Working with young baseball padawans also lets me stay around the game in a capacity I enjoy. I like to teach and instruct. Folks tell me I should become a little league coach, but… uh… I can’t stand the parents. The kids are fine, they’re easy, they do what you tell them. The parents on the other hand… well, sometimes they can’t get past themselves long enough to let their kids be kids.

Parents, or The Parents, as we call them among coaching circles, are the number one cause of problems for just about every coach and player… including their own.

That’s because The Parents, in their quest to be loving, helpful, and provide the perfect baseball experience, do some crazy-ass s*^#$ like pick fights with coaches in parking lots, start arguments in the middle of games, harass other teams ten year olds to the point of crying, brawl with other dads, attack other mothers, and contact child services over lack of playing time.

Coach for any amount of time and you’ll learn quickly that the hardest part about coaching young children is dealing with the grown up problems of their parents. Look, parenting is hard (ask my mother). You’re always worried that your child is going to get scarred for life and end up some drugged-up burnout that cites a bad childhood experience for ruining  his or her passion for just about everything. You fear that a coach will squelch his or her desire to play the game he or she loves. You fear that not doing something for them, or controlling everything you can will put them in harm’s way leaving you to live with a lifetime of regret. I get that. I know you’re afraid that your child might suffer, and you will do everything in your power to make sure it doesn’t happen.

But it’s an unrealistic goal. In fact it’s not even always beneficial to the child. You know, one of the best things about baseball, I mean the absolute Best things, is it’s a game of failure. Controlled, tracked, and itemized failure. Kids, even gifted ones, WILL fail at it. And, as child, this is a great thing to experience.

Why? Because life is a game of failure. Not to sound nihilistic, but life can really kick your ass, and when it does, you can’t run to mommy and daddy and beg for them to fight the coach, or boss, or ex-girlfriend for you. The successful among us are always the ones who pick themselves up after failure and press on. Competitive sports teach this. They teach a myriad of other great things, but none is more life empowering than this.

***

It’s a natural instinct to want to help you children. But, sometimes, helping them means getting control of your natural instincts. In your attempt to make sure your child enjoys the game, you may very well end up embarrassing your child out of it.

In a recent lesson, I talked to a fourteen year-old about “awareness being an impediment to action.” It’s my little way of addressing those times when everything is going wrong and you can’t stop thinking about how wrong it’s going. You’re no longer the player that is locked into the game. Now you’re the player that realizes everyone is looking at you, is disappointed with you, and is waiting for you to fix it. It’s a terrible feeling, and one of the hardest to recover from when it’s sitting on top of you in front of fans, teammates, and opposing forces.

I asked the child when he feels most aware, and he said, “when my parents are yelling at me to do better in front of the whole team.”

“And does this help you?”

“No, it just makes it worse. I just worry about myself more. I feel terrible. I hate it.”

If you take time to think about why you do most of the things you do as a parent of a young player, you might realize that much of it is because you’re trying to cope with your own fears via outward actions directed at your child. This is often why coaches get so much heat.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some bad coaches out there, especially at the lowest levels. Most don’t know anything about baseball, or the mechanics. They yell a lot, they boss kids around, and they have big expectations. But that’s life for you: lots of loud mouths, know-nothings, and frustrating expectations to deal with.

Luckily, many coaches are good people doing the best they can with what they’ve got. Even so, it’s important to realize there is no perfect coach. Don’t expect them to be perfect, or your children, or you. And don’t try to make a scenario perfect because, just like no player has ever had a perfect season from the inside, you can’t make it one from the outside.

Trust yourself. You’ll know when your kids need your protective intervention, and when they just need to toughen up. Remember, they are not emotionally developed yet, crying is a way they cope with things they can’t express, it’s natural— it is NOT your cue to throw punches or set an ambush in the parking lot. Give your child a chance to figure it out on his own by controlling your need to control: support, encourage, and let go.

Remember: sports are meant to be a teaching tool for life. They require discipline, control, and confidence, not just from the players but also their parents. How much of those traits you exude as a parent  will correlate to how much of them you see in your children.

The piece turned out to be as polarizing as the person it was written about. Fans came out in droves to slam Rosenthal for being to “PC”, or sensitive. Some even said that they could care less about what Ozzie says, regardless of content, as long as he brings a winning team to the field.

That irritated me greatly.

