by Coach Griff

Baseball is a game of chess.

Using this to your advantage will help you in the toughest of circumstances.

Managing your own mind

Perhaps most importantly, knowing how to manage your own emotions is the first step to conquering the mental game.

As a general rule of thumb, pitchers should never show any negative emotions on the mound:

• Don’t question/challenge the umpire or show any outward emotion against them
• Don’t show frustration or anger
• Don’t throw your glove or throw your arms up in the air
• Don’t swear
• Don’t blame others on your team, especially if they made an error

Letting others know you’re in a negative mental space gives them energy, and perhaps the confidence they need to beat you.

How to get it out of your system

Let’s be real, telling you that you can’t display negative emotions doesn’t help much.

But just because you can’t show these emotions, doesn’t mean you can’t process them in a productive way.

Mental anchoring

You’ll never see me upset on the mound, but if you know what to look for, you can tell if I’m frustrated.

When I need to get negative emotions out of my head, I go through a two-step process

1. I take off my hat, I look into it and say things like… You’re useless, how could you leave that pitch up, what were you thinking, how f#$&^% hard is it*