I have known Dan Blewett for longer than I care to remember, and I absolutely cannot believe that people actually listen to that hypocrite when he preaches to them about how to condition themselves to become finely tuned athletes. As I see it, Dan is the last person from whom to seek advice when trying to learn how to become a better athlete. Being a good athlete typically requires one to possess speed, strength, agility, power, and/or endurance. These are considered the four basic criteria of athleticism, and Dan possesses exactly zero of them. Simply put, he’s the most unathletic professional “athlete” I’ve ever seen in my life. And I’m counting golfers, NASCAR drivers, croquet players, and competitive eaters among those ranks.

 John Daly runs a faster 40 than Dan Blewett. Backwards. And he’s more attractive to women.

It’s a complete and utter mystery to me how such an uncoordinated, slow-footed, weak man could ever be paid to play sports, so I’m assuming he must know a lot of people with a lot of pull in the baseball world. I’ve seen toddlers with better running mechanics than Dan Blewett. Hell, I’ve seen 2-legged dogs with better running mechanics than Dan Blewett. Observe:

(Skip to 0:50 to see this dog put Dan to shame)

I played college baseball with Dan for a year and a half, and while I was far from the best player on our team, I could always count on Dan to make me feel better about myself. Any time I started to feel like I was overmatched at a division 1 school, I would just watch Dan struggle through agility drills after practice. I knew that if this uncoordinated loser could make his way onto the mound in a D-1 baseball game, there was still hope for me. Seeing Dan stumble around the cones set up by our strength and conditioning coach was one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in a training session, and I would always go home from these sessions without any more doubts or fears.

The only thing more dubious than Dan’s athletic credentials is his choice of clothing when he’s in public:

 ”Durr I’m Dan Blewett can I interest you in some personal training?”

Dan and I have had an absurd amount of contests in the past, athletic and otherwise, and I have bested him in nearly all of them. Here’s a list of some of these contests, and their winners:

(Spoiler Alert: I’m the winner of all of them)

Pull-up contest: Andrew

Push-up contest: Andrew

Throwing velocity contest: Tie (which is just shameful for a man who is paid to throw baseballs)

Hitting contest against 100 mph fastballs: Andrew

Blitz: The League showdown: Andrew

Vertical jump contest: Andrew (by a landslide)

Aberdeen Ironbirds physical challenge: Andrew

So, judging by the results of these contests, who would you say is the better athlete between the two of us?

That’s right.

It’s me.

Andrew Sacks.

Basically, I’m a better athlete than Dan in every measure of athleticism that exists. What’s even more embarrassing for Dan is that our vertical jump contest went down when I had a torn ACL, and I still outjumped him by a wide margin. Even when I’m crippled, I’m a better athlete than Dan.

Dan must be in a particularly delusional mood these days, because he recently texted me to let me know that he was going to be squatting 400 pounds, deadlifting 500 pounds, and jumping some unreasonable number of inches that I can’t remember, by Christmas. Now, I don’t really believe he’s going to reach these numbers, simply because he is, as I mentioned before, a terrible athlete. But watching Dan fail to meet his goals isn’t enough for me. I’m not only going to watch him fail, I’m going to embarrass him once again by turning this into a contest and then beating him in it. The first one to reach these goals wins. Or if neither of us reaches them, whoever is closest by Christmas will be crowned the winner.

To reiterate:

Andrew Sacks = champ

Dan Blewett = chump

The gloves are off. What say you, Dan?

 …besides “Please don’t embarrass me again, Andrew”

Read Dan’s Rebuttal here…

Not unlike this bewildered gentleman

Really, anything I can do to make the hitter start thinking and second-guessing his instincts, I’ll do it. A confused baseball player is a worthless baseball player. Even more worthless than a confused baseball player is an intimidated baseball player. Every athlete knows that if you “play scared,” you’re destined to lose. Therefore, part of your job as an athlete is to try to scare your opponents and make them fear you. If a batter is afraid to face you, there’s no chance he’ll succeed when he timidly steps into the back far corner of the box.

Psychology comes into play in all sports, but I think its effects are especially observable in baseball. There’s really no other sport, besides golf, that has enough down time in the action to really leave you alone with your thoughts. Sometimes it can be hard for players to really clear their minds when the action starts up and focus on the task at hand. Some players actually have a phrase that they repeat to themselves when they need to focus. If you’ve seen the baseball movie For Love of the Game, you’re familiar with this tactic.

