My 13/14 y.o. team lost a horrid game last night to a team we should have beaten easily.

The kids were pretty much focused on bad calls the umpires were making. Granted the umps made some terrible calls, but they didn't cost us the game. Mental errors, baserunning blunders, and bad throws cost us the game. It seemed to me that most of the kids were expending all of their mental energy griping about the umpires rather than figuring out how to win the game.

During the course of the season we've talked several times about keeping a positive mental attitude, but that obviously was forgotten last night. I'm wondering what you more experienced coaches do to build mental toughness and teach the kids to stay focused.

You have to tell your kids, and their parents, that the umps are really not interested in cooking a 13-14 baseball game. They try to get it right, and most of the time they do. If the coaches and parents focus on the umps, the kids will, too, and all it does is take them out of the game. Tell them if they gat a bad call, it will very quickly be erased by a bad call that will help, so don't get focused on what has passed.

We teach ours to play the game one pitch at a time. You have to have a very short memory to play this game we all love.

We teach our kids to play the game and let the coaches handle the umpires. Whenever there is an issue with umpires (with our team or the other team), we have a short conversation aout maintaining their focus.

We preach that they should control what they CAN control...their effort and attitude.

redbird5

Our kids are a bit older but we have the same philosophy--the coaches take care of business---a kid shows attitude to an ump and his next at bat or close call can be bad for him

Just play the game son !!!!

I think part of it is the age. My son used to slump his shoulders and look mopey after a bad call or a bad play. Not verbally complaining, just bad body language. I haven't seen it once this year. I'd like to think it was because I told him that wasnt the right attitude to project, but I think its just maturing.

We simply tell our kids that if they do not like the way the game is being called, then they need to take the game out of the umpires hands. Play hard and score a lot of runs and don't wait for the borderline calls. Talking to the ump if you are not a coach is a strict no-no. If the game comes down to the umpire, then mayby we need to play harder. That is our approach. That is a challenging age, good luck!

quote:

Originally posted by bcb3:
I think part of it is the age. My son used to slump his shoulders and look mopey after a bad call or a bad play. Not verbally complaining, just bad body language. I haven't seen it once this year. I'd like to think it was because I told him that wasnt the right attitude to project, but I think its just maturing.

Part of it is maturation but part of it can be learned very quickly through reinforcement.

My son's coach used to tell the boys there are two things that you can't control in baseball. That would be the umpires and the weather.

I can totally relate, my son is 13 years old and play in a few teams. One of them is 13U and the others are 14U. Some time ago he was having trouble hitting (BTW: not anymore), and I gave him a book called “The mental aspects of hitting”. I’m not sure if the book helped him with his hitting but it did help on his mental toughness. The author goes into discussing the C’s and UC’s of the game of baseball (Controllables and Uncontrollables). Since then every time I saw him drifting into the bad habit of blaming something that he can’t control I flashed the “U” sign from the stands. I am happy to tell you that this season so far I haven’t had to do it yet; he knows what the C’s and UC’s of the game are. In addition he has never blamed and Umpire for anything or even gave them a look after a really bad call, on the contrary as a catcher he develops a good rapport with them. I want to think that is a result of differentiating the C’s and UC’s. Other parents have noticed his “very mature behavior” and asked me why and how, I just tell them about the “U” sign and some of them have used it with very positive results. Here are some examples (top of my head) of C’s and UC’s:
C’s
• hustle
• defense
• at bats (be prepared)
• always think at least a couple of plays head
• pre game preparation
• post game routine
• listening to your coaches and officials
• Hustle, hustle and then hustle some more!
UC’s (don’t even spend a second thinking about them)
• errors
• SO’s and outs
• Past plays good or bad
(Ex. A strike out or a home run. It’s done!)
• Bad calls
• Weather
• Fans (sadly includes us parents)
• Etc.

I’m sure I missed a few, but you get the idea. Hope it works…

Basically, it is all about what a player feels about himself and others around him. If a player is comfortable with his own ability and trusts his teammates & coaches, then other things won't bother him so much. If a player is insecure, or feels like an umpire's decision might cost him playing time, he'll look for that guy as the scapegoat for any & all problems. The problem, as has been already stated, usually comes down to the parents. Parents need to set a positive example for their kids in their actions & words - as hard as that may be sometimes. Players need to have good role models and it is the job of us as coaches and the parents to show them that they don't NEED scapegoats to blame their problems on. Being an enabler is not a good thing - failure is a part of our game and poor officiating happens....get over it!

I have been preaching mental toughness to my son for quite a few seasons. I see that in baseball, just as many kids wash up because of what goes on between their ears as what goes on between the lines.

Compete fiercely. Don't blame yourself, your parents, your teammates, the ump or the coach. If mistakes are made, learn from them, don't dwell on them.

Respect everyone. Fear no one.

At an early age I stressed to my son not to "let them get you twice" meaning if you struck out, or made an error, or if he was pitching and didn't get a call, don't carry it over into your play on the field or your next at bat, or your next pitch, where, by dwelling on it, the other team stood a good chance of getting him again. He learned quickly and it's second nature now.

You can reinforce this sort of lesson post-game by talking about instances in that game or another game where a kid lost his cool over a play and then he was done for the game mentally or for a time. You don't want that to happen to you do you? There are plenty of those kids around so finding an example won't be hard.

As coaches we've all faced teams where a pitcher was cruising, but we just KNEW that if one little thing went wrong, a bad at-bat or bad call, then we would get to him and make it worse on him. Actually, he would get to himself, we'd just help the process along after the fact. Smart players will see this as well and definitley NOT want to be that guy that goes to pieces. Sometimes you just have to point it out and let them watch it unfold.

Mental toughness is a thought process. It is being aware that an athlete controls his thoughts, which in turn control emotions (as opposed to the emotions controlling the athlete). In every circumstance during a practice, a game, a season, an athlete has a choice in how he is going to respond to success and to adversity. Acknowledging the power of making a choice, then making the appropriately positive choice of thought, is what allows an athlete to exhibit the traits of what we call mental toughness.

As usual, my friend Grateful posts a gem. Right on (by the way, boys, Grateful's teams displayed this type of toughness back in the day...yeah, I remember!)