Everyone gets ready for a game differently. Everyone’s body has different demands, be it heat and stretching, or Red Bull and Advil. Learning what your body needs to perform at it’s best is an integral part of the professional sports craft, and after years of playing you too shall develop a routine that factors in all the feedback you’ve received from your muscles, joints, and, occasionally, bowels. In time, this routine will become a part of you, so second nature you’ll find yourself wondering how you ever played without it.
Some players have routines full of complex steps that require immense focus. In fact, some players have routines so arduous you’ll wonder when they have time to do anything else, what with all the hours they spend in the weight room, or on the training table. On the other hand, some players have routines so basic you’ll wonder if they take their job seriously—the kind who can throw shut outs on nothing more than cold pizza and ten jumping-jacks. Routines can focus on the physical, mental, or combinations of both. Music may be a part of your routine. Talking with family. Taking extra groundballs. Fiber. Riding the exercise bike. Caffeinating yourself. The list goes on and on. What’s important to understand during this formative process is what exactly is routine, and what is ritual.
Rituals are things that do not equate to quantifiable on field results but make a player feel better or more confident by repeating. Examples: brushing one’s teeth between innings, eating the same meal before a game, wearing lady’s underwear, sacrificing a live chicken… These things don’t immediately connect with on field events, but, since we believe they do, and because this belief is comforting, we repeat the ritual, especially if the result is good. If a hitter is on a hot streak after sleeping with a certain slump buster, well, that lucky lady is probably going to have a date every night the home team is in town. If a pitcher believes he threw a better sinker after downing a dozen doughnuts, he’ll probably use it as an excuse to keep crushing them. Mix in some of the superstition and paranoia this game is famous for and it’s easy to see how the baseball world is full of eccentric personalities that border on full blown OCD.
Rituals are very similar to routine and you will often find ritual blended into routine in some fashion or another. This is fairly normal for athletes since there is comfort in repeating behaviors—no matter how outrageous—due to their ability to make us feel like we have more control of on field events. While some rituals, like listening to certain music or eating certain meals, can help a player get in the right frame of mind and provide optimal performance nutrition respectively, make no mistake that once the game begins anything can and will happen. It is our routines that help prepare us for these unknowns, rituals simply make us feel like we somehow have control of what cannot be controlled.
As a wise man once said, “once the ball leave’s your hand, it’s out of your control.” And you might say, “but for some strange reason, glazed doughnuts make me feel like I can hold onto it for just a split second longer…” Probably because your fingers are fatter. It is with this in mind that I must tell you to beware of getting hung up on ritual. Some rituals are harmless, fun, and traditional for a sport with such colorful history. But some rituals, like eating specific meals or operating the same heavy-duty booty, can do more harm than good. What if you are in a town that doesn’t have the restaurant you MUST eat at before a start? What if you can’t get Large Marge on the phone? What if, what if, what if? If you play bad are you going to tell the coach it was because you couldn’t get a bucket of fried chicken, or that Walgreens didn’t have your brand of organic toothpaste? There is no stat line for Pitched With Out Thong, after all. It’s possessive rituals like this that take over our lives and complicate our ability to prioritize value.
A good saying to remember is, “If you can’t blame failure on ritual, you can’t blame success on it either.” However, you can definitely attribute your bad or good play to how well you’ve prepared, and when coaches evaluate you, preparation is one of the first things they’ll look at. Thus, whatever helps you prepare effectively should become part of your routine while whatever adds chaos to your game should stay out of it.