What goes through the mind of a pitcher prior to hitting (on accident) one of the best hitters to ever play the game?  Well, let me tell you what went through mine before, during, and after.

In 2004 I was a rookie at the young age of 28.  I had fought my way through the minor leagues and was making my third start in the big leagues.  My previous two starts where a little shaky but good enough to get a third.  I was starting to get a little more comfortable with the atmosphere and wanted to have a good outing.  I had watched video of the Mariners prior to the game so I could put together a good game plan with each hitter.  I knew that Ichiro Suzuki was going to make contact and put the ball in play somewhere so I was a little surprised when I found myself ahead in the count with two strikes on him.   He was in the middle of a record breaking season so he was obviously swinging a hot bat.  A strikeout didn’t seem like an attainable goal against him so I was shooting for weak contact but not too weak.  In the video I watched prior to the game I saw a few at-bats showing Ichiro swinging through a high fastball.  That pitch stuck in my head because it was so rare that he swing and missed.  But again, I wasn’t going for a strikeout just semi-weak contact.  So there I was, two strikes on a great hitter and my catcher calls a fastball inside.  I agree with the pitch and think its the best option after throwing back to back change-ups.  The inside fastball should allow me to induce the semi-weak contact and maybe even get him to pop it up.  He can beat out a groundball but its pretty tough to beat out a pop up.  As I nod to the catcher and start my delivery, the video images flash in my head of the slightly elevated fastball.  Somewhere between striding towards home and releasing the baseball I decide I should elevate the pitch and go for the punchout.  As the ball left my fingertips at around 90mph, I could see the precisely planned trajectory was way off.  In my head was a voice screaming  “heads up”, “look out”, and “take cover” but as the pitch sailed and hit Ichiro in the head I had these thoughts…

Thought 1.  Please be OK

Thought 2.  Please, Please be OK

Thought 3.  Seriously, did that just happen?

Thought 4.  Thank God he is moving and looks OK. Maybe it just grazed him.

Thought 5.  Should I help him off the field?

Thought 6.  Great, now one of my teammates are going to get hit.

Thought 7.  Are you kidding me Jimmy.  I should send myself back to the minor leagues.

Thought 8.  Ok, get back to baseball.  It was an accident.

As the game resumed, Ichiro was taken to the hospital for observation and the very next inning one our hitters was thrown behind (my bad).  As you can imagine, after the game my phone was flooded with text messages and reporters asking why I hit Ichiro.  I made sure everyone knew it was not intentional.  After the game  it was all over ESPN.   I was concerned that his record setting season was in jeopardy but the next day we were rained out and Ichiro came back the day after and went 3 for 4.  We played them again a few weeks later and I was able talk to him and apologize for the pitch and he was totally cool about it.

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It was early fall 1994, I had just moved to Mesa, Arizona to pursue a college life filled with baseball and whatever shenanigans that might come.  Mesa was not my first choice in schools but a high school buddy talked me into going with him and trying out for the baseball team-so off we went.  We locked down a two bedroom apartment about three blocks from campus.  Fall in Arizona feels like summer everywhere else so we were looking forward to playing baseball year-around.  Chris and I hadn’t actually met or talked to the head baseball coach before we got down there.  We figured we could wander over to the baseball field and hopefully run into him and get the scoop on tryouts.  So one sunny afternoon we walked over and asked around for the coach, eventually we shook hands with a guy named Tony, he preferred to go by “Buck”,  He looked surprised to hear that we moved from Colorado in hopes of making a notable collegiate baseball team.  I remember his chaw filled cheek saying “good luck boys”, just before he launched the biggest darkest spit I had ever seen.

The next day we submitted all the necessary paperwork to attend the weekend tryouts.  In highschool, I was an infielder, mostly third base.  I considered myself a decent defender of the “hot corner” and I could swing the bat well enough to hold my own.  So I figured that third base was my strongest position and that would be my tryout spot.  Chris spent most of his high school years playing outfield.  Being blessed with good speed and a good arm, outfield seemed like a good fit for him.  I was completely surprised when he showed me his form and that he was trying out for second base.  I knew he was a good enough athlete to play there and do well but I thought that his best chance would be in the outfield. In Chris’ true fashion, he was confident that he could do it and when he got something in his head, he was all about it. That characteristic was something that made our friendship work so well.  We could come up with some random idea and spend days trying to see it through.  So I accepted his decision and was looking forward to seeing how it would go.  We spent the next couple days pumping each other up and getting ready to show Arizona what a couple Colorado boys could do.

As we lined up for tryout numbers, we were gauging the baseball talent simply on how the players looked.  Some players looked like they just got done playing in the big leagues and were looking to run the cycle again, while others looked underwhelming enough to make us feel like we were somewhere in the middle of the pack. We all separated by our tryout positions, I took off trotting to third base along with a small herd of about twelve.  I was ok with the number of guys trying out until I realized that most of them actually knew the coaching staff.  A few of the guys were invited to attend tryouts by the coaches,  some were returning players and then there was me.  I don’t actually remember how I performed in the tryouts.  I couldn’t get past the fact that there were so many of us trying out for one position and that I didn’t have any type of edge over the competition.  Towards the end of the day, Buck came walking up to our group and asked if there was anybody that could pitch.  I did a quick calculation in my head, third base is one position, pitching has an entire staff, and up my hand went into the air.  I pitched a little in high school but I would call it throwing experience more than pitching experience.  I jogged over to the pitching mounds and met Zeke, the pitching coach.  He greeted me with, “what the f*** you doing here?”  I told him I was there to throw a bullpen as directed by Buck.  I really had no idea what I was doing on the mound, just lifting my leg, reaching back and hoping for the best.   At the end of the day, they told me from now on I will be reporting back with the pitchers and not with the infielders.  I took that as a good sign even though I never considered myself to be a pitcher up to that point.  My goal was to make the team by any means necessary and it appeared that I had.

