Hall of Fame pitcher and three-time Cy Young winner Sandy Koufax once said, “Pitching is the art of instilling fear.” I love these words. Sandy’s career ended in 1966, 23 years before I was born. “The Left Arm of God” is probably less known for his pitching mentality and probably more for his performance on the bump. Granted, I wasn’t alive at the time that Sandy threw; so, maybe I’m wrong and he was, in fact, better known for how he thought, rather than how he spun a baseball. I doubt it, since the mental side of sports is sometimes overshadowed by tangible statistics. I prefer the mental side.
At any rate, I read Sandy’s quote for the first time ever today. I wish I would’ve known that quote when I was pitching, but I’m glad I know it now. Quick backstory: God blessed me with a rubber right arm and a fluid body. That body combination meant one of two things; magician, or pitcher. I chose sports and God moved my baseball in all sorts of weird directions when I held it like a circle-change and in my senior year, he sent some angels from the outfield to give me a speed burst and moved my fastball to 91MPH. I am grateful for my God-given baseball talent because it paid for several years of college, it strengthened my mind for my career, and most importantly when my baseball career was over, I went searching for direction in my life…and my beautiful wife found me and yanked me in. She’s my #1, my rock and if she were to watch me play, I know she would’ve been my biggest fan.
Baseball and pitching are my passion, outside of my faith, wife and family. I don’t know everything about baseball, but I know what I know right now and I want to know more in the future. And it works for me. I love to teach, coach, and share my knowledge with those who are willing to learn. I feel as though these talents given to me by God are an opportunity to challenge, or inspire a younger pitcher on the field, or a leader in the community.
I was provided an opportunity to play for a high caliber college program, and I learned a helluvalot about baseball. The program was high caliber, not me. But, there is one thing that I learned/developed on my own; “pitching mentality.” My dad always preached “mental toughness” to me and my brother. This may have been looked at as “aggressive” had other high school families and parents heard the words “mental toughness.”. Its aggressive to those who don’t know us; but those who do know us know that we’re much deeper than that.
Mental toughness is more than just “powering through adversity” its not “just getting by…” Mental toughness about optimism, its about management, its about balance, its about forecast, and challenge. Baseball and pitching is the ultimate test in sports of mental toughness – eh, golf is pretty close. But where do Sandy’s quote about instilling fear, and mental toughness collide?
This is simply my opinion. I love Sandy’s quote, because that’s how I think about pitching. Pitching is beautiful violence in motion. Art highlights beauty; violence instills fear. Violence in art can be the angry, lone-wolf college student in their studio apartment throwing paint on a canvas while listening to deafening music just to look at that canvas and see a masterpiece; or, a massacre, depending on how you think you performed. What other sport requires an athlete to put power, strength, and kinetics into a motion and then trust physics and trust that your skills+physics are better than your opponents?
Actually, now that I said that…it sounds like EVERY SPORT EVER, but this is my blog, and I’m a tad impartial to baseball 🙂
Put this in your pipe: I love the Cubs, and I had the opportunity to watch the 2015 Cy Young Award Winner, Jake Arrieta, last year. I watched, or listened, to every game he pitched in last year. The guy is incredible. I studied him like he was a science project. He is a great representation of what I believe a pitcher should be. Violent, yet elegant. They say that if Babe Ruth had music put to his career, it would be bass drums; Koufax’s would have violins. Arrieta’s would be a Cello; the perfect combination of deep bass mixed with complex, high tones. Spooky.
Arrieta’s windup is ominous and intense; it foreshadows an explosion. And you’re not let down. That explosion produces a 5.25oz ball of leather and lace on a crash course with anything Jake purposefully intended on being in its way complete with a recoiling body behind it like a .50 caliber turret. Click, click, boom. The art; that body has no affect on that baseball anymore. The baseball is a precision bullet en-route to its specified and designated target. Sure, gravity takes over, but Arrieta’s “violent arts” prior to delivery are most important to the ball’s destination. Believe me, hes a intelligent creature and took gravity’s downward 9.8 meters per second Earth-ward pressure into account. All pitcher’s do. What else didn’t we notice, though?