At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole event. Frankly, I find the inability to think before speaking, especially when on a national platform, to be a good indicator of person’s intelligence level. Thus, I’ve looked at Ozzie Guillen as the village idiot of managers for years now. The tirades, the vulgarities, the unchecked emotional outbursts—yes, it’s entertaining (much the same way Jerry Springer is) but is it efficacious for the impressionable that watch such behavior intent on modeling it?

Slow down. Don’t jump and accuse me of being some sensitive, censoring, grammar school nun. I’ve played long enough to get my mistakes thrown back in my face from those chanting how I’ve betrayed my role model-hood. Well, it cuts both ways.

My gripe is this: individuals in the public eye are called to a higher standard. I have never believed that simply because folks dress up in costumes and play kids games on television for lots of money that they are great role model material. But I don’t make the rules. Our culture has chosen athletes and those connected to them to be the standards of success. If that’s the case, then what’s wrong with holding them the standards we’ve set?  What’s wrong with someone saying to us we should expect better from them?

If a politician, a doctor, or a dean said what Ozzie did, there would be hell to pay. But Ken Rosenthal says that Ozzie’s latest comments of respect for a brutal dictator are too much and he’s the one getting flogged? People, where are our standards?

Yes, suspend the guy. He may be a great guy, and a real player’s manager, and very sorry about it all, but there IS MORE at stake at the level he’s on than just winning. That is something we should be fiercely protective of—that thought, reason, and class matter because we’ve chosen those elites with the microphone to represent us.

If we are going to hold athletes and their affiliated parties as highly as we do, let’s expect more from them. Thinking before speaking is not to much to ask.

Hey Dirk,

My name is Harry Doyle, I am a Freshman Pitcher for the Mel’s Barber College. I am a huge fan of your books. I am going through a bit of a hard time. I started the season off first out of the pen and got some mid week starts. I started vs Rick’s Tattoo Shop University and had a great outing and our coach told me I won the Sunday spot but turns out that was all a lie and it shook me a bit. Ever since then, I have appeared in probably 3 innings and let up around 10 runs. I know it happens, I know its baseball, but all of my confidence is gone. I know that you have been in difficult situations in your career and have overcome them. Tonight vs Arnolds Piercing U. I pitched 1/3 of an inning and found a way to allow 2 runs. Any help would be appreciated. As I said, I started from first out of the pen and now I am the very last one. I literally felt that I had it all made, I was being sent to the Cape, I beat out high draft picks (I am an undrafted kid from Guam) so I felt that I was on top of the world. After the game today, our coach, in front of our team called a “mother-fucking pussy” and told me I should have just gone to a real school. I don’t want to rant and complain to you, but I just know that you are someone I respect and can you’ve been in my shoes at some point.

Thank you,

Harry

Dear Pitching Padawan,

Ah yes, the public call out. Those always go over so well… Nothing says “pick your head up” like being called a pussy in front of an entire team of peers and friends. I’ll bet it shook you up. I’ll bet it pissed you off too, but then you were really frustrated because you knew you couldn’t do a darn thing about it but stand there and take it. Which, by the way, is the right move. Your coach will tell himself he’s trying to light a fire under your ass by calling you out like that. All coaches say that after they say something really abrasive that didn’t actually need to be said. Coaches get mad too, and their version of smashing a water cooler when they are frustrated is smashing your ego—they just have the luxury of saying something to justify it like, “I wanted to give you a gut check.”

Since we can’t change coaches, only the way we view the situation, there are a couple of things that we need to clear up. First, you’re not a pussy, or a coward, or weak, or any of these other super machismo descriptors used in the sports circles to explain away failure. Stop thinking in terms of being or not being those things because they are fundamentally wrong. If you pin yourself into thinking you either are, or are not said adjectives, then you’ll always think of yourself in relation to them. You’re a person, with high expectations, who is trying to be successful in a sport that requires you to give up control.

You know I’m fond of saying “once the balls leaves your hand, the rest is out of your control.” That’s easier said than done, I know, but remember, there is only so much you can control. One of those things is how you look and speak to yourself. Simply put, if you don’t think your a pussy, then you are not. You’re trying, you don’t want to fail,  but neither do the hitters. Sometimes you’ll get beat and that’s a normal part of this business. After it happens, choose to learn and refocus because it’s all you can do. To reiterate—don’t beat yourself up, don’t waste time worrying, don’t dwell on repeat failure scenarios, just move forward with focus and intent. You may not be successful next time, there is always that chance, but you will free yourself of this mental anguish.