   Chris was in a similar situation during his tryout at second base.  The position was log jammed with returning players, new players and a future Major League All-star.  Chris would never have tried out for anything less than the position he wanted. For him it was middle infield or nothing.  I can’t remember how his tryout went either.  I don’t know that it would have mattered without an edge over the other players.  Chris ended up getting cut from the team and I made it.  He seemed completely ok with it because he was the type of person that put it all out on the table and gave it his all.  He didn’t have excuses as to why he didn’t make the team, he didn’t need any.  Chris had other goals to focus on and wanted to get started on them right away.

As I continued my baseball career through junior college and on to division 1 baseball, Chris and I slowly lost consistent contact.  There was no real reason other than just different focuses.  He was getting into television camera work and climbing the ranks in that industry and I was still trying to figure out how to be a pitcher. In the summer of 1998, I was drafted by the Montreal Expos and started my professional baseball career.  After my first full season in the minor leagues I was invited to play in the Arizona Fall League.  The AFL is a league made up of minor league prospects that plays throughout the Phoenix area.  It was great to be back in Arizona where it all started.   There was one evening just before the start of our game,  I was walking to the bullpen and I heard someone say, “hey, can I have your autograph?”  I looked over and saw a giant television camera and the guy behind it was Chris.  We had a chance to chat for a little while and get caught up.  He was doing well, running the cameras at the Diamondbacks baseball games.  It was great to see him again while we were both doing what we truly loved.  It was the last time that I would get to see him.  Chris passed away in a tragic boating accident at Lake Pleasant a couple of years later.  It seems that as we move through life we impact others lives more than we realize.  If Chris hadn’t talked me into making the move with him from Colorado to Arizona, I may have never reached my dreams of playing in the Major Leagues.  I would not have had the experiences that baseball has allowed.  I would not have met my wife, or had my sons or anything else going forward.  Its important that we see how big of an impact we can make on other people and how it can set their future in motion.  If someone has made an apparent impact on your life make sure to thank them.

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Do you get frustrated when you just cant throw a strike or you just cant make contact?  Does you confidence rise and fall with every hitter you face or every blooper you crush?  Try the drill below and take control of your time on the field and make it look like you know what your doing.

Pitchers

Give yourself 3 chances to throw 1 good pitch (start with all fastballs). After you throw pitch 1, decide if you like it or don’t like it. Same with pitches 2 and 3. Once you’ve thrown all three pitches decide which one you liked the best. On pitch number 4 you’re going to try and repeat everything about the pitch you liked. This drill will get pitchers to visualize the pitch prior to executing it. It also helps the pitcher to forget about the “bad” pitches he threw in the sequence because he is so focused on finding a good pitch to repeat. Work in sets of 4 and work through all of your pitches. I know, I know,  your curious about what to do if you don’t like any of the pitches in the first 3. Well, its buckle down time. 3 balls 0 strikes, you need to get ‘er done. After that pitch, restart a new sequence and for goodness sake, throw a strike.

If your the type of pitcher that easily gets rattled with bad pitches, you have been doing this drill in the opposite way without even knowing. You have been focusing on your worst pitch, which makes your mind and body want to repeat it. Try this drill and get your mind focused on DO-ing rather than NOT doing.

Hitters

You can do a similar drill using 3 swings off the tee or soft toss. Find which swing you liked the best and repeat it on swing number 4. It will have the same affect on your confidence when you start to become consistent.

Major league pitchers and hitters are so good because they are playing the game ahead of real-time.  Each player is visualizing prior to the play and simply trying to execute what they have done thousands of times before.

Everybody loves a good game plan.  Put all our ducks in a row and just knock em down one at a time.   Make the youth team, make the all-star team, make the freshman/JV team, make varsity, get a scholarship, get drafted in the first round, spend a couple days in the minor leagues, get called up, dominate in the big leagues, become an all-star, then the hall of fame.  Sounds simple enough…right?

Planning your baseball career is like planning the weather.   You can do a little forecasting and try to predict but it’s better to prepare for what comes your way.  Most baseball players end up with a story that could not have been predicted or planned.  We all have a common goal in mind but the path to get there is different,  but the same in its unpredictability.   The fact is, we can only control so much in this great game.  We can control how hard we work and what we choose to work on.  Other than that, we are at the mercy of other people making decisions for us.  Whether its coaches, umpires, scorekeepers, scouts, front office, parents, teammates, etc….we simply cant control their decisions.   Some call it politics, some call it baseball.  Either way, it is what it is.  The best we can do is be consistent with our goals and work hard to reach them.  Baseball has a funny way of weeding out players that don’t stick to their goals and lack work ethic.  It also has a way of weeding out parents that focus on the “politics.”

Here are some facts about competitiveness and succeeding in baseball.

Fact #1 –  Everyone wants to win (games,starting positions, scholarships, recognition, etc…).

Fact #2 – You wont win when you think you should (It is what it is).

Fact #3 – How you handle Fact #2 will determine how Fact #1 goes.

My best advice for planning your baseball future is to first decide how hard you’re willing to work.  Once you’ve decided that, then commit to it regardless of your current situation.  Hard work WILL pay off and every level you climb, recommit.