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Jason Thunberg 0:00
The crack of the bat gets all the attention: the diving catches, the walk-off hits, and the roar of the crowd. Before any of that happens, there’s a quieter game unfolding inside the mind.
Baseball is a sport of failure, with pressure packed into a single pitch, and the players who succeed aren’t just physically prepared — they’re mentally ready.
Our first guest is Charles Vokes, the JV baseball coach.
Charles Vokes 0:26
I think it’s very easy to tell. I’ve told you guys stories a lot about when I was in high school, and we could tell if a team wasn’t ready to go. Body language is big for me.
I think that for the physical mistakes, us as coaches — at least in baseball — we’re always more okay with those than we are with the mental ones, unless you’re just keeping each other honest about how much effort you’re giving.
For me, it’s more the mental because I think that’s normally what kills us in general. The mental side of the game is way more important, and unfortunately, I don’t know how many players really know the mental side of the game anymore.
But if there’s a mental lapse, I’ll address it easily. That’s one of those things that just can’t happen.
There was a game this year already where I felt like I was the only guy on the field who knew what was going on. I think that’s the most frustrating part.
To be honest with yourself, you have to be honest with how you approach failure. I think that you give up the minute you are no longer mentally tough, and that goes into failure.
I think that’s the biggest piece: having a mindset around how we handle failure and why we value it. I don’t know that it’s valued. People are failing, but they don’t know how to fail well, and that’s the key. You need to know how to fail well, and approaching things with that mindset can definitely help.
Jason Thunberg 2:05
Our second guest is Bridget Montgomery, a sports psychiatrist, founder, and mental performance coach with The Next Mile Mental Performance Clinic.
Bridget Montgomery 2:14
The most common mental barrier is kind of two things.
One can be a carryover from previous games if players are telling themselves the story that they’re in a slump. I see that a lot with baseball players.
The second one is when they leave their focus to chance. However they woke up in the morning becomes, “Oh, I guess that’s just how I’m going to play.”
Where your focus goes, your energy flows. If you’re totally unfocused as you’re warming up, that’s going to show up in your performance.
So with baseball players, it’s really those two things: are you showing up telling yourself the story that you’re in a slump and going to have a bad game, and are you showing up focused, prepared, and ready to go?
Having an inconsistent pre-performance routine and not putting in the mental work also hurts athletes.
Baseball is a mental game. It’s a game where you’re going to go to the plate and strike out seven out of 10 times. That’s a high-failure sport, and it’s going to require a lot of mental reps.
I think for a lot of athletes it’s really important to go back to your locus of control. I usually do this exercise called CTC: control the controllable.
So many athletes are afraid of failure. They’re afraid of embarrassing themselves in front of friends or family and afraid of not living up to expectations. That’s where we see some of this show up in their mental game, where they start to overthink.
Come up with a mental game routine for yourself and stick to it consistently. A lot of athletes will learn a skill and then wait until game day and say, “Oh, I’m going to visualize today.” That’s not going to help you.
It’s more about asking, “How do I integrate my mental game routine a little bit every day?”
Jason Thunberg 4:18
Our last and final guest is varsity player Lucas Wheat.
Lucas Wheat 4:22
One of the biggest signs is when they start making mental mistakes rather than physical mistakes, like throwing to the wrong base or stuff like that.
Like I said before, you’ve got to get it in their brains that they have to be locked in all game and all practice. Just stay locked in.
Honestly, in my opinion, it’s more about care for the sport. If you love the sport, you’re going to stay locked in constantly. If you’re just playing for fun, obviously you’re going to be messing around and stuff.