Second, go back to the basics. Lost confidence has a way of convincing us we cant throw in the middle of the zone and get outs. You know what my coaches would tell me in the low levels of the minors? “Down”. That’s it. You can get a lot of hitters out if you just keep the ball down. The corners are a plus. The Black is Icing. But down in 75% of the battle. Miss down, stay down, and expand left to right. Remember, hitters will happily take 3 out of ten. So let them. You keep the ball down consistently, they’ll get themselves out. Furthermore, if they do get a hit, balls hit on the ground don’t add up. Coaches have a tendency to break out the “you’re a pussy” line when they feel you’re not “going right after hitters” (any of this sound familiar?). One of the reasons we don’t go after hitters is we are scared of what hitters can do to us from previous—fresh wounds—experiences. You can’t be scared to attack the bottom part of the zone because the odds are on your side. Your coach knows this too. Giving up hits will happen. Falling behind, being afraid of contact, not challenging a hitter in a count that favors you: that tends to piss a coach off. Trust yourself, go after guys, and if you get beat, so what, you did WHAT YOU COULD CONTROL. Your intent was correct. Beyond that, it’s out of your hands… literally.

Third, don’t tell yourself you’re the man when you aren’t. The high draft pick you beat to the Cape, the early success. the starting spot in a mid week game: you haven’t done anything yet. Look at yourself with sober judgment. The “out of your control” line cuts both ways. You got these opportunities and that’s great, but they don’t make you a star so don’t think of yourself as one. It’s misleading to your own confidence to think you’ve got something made when the fact of the matter is, you don’t. What you have are opportunities. As it is written in the Braves clubhouse, “prepare yourself for the opportunity that may present itself. Do you do that by patting yourself on the back, of by focusing on the task at hand like it is the most important thing in you’ve done to date?

Look, what you are going through right now is terribly common. But you’re about to learn something really valuable. That is: everyone expects to succeed so intensely that they can’t handle failure, but how you handle failure will dictate the amount of opportunities you’ll get to succeed. Learn to handle failure by doing what you can control, talking to yourself with sober judgment, and refraining from tearing yourself down. It will make you a better player and a happier person.

Hope this helps.

Yours in baseball,

There is always a lot of speculation around the beginning of the year. Fans tend to look at the opening day game results and extract some kind of foreshadowing from it, as if it will set the tone for the rest of the season. It’s contagious. In fact, in the Indian’s press box, I couldn’t believe how many times I heard the words “this could be our year!” from Indians press who had covered the team for several seasons now. Not that there is anything wrong with being positive, but five innings is hardly a good indicator of what kind of team the Indians, or the Jays for that matter, are going to be in August.

I heard the president on the Indians on a radio broadcast before the game. He was being asked about his thoughts on the Votto deal, which is a very substantial deal when you consider the market size of the Reds. This point was made to Mark Shapiro (el presidente) and he said that each club is has it’s own philosophies on larger deals that eat up pay rolls, etc… Then he went on to say that he wished the Indians were in a situation where they had to deliberate on inking a premier stud player for millions or trading him. I might have been the only member of the press that choked when I heard that—chock that up me being new at the media thing—but, uh, every time the Indians have had a ultra premier league talent, they trade them for less than they’re worth. *cough *cough Sabathia, Lee… *cough

Probably the only person happy about JP Arencibia going 0′fer into the wee innings of the night was Travis D’arnaud back in triple A. That is, until JP smacked the dinger that won it. That’s the thing about a big hit; it can erase a lot of ugly. But, again, it’s opening day, so I have to take my own advice and not read to far into to. However, I can say that as high as they are on JP, Travis is the real deal. If you want to talk foreshadowing, talk about which one of them will be the everyday guy when the Jays are pushing into the last months of 2012. Power hitting catchers make good trading points… just saying.

Justin Masterson is pretty *&%$# good—just thought I’d let you know that in case you were unsure. He’s got some turbo sink on both his fastball and change up. He’s the kind of pitcher I always wanted to be because his ball has so much action he can literally throw it at the middle of the plate and watch it find it’s own way out of the zone. He reminds me of Peavy pre injury: lots of hand whip that gives the ball a sick amount of zone escape sink. I expect Masterson to be the best pitcher in the Indian’s rotation because he has something a lot of pitchers—not just on his team, but in the league—don’t. He should  have won yesterday, Lord knows he earned it..Expect the Indians to trade him for peanuts in a couple years.