Kevin Costner, “clearing the mechanism”

One example of the down time that naturally occurs in a baseball game is during a pitching change. This is also probably the best time to try to psych out your opponents if you’re a pitcher. “How’s that?” you say? By having a totally badass walkout song. To me, one of the better advantages home teams have over visitors is their pitchers’ ability to head out to the mound listening to any song they want to. And not only are they listening to it, but so is the crowd, their teammates, and the sorry bastard standing in the on-deck circle. Music can have powerful effects on people. Specifically, it can alter moods and dispositions. Sad music makes you feel sad, happy music makes you feel happy, and angry music makes you want to jump in a mosh pit and do insane things, like these lunatics:

Mosh pits: the preferred meeting place for drunken madmen the world over

This is the reason why people don’t hit the gym with Whitney Houston and Celine Dion on their iPod playlist. It’s been proven that listening to hard rock music causes people to lift heavier weights, so it stands to reason that it would improve one’s performance on the athletic field as well. So as a pitcher, it would benefit you to choose mound music that speaks to your inner mosh pit madman. The more pumped up you are, the harder you’re likely to throw. A fair question to ask would be “That sounds like a genius idea, Andrew. But wouldn’t the batter hear the music too and get the same effect?” I would answer this question with a firm “Probably not.” For one thing, that music comes on while you are taking the field and warming up. Subconsciously, the batter is going to associate the angry music blasting through the loudspeaker with you, since both stimuli (you and the music) were introduced at the same time. This association in the batter’s mind can only serve to make you seem angrier and scarier. Some pitchers try to add to this effect by looking as scary and intimidating as possible while jogging out and warming up. Brian Wilson, with his signature beard, is a prime example of a pitcher who makes a conscious effort to intimidate batters. The guy just plain looks mean, like he might smoke you in the ribs if he thinks you’re swinging too hard at his pitches.

I wouldn’t exactly run up to the plate to face this guy, would you?

And another thing about looking intimidating, it actually makes you stronger and more aggressive. Something as simple as standing in a dominant, confident posture can cause an increase in testosterone levels, which means that not only are you signaling your dominance over the batter, but you’re actually making yourself more dominant at the same time. So the more intimidating you seem to your opponent and to yourself, the better.

So how does one use the force of music to sonically pummel one’s opponent into a submissive, timid state? By having music like this play over the loudspeakers:

Chris Ray of the Baltimore Orioles came out to this song while he was the team’s closer a few years ago. Every time that song came on, the crowd would get louder, and you could actually feel the energy rush through the stadium when the drums kicked in. No mosh pits broke out in the stands, but you could definitely feel the difference in mood. So let’s break down what is going on for the batter in the on-deck circle in this point. He’s just seen his opponent come running at him from behind a fence in the outfield. He’s hearing the music of the Devil. He’s sensing the crowd’s energy level raise. If he’s smart, he won’t even look out at the mound to see the menacing snarl on the pitcher’s face. By the time he steps into the box, his nervous system has been so overloaded with anxiety-inducing stimuli that there’s no way he’s stepping into the box feeling confident. However, if you take away the music, that situation becomes a lot less nerve-wracking for the batter. If there’s no music at all, or less intense music, you won’t get that same sense of drama and intensity in the stadium.

Here’s a quick experiment. Listen to each of these songs and think about two scenarios. For each song, imagine that you’re a pitcher on the mound throwing your warmup pitches, then imagine that you’re a batter watching a pitcher warm up to the music.

First this:

Now this:

Notice any difference in your mood?

Now that we’ve established that mound music can make a difference, how does one go about selecting a good song to terrify his weak opponent? Simple. Listen to a lot of music and pick out the song that makes you want to mosh the hardest. Usually anything with a strong, heavy bass (Korn is a good example) will get the job done. Bands that typically produce solid mound music include Rage Against the Machine, Disturbed, Metallica, and Led Zeppelin. Now, unless you’re playing in the coolest league ever, you’ll have to find something that doesn’t have any curse words for the first 1:30 or so. So songs like “F***ing in the Bushes” by Oasis are out, but your PA guy can probably find an edited version of your preferred song somewhere if you want to use it badly enough. For a list of what major leaguers use, go to THIS LINK.

So to recap, here’s how to maximize the psychological effect on a batter during a pitching change.

1) Pick out the baddest-ass song you can think of

2) Look confident

3) Look intimidating

4) Make the batter nervous

Be this guy…

…not this guy. Don’t ever be this guy.

Think this guy has a decent fastball? I doubt it.

