It’s the 5th inning, and your starter hasn’t been overly thrifty with his pitches. He has 1 out so far in the inning, and just threw his 88th pitch. What is the fate of this pitcher on this hypothetical day?

If it’s 2010, chances are that a reliever is stirring in the bullpen, and this starter won’t see the 6th inning. Why? Because he will have exceeded his 100 pitch limit by the end of the 5th, or would too greatly surpass it if he went back out the following inning. The 100-pitch barrier proves the undoing of his fun. Read the rest of this entry »

I was telling a few people the other day about this photo, which is my favorite of all time. No, it’s not my favorite in a grinning, happy kind of way, but just in that it is an incredibly interesting photo, one that thankfully allowed us to see an amazing act of conviction.

Not much to say.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s something to be said for being who you are, no matter what. Not many people can stay true to themselves when faced with social situations into which they surely do not fit. Compromise on something else.

My team, for example, contains guys with a crazy assortment of backgrounds. Vegas, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, everywhere in Texas, California, you name it, we have a guy from there. All that diversity means that there are big differences in the way we dress, talk, and act when we go out on the town. Read the rest of this entry »

When I was a freshman in college I looked up to our upperclassmen; they were bigger, faster, stronger, and knew the game better than I did. They helped the younger guys, passed on wisdom, and exuded an experienced confidence that I lacked.

When I became a senior, I was a lot of the same things they were – wiser, bigger, better and more experienced, but I didn’t feel like I thought I would. It wasn’t that I wasn’t confident in myself, but I still felt like me, and not that much like them. When I looked at those guys as a youngster, I wondered how it would feel to be that guy, and I imposed a set of characteristics upon them. The veterans always seem outwardly solemn, straight-forward, strong and confident, and you imagine that they would feel that way inside as well. But when I got to filling that role, I didn’t feel like I thought I would feel.

So I thought hard about this – do people ever feel the way we think they do when we look at them? Celebrities, major leaguers, rock stars – they all exude awesome amounts of coolness, but does this coolness permeate them through and through, or do they feel like scared kids just the same as the rest of us?

As a senior, I was perplexed that I didn’t feel like I thought I should as one of the elders. I brought this up to one of my philosophy professors, and he shared some wisdom with me that I really took home, and still carry with me…

In the forest, the tall oak tree stands above the others. It provides shade, food, oxygen and shelter to all the animals in the forest; It does not try to do this; it simply provides as a result of what it is.

Don’t try to be something you’re not, and don’t try to force who you are or want to be; by going about your business honorably and doing your best, you’ll grow taller and impact other people without even trying. The tallest oak tree impacts the whole forest without trying, knowing, or wanting to do so. It does it because it does, and is because it is.

Maybe no one ever feels like, or inwardly lives up to the perception we have of them. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.

Two years ago I had such a good 4th of July with my college teammates, just sitting outside grilling meat and eating and drinking various things, that I decided it was my favorite holiday. The combination of summer heat, patriotism, friends and laziness just brewed in me an ataraxic cocktail. Yet, last years’ independence day was a big letdown. This past weekend, however, rejuvenated my faith in my favorite holiday.

Our weekend was spent in Traverse City, Michigan, which is way up North on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Traverse City Beach Bums were our Independence Day opponents, and I doubt we could have had a better place to play for the holiday.

Game 1 of the series was a win, thanks to Tyler Lavigne, who continued dominating teams like he has all season. Game 2 was mine, and it was lucky that my date fell on July 3rd. July 4th is usually spent with family, cooking out and doing various patriotic things, and so crowds aren’t usually as big on the actual holiday. July 3rd, however, is the day before the day, and since it fell on a gorgeous Saturday, the ballpark was packed.

Before the game, a really nice ceremony was held honoring our troops. The Blue Angels were in town for an air show, which we had watched on the beach that afternoon, and they were also at the game shaking hands with our veterans. I’m not all that sentimental, but with all of the speeches and veterans around, I felt pretty thankful to be on a baseball field, with 6,500 fans to watch us play. That was the biggest crowd ever in Traverse City, by far the biggest I had pitched in front of, and It was a neat experience. We even got a fly-over from a B-52 bomber. When the game started I got hit like a red-headed stepchild and didn’t make it through 4 innings, but it was a good day nonetheless. Some of our hitters really stepped up and mounted a strong comeback to try and bail me out. Though they couldn’t, the loss felt like a minor detail in light of the sacrifice of all our military personnel out there. Sports are crucially important to our culture, and I don’t believe what we do is at all frivolous, but fighting for one’s life is scary, and there were a lot of people watching us who had done just that. If it’s a job for the solider and a job for me, I’m pretty happy to be pitching baseballs rather than grenades.

Game 3 was a loss as well, and while it was a hell of a shame to leave town with a series loss, the weekend as a whole was interesting. Without baseball, I would probably never have visited Traverse City, which is a decent little town. I had never seen the great lakes before, and Lake Michigan was pretty amazing. Blue water that was only a foot or two deep for 1000 feet out. We got a chance to walk in it before heading to the ballpark on Sunday. And not to mention that it was the annual Cherry Festival, which brought thousands of people into the town for the weekend. With a ton of people around celebrating our country on a blue-skied holiday, the atmosphere was buzzing.

My stomach also honors the cherry.