Obviously Romero didn’t start off the way he wanted too, but I wouldn’t be to down on the guy. He clearly didn’t have his best stuff. It’s been a while since he’s had to pitch out of a jam in a real game, and that fact this jam came in the home opener can be a bit of an ambush. However, I watched him work and I didn’t notice him accelerate his pace because of anxiety or frustration. Of course he was mad about the results he was getting, who wouldn’t be? But  that’s normal. The point is, he controlled himself. I’ve watched pitchers melt down out there because of homers and walks, and exit before 5 because they’ve totally imploded. Ricky tried his best to find his bearings and get back in control. You may be inclined to think his shaky first start says he can’t be trusted down the road, but that’s ludicrous. He showed the reasons why he can be trusted — composure. Sometimes as a pitcher you loose your stuff and find yourself scuffling. It happens more than we’d like to admit. The best thing you can do is let go of how you expect the outing to go before the game started and move to efficiently escaping your current mess. Adapt + readjust + focus= survive. I think Ricky turned in a good performance considering he was obviously not himself out there. I don’t expect him to repeat that outing very often.

And of course, there is Joey Bats. Already on pace to hit 162 homers this year. Oh, and he pimped it. Of course, when you do that 40 plus times a season, I guess you can. It was fun to see it in person. Good for you, J-Bau, keep it up!

I don’t miss it. Maybe I will later when the scent of fresh cut grass and hot dogs and Latin player pre game cologne catches my nose again, but I doubt it.

Don’t ask me what’s next. What I do know, I can’t talk to you about, and what I don’t know isn’t worth waxing philosophic over. I’ll just say that I expect Matt Moore to pitch the hell out of it this year and Bobby V to be fired by August 1st. Beyond that, I don’t even know what I’ll have for dinner tomorrow.

And I like it this way. You know I sat in the park today? Just sat there, because I could, purely for the sake of sitting there. As Anto might say, it was friggin awesome. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends the last couple years, trying to pump out books and strikes in equal measure, hoping my arm and sanity hold together long enough to make it to September. I really haven’t had time to stop and smell the roses. It’s nice to slow down, take things in, and just not know what’s next.

People pity me when they hear I’m not with a team. I ask them why? Why? Well, because surely you’re suffering from some existential crisis now that you’re without a field to run around on, or a mound to throw off of! It’s not like that. This isn’t a logical answer to that supposition, but it’s the only one I have: I sat in the park today.

I just sat there for the sake of siting there, reading a book, uninterrupted, from start to finish.

I also rode my bike to the grocery store and picked out dinner. I cooked it in my own kitchen. I spent time with my dog. I snuggled with my wife. I picked up my guitar and slaughtered the opened tabs of Tom Sawyer (I love you Geddy!). I lived life without baseball and it wasn’t half bad. In fact, it was pretty damn good. I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

Oh, and I wrote. Freer than I’ve done since I started penning out the Bullpen Gospels, and I savored it just like I did that day in the park before the last game of the Texas League championship when I discovered the point of playing wasn’t to catch the experience, but to enjoy it will the lasted.

I have.

Dear Young Padawan,  

I know what it feels like to live life through the lens of “how-does-my-arm-feel-today?” It’s not fun, or easy. There is really nothing I can tell you beyond the concept of perspective, that baseball is not going to fulfill you the way you think will, especially when you think of how much emotional duress the possibility of not playing it anymore is chewing you up. I’m sure you do have more to give the game, but bear in mind that the game will take everything you have to give it, and in the end, it won’t thank you when you break down and can’t keep going, no matter when that point arrives. That’s because it’s just a game. We play it thinking it will give us happiness eternal and value never ending, as if it was some omniscient force that rewards our dedication to it. But a game doesn’t do that. It cant. WE do that. WE project the impossible value and meaning into dreams, and when they are cut short, WE are the ones who convince ourselves that we are cut short as well. There is nothing wrong with wanting to play at the top level, or sacrificing to see a dream come true. But part of dream chasing—indeed, part of baseball and life in general—is the understanding and acceptance that sometimes things don’t work out. Sometime we lose, for obvious or obscure reasons. This may not warm the heart, but it’s the truth, and a little truth can take the edge off life lived with fingers crossed and blinders on. Just like Hoffman said to me, I say to you—there is more to you than what happens on the baseball field, and that’s a good thing. Because as much as success on a baseball field can bring you, it will never tell you what you are, or how valuable you can really be. We live in a time of social currency wherein we believe our value rises and falls according to the masses ability to recognize us. That is no way to live. Our value comes from within. You’ve had a great career, you are about to graduate college, and you do have a lot to give, whether or not you get your arm back. You must believe that, or baseball will have done you more harm than good.

