THE TRUTH ABOUT YEAR-ROUND BALL How to Balance Practice and Performance
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meaning and purpose. I strongly believe that, to be successful over the long haul, each athlete must find their own way to create variety, freshness, meaning, and purpose. One of the most common missteps made by otherwise great parents is that they mistakenly believe the key to their athlete’s development is playing in as many games as possible over 4–5 years. In truth, playing in games rarely makes someone exceptional; only training
There’s “practice” and then there’s “performance.” They are definitely not one and the same.
Development is about deliberate, purposeful, and high-intensity practice. Development is also about physical, mental, and emotional balance. Performance involves the execution
of your skill set in a very specific setting. Burnout is created from stagnation and meaningless repetition.
THIS MONTH IN BASEBALL HISTORY Sidd Finch: The Greatest Player Who Never Lived Every fan gets excited about a promising young prospect signing to their team. These days, it’s easier than ever to Google stats and videos of players, no matter where they’re coming from. In 1985, however, access to information about up-and- comers was scarce. You basically had to read scouting reports and take them on blind faith. Writer George Plimpton and the folks at Sports Illustrated used fan excitement about prospects to play the greatest April Fools’ Day prank in baseball history. Plimpton created the character of Hayden Siddhartha “Sidd” Finch and reported that he had signed a deal with the New York Mets. Finch was raised in an orphanage, wore only one shoe, and could hit 168 mph on the radar gun. Despite the insane details of the story, many Mets fans believed the hype and wrote to Sports Illustrated for more information. The fans weren’t the only ones duped. The St. Petersburg Times sent a reporter to Queens in search of the mythical pitcher. Two general managers even called the MLB offices, worried about the prospect of their batters facing Finch. Had any of these folks taken the time to read the date on the issue of SI — April 1, 1985 — they might have figured out they were being tricked. Bottom line: Encourage your athlete to play as many sports as he can before he enters high school. He will probably have to narrow his choices once he hits high school age. My heartfelt advice is to not spend your entire year participating in organized sports. That doesn’t mean you can’t play catch or work on your baseball skills throughout the year. I highly encourage that, but you have to balance practice and performance. In my opinion, people get training and performing confused quite often. At the end of the day, it is the quality and quantity of your practice that will determine your level of performance. can do that. I recommend you view games as simply a quiz or test to evaluate your training. School wouldn’t be very productive if you took the same test every day. The same is true of baseball development.
I admit it is certainly possible to play baseball year-round and develop both physically and mentally. But I will tell you I’ve never witnessed any athlete younger than 16 successfully pull off playing games year-round. Personally, I’ve loved baseball my entire life. Human beings crave variety and freshness. More importantly, they also long for
UPCOMING RANCH EVENTS ELITE PITCHERS BOOT CAMPS
June 8–10 (Friday-Sunday) June 22–24 (Friday-Sunday) July 6–8 (Friday-Sunday) July 20–22 (Friday-Sunday) August 10–12 (Friday-Sunday) September 1–3 (Saturday-Monday) EXTENDED-STAY SUMMER PROGRAM
June 4: Session I begins July 2: Session II begins August 6: Session III begins
For more information, go to www.TexasBaseballRanch.com/events
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