Yeah, the ride home was long, and quiet (we were all pissed about dropping the series), but win or lose the trips are an experience. Independent of our losses, this one was pretty cool. As we rolled out of town we caught 5 different sets of fireworks from our bus, some I think that were in Grand Rapids, which kind of summed up the life we live. Being on the move all the time, we don’t get to soak in a lot of things like holidays and family moments, but we get a high volume of little cultural fragments. Sure, we didn’t get to watch the fireworks from a blanket with our loved ones, but we got to watch it from the bus, doing something we love with our summer family. I don’t remember the first time I watched fireworks, but I’ll remember the first time I watched them from a bus.

After writing about superstition and having an exceptional outing sandwiched between two rather poor ones, I have come to a realization: I don’t care how I perform on the field.

Don’t get me wrong – I hate losing and performing poorly. Losing reflects negatively on me as an athlete; mostly, it reinforces the idea that maybe I’m not that good of one. I try rather hard to be “good,” and I want some bang for my buck.

No, what I’m talking simply extends my view of the world so that it blankets my life as an athlete. In a nutshell, I’m not responsible for anything that happens on the field, and because I’m not responsible for it, I’m not emotionally attached.

How could I possibly feel that I can control an entire baseball game from the mound, yet be completely without culpability for the results? One word: Determinism.

Determinism is the idea that all of our actions in life are predetermined, and that we lack free will. Strict determinism is extremely difficult for people to feel safe with, as perceived moral responsibility is necessary for people to govern their own behavior in a way that protects all the members of a society. If people don’t feel bad about acting in malicious ways because they feel that they lack culpability, then there is little mechanism left for adjustment of the behavior. Yet, I believe in determinism.

I believe that all of my actions are governed in a strict way not because of some external power or God, but rather my own method of processing the world, of which I have no control. My brain is unique, as is my perception of the world and my method of gathering and processing information. These facts of my unique nature, combined with all of the physical laws of the world result in my choices being governed by myself. Because I have no control over the way in which I process information, nor the creation of my processes, I really am no more responsible for my actions than a car is for breaking down. They happen the only way they possibly can.

Everyone I tell this to rejects my view. They say, “No, you can just choose otherwise.” This isn’t true. If I choose to eat a hotdog rather than a hamburger, when I ponder the choice I consider all the facts at hand, including but not limited to my hunger, food preferences, past experiences with each, perceived enjoyment of each, etc. Then, if I settle on a hamburger, but at the last minute just switch to a hotdog, I’m still doing it because of some internal desire, fact of the world, or whatever, of which I have no control. I can’t control my preferences, desires, physical laws  or history of the world. All of the methods of choice processing and all of the facts presented to me are all external of my own control. And thus, whatever choice I settle on was the only possible choice I could have made. Because of this, I have no responsibility for my choices and their outcomes.

So, when I take the mound, I do so having practiced my craft and prepared my body to the best of my ability each week. And even if I was lazy in my preparation, lazy was the only possible way in which I could have prepared. When I take the mound, I pick my pitch, based on all the information presented to me about the hitter, the game situation, my ability to execute the pitch, and then I let my body perform the act of pitching. When the pitch leaves my hand, it can travel only the path that is predetermined by the kinematics of my body and the physical laws of nature, to coincide with a mitt or bat which also resides in physical space according to strict physical laws. Thus, when I throw a pitch, I control it’s flight only in the sense that I tell my body to pitch it, and I then hope that the pitch is executed according to the idea for it I have set forth in my mind. What my physical body then does, is completely out of my control, as is the result of the pitch after it leaves my fingertips.

Roll 100 of these pitches together into a single pitching outing and you have a game over which I had a large influence but no actual responsibility. Win or lose, succeed or fail, it was all predetermined by factors outside of my control, because I lack the free will to control any of it. Thus, when I do well, I feel pride that my name is associated with a successful outing, but I know that I had little or nothing to do with producing that outcome.

Yet, as a human being, I violate even my own ideology. I feel angry and ashamed when I do poorly, and proud when I succeed. These emotions can only rightly be associated when one is responsible for an action; I am not. I see my own inconsistencies, but often fail to adjust them. Maybe it’s human nature.

Either way, win or lose, I try to stay level-headed, understanding that the results were largely beyond my control. Sure, preparing for the start and honing my mechanics allows me to execute each pitch with more consistency and accuracy. But, again, my willingness to prepare is a choice that stems from my unique, innate and determined character.

Make your head hurt? Mine too.

And now for some breaking news: Baseball players are superstitious!

OK, I guess that’s not really news to anybody. Everyone knows that athletes, especially baseballers, routinely attribute their good and not-so-good performances to powers beyond. I, however, being the skeptical, disbelieving empiricist that I am, reject superstitition. It’s nonsense, plain and simple. Read the rest of this entry »

Life as a low-level professional ballplayer is pretty sweet. How would I describe it in one word? Lazy.   Read the rest of this entry »

When you succeed, go out the next day and work even harder; hard work was what got you there. If you press, you’ll ensure that your breakthrough didn’t occur by happenstance.

When you fail, go out the next day and work even harder; your work ethic is the only thing of which you have full control. Understand that your preparation is the hand with which you grasp your own destiny.

Satisfaction incubates mediocrity.

Need to get stretched out and ready to go in a hurry? Don’t have time for a big, full-body stretch? You’re in luck; I have a video for you with 5 great stretches that are ideal for baseball players, and can be done with comprehensive flow in a short time.

I don’t do a lot of videos, partly because I don’t have an omnipresent assistant and partly because I prefer to lay things out in writing. But, my friend and strength coach Nick Tumminello and I made a little how-to before I left the city for my flatter, more opportunistic midwestern town.

So check this out, and hopefully you learn a few things about the sleeper stretch, hip mobility, thoracic mobility and a few things you might have been doing incorrectly.