Baseball's Forumula: Hard Work Will Pay Off

A good friend of mine used to say, ‘This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.’”

That, of course, is a quote from the 1988 baseball movie Bull Durham. And on a day like today, when practice is cut short after warm-ups because of rain, I think back to that line. I laugh every time I hear it because it is such an extreme understatement.

If you add it all up, I have probably played in over 700 baseball games. That’s if you include tee-ball, coach-pitch underhand, coach-pitch overhand, little league, travel team, middle school ball, high school ball, college ball, and summer ball. That means I have probably come to bat over 2000 times, fielded over 1500 ground balls, and thrown over 10,000 balls.

And I still can’t figure this game out.

But I try.

Today, as we huddled in the dugout to avoid the rain, coach asked us to think about our personal and team goals for the year. Obviously, as a team, we all want to improve on last year. As coach said, we can win 20 games this year. With the new class of freshman, we have much more depth on offense and in the bullpen. We have a lot of possibilities for moving guys around in the lineup and in the field. Personally, I would like to get more playing time this year, whether I’m playing first base, second base or anywhere else. I know that my playing time depends on how much work I put in this fall and in the winter offseason. This morning I woke up early for an optional lift at 8 a.m. and got to the field early to work on my footwork at first base.

I was extremely impressed when I arrived at the field for practice this afternoon. To my surprise about half the team was at the field 45 minutes early getting some cuts in the batting cage and throwing some balls around. There is definitely a baseball-oriented attitude on this year’s team. And that will make playing a lot easier.