Avoiding Statistical Focus in Baseball
Its a statistical fact that fewer than 1% of high school and college athletes ever get the chance to play professionally. Those odds are a bit shocking if your goal is to play professional baseball down the road. And if taken only at a surface level will discourage many athletes.
Im not sharing these statistics with you to demoralize you in any way. Instead, all highly successful athletes and individuals rarely look at statistics as a guide to their future success and future aspirations. Great athletes tend to see these types of statistics as a huge inspiration to do what others have never tried, or have given up pursuing. This was the case for me as I progressed through college and fulfilled my dream of playing professional baseball. Let me share with you a brief tip for how to use this mindset as you develop yourself as a good pitcher, hitter, and overall athlete.
For those of you who have played baseball, did you ever step up to bat and think to yourself about the statistic probability that you would hit a home run in any given at bat? Of course you didnt. Why is that? Because when the emotions and excitement are strong enough, statistics never come in to play. For another example of this, look no further than a little leaguer learning how to play baseball. Everything is exciting, the sky is the limit, and statistic reality of becoming a professional baseball player never factors into the equation.
So how do we (players and coaches) learn how to play baseball without allowing reality and statistics to paralyze our game? Understand that thousands upon thousands of athletes quit baseball each year. The main reason for this is that they allow statistics in the form of lack of playing time, batting average, etc. to paint a clear picture that seems to suggest that they find something else to invest their time in doing.
My encouragement to you is never let your mind travel down the path of looking at past performances to gage how you will play in the future. Once you do this, your brain will stop being creative and your work habit will change for the negative. Get in a habit of thinking about success only, and eventually your mind will expect such results. Only at this point will you begin to play as if stats didnt matter.