Best wishes on a speedy recovery.

Dirk

I think it’s pretty safe to say that I don’t know what I’m getting myself into. I don’t speak a lick of Italian. I don’t have any friends waiting for me. I don’t even know much about the Italian league other than it’s in Italy, my manager—nick-named the “Panther”— is allergic to umpires, and the team has high expectations for an American pitcher with big league time under his belt.

That last part makes me a little nervous. I hope they don’t expect me to get off the plane and start striking people out like some video game cheat code. I need these next two weeks to get up to full game speed. I’ve been doing my best to get ready here at home, but there is only so much a player can do in a cold weather state when all his potential catch partners are playing college ball, or in spring training.

All things considered, this has probably been one of the harder off seasons to prepare myself. First, the launch of Out Of My League had me doing all manner of publicity. I’m not complaining, I’m glad the book is doing well and I hope it continues to, but squeezing in as much publicity as I could before I landed in Italy was paramount to it’s strong launch, which meant that times I could have snuck into facilities around the area were eaten up by radio call-in’s and 750 word article creation for small market (those that are still alive) news papers.

Balancing two careers was tough in previous seasons, but it will be even tougher this season with a six hour time change and an ocean of separation to contend with. I’m going to have to generate a lot more of my own content because I wont have American’s built in baseball media injecting me into the blood stream of social relevance like I did years past. But even if I did, I’d still have the separation factor at an all time

Right now, I need to focus on my wife. This is the last time I’ll see her for the next 40 days. It never gets any easier leaving her. In fact, I’d say it gets worse. As we grow to love and rely on each other, the separation feels more like the tearing apart of something not meant to be undone.

When I was young, I was always told that women wreck baseball dreams for this very reason. They increase homesickness. They distract. They question your resolve to go out and test your metal. They make you feel like you have happiness right where you are no longer need to go on baseball quests to find it.

And they’re right, but in a great way. I don’t need baseball to be happy, which, made me better at baseball. It took the pressure of me to find fulfillment in th game.  In a lot of ways, that’s why I’m playing Italian ball and not Indy ball, or Minor League ball. I’m happy with my life away from the game. Very happy, actually. Happy enough to adventure a little.

Trevor Hoffman once told me that the best parts of me were not located on a baseball field. He didn’t mean that as an insult, but as an insight. My wife is the best part of me, and I will miss her dearly. Ironically, it is she who is now talking me into going abroad and experiencing life in Italia, not talking me out of it. Even so, I know it wont really be the experience I long for it to be until she’s there with me.

And so, it is with both excitement and sadness that I leave for another season. Maybe the biggest adventure of a season I’ve had since my first year in the minors.

These kinds of conversations are interesting because the candor of the player always seems to possess this dreamy quality, like I’ve been somewhere over the rainbow where Blue Jays sing, and have come back to confirm there is a giant talking lion handing out shoe endorsements.

Unfortunately for them, my candor has this buzz kill element to it. Not because I’m trying to crush anyone’s dreams, but because the pro ranks are a reality to me, not a fantasy. It’s tough to talk dreamy about something when you’ve seen what’s behind the curtains, where they pile up all the lion poop.

It’s funny, the young guys always talk to me about dreams and I always talk to them about perspective; about the slipperiness of the game, and why you shouldn’t grip it to tightly if you really want to enjoy it.

When the conversation is over, they seem a little disappointed by my words. I think that’s because young athletic speak is so pumped full of “work harder and you can achieve anything!” As if hard work is liken to those tickets you rack up at the arcade, and if you just get enough of them—like a billion—you can cash them in for a big league career.

Of course this is a myth. There is just no way to control the game, no way to ensure everything works out perfectly, no matter how bad you want it. And yet, they fight that reality because they believe they reject it long enough, they can beat it.