Many coaches subscribe to the notion that “good” workouts end with their pitchers exhausted and on the verge of vomiting. Again, this is pure, unadulterated crap. The only thing these types of workouts are good for is breaking down the muscles in a pitcher’s legs and making them weaker. Good trainers and coaches will prescribe exercises that challenge the athlete but never make them ill.

Another thing to watch out for as a pitcher is overtraining, which is “a physical, behavioral and emotional condition that occurs when the volume and intensity of an individual’s exercise exceeds their recovery capacity.” Essentially, your body is unable to recover fully in between bouts of exercise. This means you will plateau in your fitness gains and eventually will lose strength.

I saw the effects of overtraining firsthand last season among the pitchers on my team. As a team, we usually only got one day off every two weeks. In addition to practice and games, we would also meet as a team 2-3 times a week to lift weights. And of course, there was the pitchers’ conditioning. This conditioning took place after literally every practice and game, and consisted of nothing but long-distance running (poles, loop around campus, etc.) As the season progressed, our pitchers were getting more and more run-down and were suffering on the mound as a result. Towards the end of the season, velocities were decreasing and ERAs were soaring. Of course, to the coaches this meant that the pitchers needed to be punished by doing the very thing that had led to their problems: more running. With ignorant training philosophies such as this, we were doomed to fail in postseason play.

If your coaches require pitchers to do ungodly amounts of running, you should try to get them to do some reading about the harm that it can cause. You don’t want to piss your coach off though, so be polite and discreet about it and you may be able to get him to change his mind about the effectiveness of sustained aerobic exercise.

For more information, Dan has already written about how to effectively train as a pitcher here: A Few Words About Pitchers’ Conditioning

To me, nothing is worse than being injured. For as long as you are too hurt to play, you are on the outside looking in as your team continues on without you. You have to sit out of practices and games while you wait to heal up, which could take weeks or even months. During my senior year of high school I broke my thumb in our homecoming football game and had to sit out the last game of the season (and my career), which was against our conference rivals to determine who would take home the championship that year. I watched helplessly from the sideline while my teammates played and won the championship game and I celebrated with them afterwards, but the win was completely unsatisfying for me and the experience left a bitter taste in my mouth. After that experience of watching my team win a championship without me, I decided that no future injury was ever going to keep me from playing again.

Over the course of my athletic career I have suffered several injuries including a partial tear of my Tommy John ligament, the broken thumb, and various sprains and strains. All of these were relatively minor injuries and none required surgery, so I usually played through them. As a result, I have become accustomed to playing with some degree of pain and discomfort. However, when I tore my ACL in December of 2007 I thought for sure I was going to miss my entire junior season of baseball.

I have always loved sports and I rarely turn down an opportunity to compete, so when a few of my teammates asked me to join their intramural basketball team at school I agreed to play. In our second-to-last game of the year, I planted awkwardly while trying to guard an opponent and twisted my left knee. I felt a strange crunching sensation inside my knee, followed by intense pain and a sense of “looseness” within the joint. I immediately dropped to the ground and nearly blacked out from the pain. I managed to hobble off the court and later drive myself home, but I couldn’t sleep due to the fact that my knee hurt no matter what position it was in. The next day my knee had swelled and I was unable to bend it enough to even get up and down the stairs.  A few days later I went to see our trainer, and he told me I had torn my Anterior Cruciate Ligament. Of all the possible things I thought I had done to my knee, a torn ACL had never occurred to me, and I was immediately filled with dread that I would have to get surgery and sit out the season.

I had spent the first few years of my college baseball career as a backup catcher and had finally been able to crack the starting lineup as a junior after a solid showing in the fall season. When I got the news about my knee, I was devastated. I thought of all the time I had spent in the gym and the batting cages and how it was all for nothing now that I had suffered this injury. I remember telling my dad the news, and how disappointed he was. He had been looking forward to seeing me play that season, and he was just upset as I was by the news: I would not be playing for another year. I also knew that with only two catchers on our roster, I would be hurting my team by sitting out the season. I weighed my options and I decided that I wasn’t going to miss my opportunity to finally play, so I decided that I would play the season ACL-less.

Playing with a torn ACL is not easy, and I would not recommend it for everybody. I spent 4 miserable weeks over winter break just trying to get my knee to bend enough that I could comfortably get into a catcher’s squat. I went to see a doctor and got a prescription for a custom-fitted brace to protect my feeble knee from sliding in and out of place. I also spent hours in the gym working to strengthen my quadriceps and hamstrings to take some of the strain off my remaining ligaments and stabilize my knee. Throwing became a difficult and often painful chore, as the rotational forces on my knee during my follow through caused it to buckle several times. Though I suffered a few setbacks over the winter, I was convinced that I could be in playing shape by the first game of the season in the last week of February.

