Dealing With Failure: Please Don't Say It

52/100

“Baseball is a game of failure”

Possibly the most annoying phrase uttered consistently around the game of baseball.

We get it… hitters get out ¾ of the time and are still considered good.

But…

A pitcher who gets 70% of hitters out is not good.

So what really is failure? Because it's certainly something deeper than just going 0-3 one game and it's certainly deeper than walking the house when you pitch or giving up a bunch of nukes.

If you're “good” according to league average then are you **really** failing? Not really in my opinion. A hitter hitting .450 still gets out over half the time, but no one with any baseball knowledge would say they are failing.

Failure is relative to the environment you're in. Obviously the longer you play the more likely you are to have slumps, bad outings and tough stretches of the season where nothing goes right.

A kid who spent the last 9 months training his guts out to make the Varsity team doesn't need to hear “baseball is a game of failure kid, shake it off”

Someone who spent the entire year hitting .110 and striking out half of his at bats does not need to hear that

Someone who gets cut from their dream college after having a tough transition their freshman year doesn’t need it either.

Your players deserve better than a “yeah man failure is a thing here you just gotta deal with it”

It's time for you to level up your advice, because players drastically need good advice now more than ever before.

A teammate of mine was struggling. They walked the house in back to back starts and didn't make it out of the first inning.

It wasn't the time for “baseball is a game of failure”, because pitching isn't. Pitchers don't walk the house and they certainly aren't supposed to get canned in the first inning in back to back starts. He deserved better, and that's a lazy answer.

But!

He was 18. And pitching is hard, it's even harder when you're 18 and way over your head talent wise and competing against players that are 2-3 years older than you. Being thousands of miles from home and taking difficult college classes for the first time doesn’t make life any easier.

He was worried about getting benched (Fair), getting cut after the season (fair), and that he wouldn't have what it takes to get drafted and play professional baseball.

So here's what I told him. Paraphrased to be family friendly.

“Dude you're literally 18, a year ago you were trying to find a date to prom and now you’re fighting for your life against people who are months away from getting paid millions to hit baseballs.”

“The strike zone is smaller, the hitters chase less and they foul more pitches off. OF COURSE you are gonna walk more guys.”

“When I was 24 years old I had a start in which I went 2 ⅓ innings, walked 4 hitters and drilled 6. I was half a decade older than you, facing worse hitters that day and I hit 6 hitters in less than three innings **and still managed to make it to play professional baseball**. You have time to figure it out. You are closer to being in 8th grade than you are being the age in which I had a worse outing than you've ever had, you'll be alright.”

“All you have to do is improve by the smallest margin from outing to outing and you will be light years ahead of me. Don't press the panic button.”

Some choice words were added sparingly throughout the spiel to drive the point home, but that’s pretty much what I said.

And it's the truth.

I was nearly 24, and had such a bad outing I was apologizing to players mid game because I kept drilling their hitters. I think I hit 3 in the head and was an absolute liability to the well being of the other team.

And ya know what? I still got signed. I am still playing professional baseball and fortunately I am much better for having an outing of that magnitude.

Now imagine how an 8 year old pitching for the first time feels. They feel terrible when they fail and their parents often feel just as bad.

The Eight year olds likely haven’t had an outing that bad, and even if they did…..

**THEY HAVE TO TRIPLE THEIR AGE TO BE THE AGE I WAS WHEN I PEGGED 6 HITTERS IN 2 ⅓***

All i have to say is that i am glad my coach never said:

“Baseball is a game of failure John it's totally okay that you almost set the record for NCAA hit by pitches in less than 3 innings”

That would have been bad in the moment.

Want a hitter example?

I once saw a hitter hit .049 over the course of months and then hit .400 against harder competition.

Baseball is weird man, I really don't have explanations for all of it. Some things just happen and then it'll click and you'll be the best player you've ever been.

John