parents have an idea about that? Short-term, well, and I think that's one on one fast about it. Playing for the now, right in the present. You have got to play for the now. You heard Curt mention, you've got to put those all four fours behind you, and by the same token, you have got to put those four for fours behind you. You cannot dwell, and it's that steady everyday coming to the ballpark, trying to be the best player that you can be, trying to learn something everyday, trying to get a little bit better everyday.
I spent six years in the Philadelphia Phillies Minor League Organization, and one year as a manager, and in the Phillies Organization, what they said is, learn something everyday, and if you come out here everyday and learn something, that, with small incremental steps are going to add up to something big. Gradually you are going to improve, and you going to become a better ball ]player. You cannot dwell on the home run you hit last night, you can't think, man, I am ready, I have got it.
Even if you are Golfers, anybody here, Golfers out here? You know you can have that great day, by the next day it's gone. We see that same thing with baseball. But I think the way you build mental toughness, you don't put mental toughness on like a coat. You don't become mentally tough suddenly. It takes time, just like you don't change your body and become physically stronger, you do it by everyday doing push ups, doing wrist curls, doing your weight training, running, training, that's how you change your body physically, same thing mentally.
Everyday that you come out to the ballpark, you do your very best to get better, you push yourself. I think that everybody, when you are training or doing something, for example, if you are running, and you have reached that ceiling where you are saying, I am tired. Now you have two choices at that point. You have two choices, one is, I am tired, I am going to slow down, I am finished, I have reached my limit. So you have reached that ceiling. So that ceiling, the next day, in my opinion is going to be a little bit lower.
Now off on the other hand, you reach that point, I am tired and you say, okay, I am going to go another five minutes, and I am going to push myself a little bit harder. Now tomorrow that ceiling is a little bit higher, and you have pushed yourself and you have made yourself a little bit tougher. And if you do that the next day, when you are training in some aspect, and you push to that glass ceiling, again, you have made yourself a little bit better. Now, isn't that of mental aspect?
If you do that everyday and then when it comes time for you to face a pitcher, or you as a pitcher are ready to face a hitter, and you can look at that guy, or you can say to yourself, I have trained as hard as anybody, if not harder. I have trained harder than you have. I am ready, let's go. Give me your best; I want your best effort. I am going to give my best effort. I am going to control what I can control, and in fact, I am going to throw -- I might throw you my very best pitch. I might throw you my very best pitch, and Curt talked about that slider on the outside corner. I am going to throw you my best pitch. If I do that and you hit it out of the ballpark, you know what I have to do? I'll take my head and go, nice shot, and move on.
Now if on the other hand, I make some mistakes, and you're hitting, then I've got it, I have got to work on some things. I've got to sit back and say, okay, I didn't give him my best pitch. I didn't make my best swing. I have got go back and look at my mechanics. I have got to go back and may be look at how I trained, or seek some help. But being mentally tough as a coach, it is one of, and Curt mentioned the five tools, it is as important to me as any one of those five tools that make up of a ballplayer.
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