By the time February rolled around, I was able to throw, hit, and run, but I still could not fully get into my crouch behind the plate. Nevertheless, I went back to school to begin spring practice with the rest of my team. I hadn’t told my coach about my injury for fear that he would be hesitant to let me play, so I had to hide my knee brace by wearing long pants to practice every day while my teammates all wore shorts. A few of my teammates knew the full extent of my injury, but most just knew that I had “tweaked” my knee playing basketball. During the first week of practice I was able to keep up with my teammates during running and agility drills, but my mobility behind the plate was absolutely miserable. To make catching possible, I had to change my stance so that almost all my weight was on my right leg. Blocking balls to my right was an especially daunting task, since it required me to push off of my left leg at an angle. Every bullpen session would end with my left knee swollen and my right leg on fire from doing the work of both legs, but I suffered silently and kept my knee on ice for hours after every practice to try to keep the inflammation down.

By the time of our season-opener in North Carolina (2 months after my injury), I had regained full range of motion and felt confident that I would be able to play. There was still a shred of doubt, though; a lingering worry in the back of my mind that my knee would just give out on a throw or a swing and end my season for good. Thankfully, that moment never came. Instead, I was encouraged by a play that I made behind the plate that nobody else noticed.

When playing with an injury, an athlete will usually remain cognizant of the fact that something about their body is not healthy and will change their mechanics to keep from causing themselves pain. But sometimes, a player will be so locked in and focused that they essentially forget their injury and revert back to old mechanics, which may or may not result in pain. I had this experience during our fifth game of the season in Stafford, VA. I was catching in the early innings, and our pitcher bounced a curveball in the left-handed batters box. Without thinking, I pushed off with my left leg, slid in front of the ball, and blocked it. To everybody watching the game, this was probably a very forgettable play. But for me, it was huge. I had just used my knee exactly the way I used to, and had felt no pain whatsoever. The shred of doubt in the back of my mind disappeared just like that. I even hit a triple later in that game, a fact that I am particularly proud of since I doubt very many people with torn ACLs have legged out a triple in college baseball. If you don’t believe me you can watch it here:

I played the entire season without any problems, and planned to have my knee operated on in June. However, as my surgery date approached I began to have second thoughts. I didn’t want to be confined to my bed or crutches for any amount of time. I also didn’t want to miss the fall season of my senior year. During the week leading up to the day of my surgery I thought constantly about whether or not I should have the procedure done. Ultimately, I made the decision to push back my surgery a second time. I played with the brace again during my senior year and only had one minor flare-up in my knee during the season. I didn’t have a great year, but I did hit .478 with runners in scoring position and played well behind the plate.

My college baseball career is now over, but I still play semipro ball in the summer and I still play basketball, lift weights, and take part in many other physical activities. Since the summer, I have been weaning myself off of the knee brace, and I’m now able to play sports and run without using it at all. The only time I wear my brace now is when I play flag football just in case somebody decides to take a cheap shot at my legs. Other than that, I am now completely free of the brace and my knee feels stronger than it has in years. The first few times I played basketball without it, my knee felt a little unsteady, but as the days went by I could feel my knee getting stronger and tighter. This progress continued, and my knee now feels almost like it did before my injury. Every once in a while I can feel it give a little bit if I plant too hard on my left foot, but the joint is not nearly as lax as it used to be.

The point of my article is this: if you suffer a torn ACL, don’t automatically think that your playing career is over or that you’ll be crippled for life. Obviously, if you’re young or a professional prospect with a long career ahead of you, you’ll want to have surgery. But if you’re like me and you just want to squeeze as many games out of your remaining time as possible, you can play without your ACL. The most important thing is to strengthen the muscles surrounding your knee as much as possible to keep the joint tight. It also helps to have a fairly high pain threshold and a little bit of mental toughness.

I often think that I could have been better if I hadn’t hurt my knee, but I have never second-guessed my decision to forgo surgery in favor of playing hurt. When I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to have my knee operated on, I kept thinking about how I felt while I was watching that football game in high school, knowing that I would never get to play again. For years I regretted my decision to sit out that game, and I didn’t want to have those same feelings of regret when I looked back at my college baseball career. I did whatever I could to play as many games as possible, and I don’t regret it one bit.