Arrieta’s ability to keep his balance and smoothly move his body through a very small space is beautiful. The torque and velocity that his body is about to experience is like a NASCAR driver in a crash – they don’t move that much nowadays, though. His hips and shoulders are like a rubber-band being stretched to the absolute max, the anticipation builds and finally its let go and shot across the room with immediate force. Its quaint, but piercing. His head is focused on the target, the catcher’s glove, and its led directly into it even from 60ft 6in away like raging bull. Direct with intent. The arm/hand is put in the EXACT same slot that it was put in the pitch before; regardless if the pitch was a cutter, 4 seam fastball, or 12-6 curve. Consistent, and purposeful. A perfect concoction of violence, and art.
After that, the pitch is on its own. Everything prior to that point was the artist creating his own masterpiece. Now its trust and faith. But like a boxer, pitchers must compress all of their power into one explosive blow. Moreover, boxers and pitchers are expected to throw upwards of 90+ punches/pitches per fight/game (unless your a reliever or a heavyweight boxer), so endurance is important. Being violent in your delivery only takes you so far, though. Accuracy and consistency is just as important. I think you get the point; there are a lot of things that go into pitching a baseball to instill fear in a hitter.
How many times have you walked through a downtown area and observed a “piece of art” that is just “a face on a metal plate”? Or, “a bench with a unique twist” on a downtown sidewalk? Have you ever thought, “how is that art?” Well, that’s why pitching is considered an art; its under-appreciated, like art. Now, I’m no art major, but I know how it feels to come into a game with one out and the tying run on third base; strikeout the first hitter on one of your proudest pitches, and then get the next batter to ground out on the same exact pitch. THAT’S artwork. Your team may not go on to win the game, but you’ve survived them long enough to push forward, and you are damn proud of your work.
Here is where the mental toughness and Sandy’s “fear” come into play.
We’ll start here: Who would you want on your team? The crazy psycho who says, “I’m going to eat everyone alive and beat everyone myself.” Or, the unsure pacifist who says, “I don’t know how I’ll approach my opponents today…” Frankly, they’re both not optimal. One seems reckless and the other seems unambitious. Hey, I’m sure you could take something from at least one of them. But, if I had to answer – I’ll take the psycho in competition. I don’t have to be his friend, but at least he has a plan and EXPECTS success. Honestly, it would depend on how they prepare and perform, but regardless, that “winner mentality” is already apparent in the “psycho” character. In my experience, winners scare losers. Losers envy the winner, and envy hardens into hate, and hate is fueled by fear. Therefore, losers are scared. Thanks for that one, Yoda. Pitchers have the ability to win, which arms them with “fear bullets” (aka. a perfectly placed fastball).
The “winner mentality” comes with mental toughness. When I’m being beat on the scoreboard, I know I’ll come back. That’s mental toughness. When I’m smoked physically, I’ll prepare my body to be ready for the next pitch, inning, or outing. That’s mental toughness. When I’m tempted by something that would compromise my training, yet I refrain, that’s mental toughness. When the opposition scores a run off me in the first inning, and then I walk a guy, and then my defense commits and error, and then another (“boots come in pairs”) and I get pulled – my mental toughness is going to be tested. Mental toughness is a muscle, it needs to be worked out; adversity is just mental toughness’s workout plan. Its time to get stronger and come back the next pitch, the next inning, the next day, the next start, the next appearance, ready to identify and test what went wrong and learn from it.
Pitching is an art. An opportunity to be violent, but poetic. Its a direct reflection of your deepest personality and a deep look into your character and soul. Your windup and delivery are your penmanship; the pitch landing in the catcher’s glove after being swung-on-and-missed is the signature. As a pitcher, you gotta be mentally tough with a splash of crazy. I’d rather the hitter be terrified of me than him digging in waiting to send my paper plane origami into orbit.
Let your pitching do the screaming. Pitch with a purpose. Scare the hitter into swinging at your mistakes. Be aggressive. But remember, aggression isn’t about yelling at your teammates on the diamond, or beating up the Gatorade cooler after a bad inning. Its about punishing the strike-zone with your best pitches and keeping hitter #1-9 guessing what type of nasty your going to serve them next.
Darth Vader would be an awesome pitcher…
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