Bruce Springsteen, Baseball and Performance Interference

By: Brian M. Cain, MS, CAA

Peak Performance Coach

 

Bruce Springsteen one of the best rock stars of all time played thousands of concerts across the world and every time out he gave an all-out, energy packed performance. I recently heard him in an interview when he was asked how he was able to be up all the time and give such great performances on a consistent basis?

Springsteen responded by saying that he thinks about only two things.

1. Each night out he thinks that tonight's performance is the most important performance of his life.

2. He knows that when tonight's show is over, it is JUST rock and roll baby.

The Boss summed up what sport psychology is really all about. How do you go all out but not make something too special? How can you be intense, but not too tense or as I often say, how can you care less without being careless?

The P=P-I Equation:
Performance equals your potential minus interference. The question is will you have a capital I or a lower case i? Depending on how special you make the game and the outside factors that you cannot control will determine the size of the interference you face.

What happens in baseball is that we all have interference all the time. That interference can show up in the means of parents in the stands, scouts, coaches, holding onto previous performances, statistics, umpires, etc. Many players experience the ups and downs of the season and even can relate to the batting practice hero, game time zero phenomena. Both of these often related to interference.

CAPITAL I vs. lower case i

People who fail, choke, or underachieve make the interference with a capital I because they make the performance very special. It becomes a matter of the 14 killer words "it's life or death, this is it, it's now or never, there's no tomorrow. Those 14 words will kill your performance every time because they make the performance too special.

When you make things important, not special it keeps your interference in the level of lower case i. Is the game important YES, but it is just another game. It is just baseball. It is just another day. Much like the heart surgeons who performed on former president of the United States Bill Clinton said when asked what it was like to operate on the former President, "We knew it was President Clinton, but we treated his as if he were just another person."

Simplify The Complex

The ability to simplify the complex is the hallmark of genius. Gregg Maddux has been one of the most consistent and most successful pitchers in Major League Baseball history. He was asked about what goes through his mind when he is on the mound and what he felt has led him to the levels of consistency he has achieved.

"I just try to make a pitch." Maddux said. "Making a pitch is all you can do. If you make a pitch you are considered smart, if you don't make a pitch you are considered stupid. It is really that simple, control what you can control and make a pitch. I would rather give up a bloop single on a good pitch than get an out with a bad pitch because over the marathon of a season, it is the ability to make good pitches consistently that will allow you to win."

Simple Does Not Equal Easy"

What Maddux knows is that simple and easy are not synonymous. Just because something is simple does not make it easy. We understand that playing baseball one pitch at a time is simple in theory and yet, playing that way can be very difficult. We can also understand that treating a game just like practice is simple but also very difficult.

Have To vs. Get To Mentality:

To help your players treat the game like practice, the first thing you have to do is treat practice like a game. Remember, games are not special, they are important, but not special. Players and coaches will treat games as special because they treat practices as if it is something you HAVE to do between games vs. something you GET to do. Taking the Get To vs. Have To mentality will help you to take your practice sessions to another level as you will be more focused and in the moment each day.

Make everything important. Make practice important. Make games important. Make weight training important. When you do that, you have better chance of playing consistently because you will be more consistent in your approach and in your attitude. A consistent mentality or a "lifestyle mentality" to playing the game the right way each day is critical to your success on a consistent basis. Develop the mentality of not counting the days, but making the days count and watch how your practice and game performance improves.

George Horton, the head baseball coach at The University of Oregon and 2004 National Coach of The Year and National Championship winning coach at Cal State Fullerton use to remind his team of the three simple fundamentals that it takes to play championship level baseball.

1. Play catch

2. Throw strikes

3. Put the ball in play

This simple yet effective approach helped the Titans to come back from being 15-16 and unranked at the middle of the season to the National title in 2004. However, doing just those three things is simple in theory, yet hard in application. Especially when we have interference from trying to STEP UP in games.

There Can Be No Stepping Up:

Stepping up in games is one of the worst things you can do mentally. Trying to step up is a sure way to you make the game special and make it more difficult than it needs to be. My question for you is that if you are going to try to step up in your next game, what the heck have you been doing in practice all year? If you can step up in games, step it up in practice so you can treat your games just like you do practice. Just play your game, play catch, throw strikes and put the ball in play.

The 10 Deadly Words:

Interference can also come from the 10 deadly words that athletes and coaches say to themselves before and during competition. "What will other people say? What will other people think?" Too often we think about these things outside of our control and put added pressure on ourselves, thus turning the lower case i into a CAPITAL I and also causing the gluteus maximus muscles to tighten up.

Remember that you cannot control what other people say or what other people think and by focusing on those things or others outside of your control you are going to beat yourself every time. Remember that you GET to play not that you HAVE to play and that making the game special will cause more interference than you need. Make every day count and remember that in the end, regardless of what the outcome may be, this is not life or death, it is just Rock and Roll Baby.

Brian Cain is one of the top Peak Performance Coaches in the country today. For more on how you can be at your best when it means the most, each and every pitch, check out the products available at www.briancain.com or contact Brian about his all new P.R.I.D.E. program by writing to him at brian@briancain.com