I wont say that hard work isn’t valuable because it certainly is. But, so is knowing how to let go of something. Not belief, or desire, but of obsession. This is a remarkably under valued concept in sports, maybe even a little heretical. Odd because the inability to let go is possibly the hardest thing for professional players to learn, yet one of the most detrimental to a career that requires you to have a short memory.

So many young players look at baseball like a dream that they disregard a good chunk of the reality around the game that might actually help them play it better. I understand why, of course. When I was there age, I wanted pro baseball so bad I could do (and did) all manner of ridiculous things in its name. Supplement gimmicks, working out three times a day, obsession over my outings to the point I couldn’t sleep.

I pushed reason and balance out in favor of unhealthy fixation.

I remember having conversations with my college pitching coach, who had played professionally, about what it meant to be a pro; what it supposedly turned you into if you became one. How it made sense of life, gave you purpose and meaning and value. He told me the same thing I tell kids now—keep perspective and diversify.

Just like today’s youth, I didn’t like his answer. Honestly, it sounded like treason against the game. I mean, I always believed that the harder I worked at baseball, the better my chances were. That analyzing every single sign and wonder out of the game was what you were supposed to do. I beat it like a dead horse, and then beat some more.

I also believed that if kept my life simple, with baseball at its center, I would be doing right by the “baseball gods”. Push out the complications in favor of the value system of the game. Justify my life through the production of career numbers.

In short, I believed that my blinding obsession was a good thing. That it showed passion and commitment. That it was healthy to be sold out to the sport because if I made it pro, it would repay me for my sacrifices.

It didn’t.

Oh sure, I’m happy that I made it into the professional ranks— that was what I wanted after all. I’m also tickled that I got to play in the Bigs Leagues. Don’t mistake me, it was a great accomplishment. But (and there is a but) looking back, I honestly think I could have made those things happen with a lot less drama and unhealthy fixation. In fact, I might have made them happen faster.  If only I could havet rusted myself to Let. It. Go.

Obviously a player has to be committed to his craft. He will have to sacrifice and endure for it at various points throughout his career. However, baseball is also a game of handling events outside of your control. This means, whether we like it or not, all we can do or best, then resign ourselves to what comes when it’s no longer turn hold the ball. In a way, preparing for results outside our control is just as important, if not more so, than preparing for the moments inside our control.

But how can you prepare for bad results, or anything you have no control over for that matter? Living in the real world is a good start, since real life—not some baseball fantasy land— seems to dole out steady twists and turns.

When we place a huge amount of stock into something, see it as central to our life and worth, when it crumbles, so do we. Behaving obsessively over something like baseball, a game built on failure, is just asking to have our foundations shattered at least 7 out of 10 times as a hitter, and who knows how many times as a pitcher.

At some point in a players pro career, we start to use the words, “I decided not to care anymore.” Players who’ve spoken this know exactly what the phrase means. It does not mean they literally don’t care about the game they’ve toiled in their whole life. What they’re actually saying is, “I decided to stop obsessing about the outcomes. I decided to let what was going to happen, happen, and deal with it.”

After they confess this, almost 100% of them add some form of the following: “Because the way I figure it is, it’s just a game, If I get released I can always go home and do X, Y, Z. I can’t let this game control how I feel all the time. It’s not fun.

Really? It’s just a game, and*gasp* it can be ­unfun? Back when you were trying to get into the pro ranks, it was more than a game. It was a life validator. A reason for existence. A divine purpose. Now, it’s just a game?

It sure is. And those players who say otherwise, typically they are the ones that have no X, Y, Z, to go home to. They only have baseball.

Did you know Cat Fish Hunter used say that if worst came to worst, if got released, he’d just go home and go fly-fishing again? He loved fly-fishing. In fact, he said it was this philosophy of loving something more than baseball that helped him pitch so well throughout his career. That’s perspective.

Happiness found in places other than baseball is not cheating on baseball. In fact, it’s actually doing baseball a great service. It’s telling it (and yourself) that the game is just that: a game. Treat it like one. Prepare for it, commit to it when it’s your turn to play, and let it go when it’s over. Do not take the results out of context, or you might take your whole life out of context with it.

And diversify. Because knowing that there are other things out there besides baseball makes it much easier for you to get to the point where you can let go of baseball results and your perception that they are life giving, or ending.

Who knows, in doing this you might actually be a better player. But you will most certainly become a better person.