Baseball, and Dealing with Losing

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I just finished listening to a book on Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. I was talking to a friend about this game and that got us to talking about the first World Series we could remember well.

Mine was the 1971 World Series. As an Oriole’s fan, it was a tough one. I am still bitter over that defeat. I loved everything about the Orioles. My family was from Baltimore/DC, the uniforms were awesome, and what kid wouldn’t love a team with a guy named Boog. They were World Series champs, and cruising, until fate and a guy named Steve Blass interfered, along with Mr. Roberto Clemente. 

This loss was my first loss. My beloved Orioles falling. And I guess you never forget your first loss. There would be worse losses in my future. I kicked a wall so hard after Penn State lost to Alabama that I thought I broke my toe. (A habit I quickly outgrew….) The worse ever was the Yankees loss in 2001 to the Diamond Backs – in the fall of 2001, who but the Yankees should have won with Mariano on the mound?

When my team loses a big game in particular, it bothers me. For 24 hours. I don’t want ESPN. I don’t read the paper. I don’t talk sports with friends unless they are sharing my pain. Kind of silly for an adult to continue this habit.

Wouldn’t it be nice if my team would always win? If only…. Well, the truth is, the answer to that is – no….

One of the best things that sports can do for us is help us to deal with losing. Losing is inevitable. Consider little league and the value that kids get from the ups and downs of playing sports. With good coaching, kids can learn life lessons from losing big (or small) games. 

In our local little league there is a parent who likes to tell the kids that if you ‘show me a person who likes to lose I’ll show you a loser.’ Idiotic. Of course no one likes to lose. But we don’t define ourselves by whether we like to lose, but by how we handle the loss. There are coaches at all level who skewer players for losing. In major sports driven by performance and money, fine. But little league? Seriously?

As Lem Elway writes, what matters is how you respond to losing. As a coach, do you:

  • Stay positive. People learn more from what they’ve done well then what they’ve done right. Find the good moments and highlight them.
  • Be honest. Don’t cover things up. Kids know what went wrong. You can help kids improve by showing them what they need to do better. Work on weaknesses. This needs to be done constructively. Blaming is a bad thing to teach, so don’t do it. If a mistake occurred address it personably and privately. Often said, always known, but seldom done.
  • Manage your emotions. Your job as a coach is not ‘to win.’ It is to ‘develop.’ Don’t get too vested in the final score. Evaluate whether the kids are developing and whether sports are having a positive impact. If you are not in control of your emotions don’t address the team. And find out why you care so much. 
  • Improve. Learn from the loss. What can you as a coach do better?
  • Remove the sting. Got a kids whose mistake was associated with the loss. Lead. Reinforce constantly that this is a team game. No loss comes down to one play or one player. 

So while the sting of my Orioles losing in 1971 still remains, I know that at a deeper level, it was the beginning of my dealing with ways to deal with an undesirable circumstance. Now this is baseball so one must consider the priority in life. But it is something important. And the more we can help the kids we coach deal with this the better.

Positive Coaching

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We’ve all ranted about the insane parents who turn their kids’ sports into an opportunity to vent their anger at their own failed sports career. I experience an astonishing number of bad behavior this year. I have seen:

  • a parent telling his son to stop ‘throwing like a girl.’
  • one coach berating the son of another coach, resulting in his getting kicked out of the dugout
  • a coach pushing his son out of the dugout when he cried because he was injured
  • the head of the zero tolerance committee getting kicked out of the game for arguing

I believe that all coaches – in all sports – should have to receive training in positive coaching. My favorite resource for this is the Positive Coaching Alliance. They offer a series of webinars that are excellent. I refer to their handouts not only for coaching sports, but also for helping professionals learn how to do a better job of coaching their colleagues.

At the beginning of the year I teach all the kids about ELM. This means that as a team we focus only on:

  • Effort
  • Learning
  • Mistakes, and using them as gifts

PCA urges coaches to tell kids that ELM is what matters. The scoreboard that shows at the end of the game is irrelevant. It should be ignored. If kids focus on ELM then the winning will take care of itself. These lessons apply to baseball, football, basketball, soccer, etc.

I have found the impact of applying these PCA principals to be dramatic. If you focus on effort then all the kids have an equal chance to improve. Focusing on winning puts the emphasis on the kids that start out the best. Emphasizing ELM allows all kids to grow and elevates the team and the experience.

I have no idea how these things work but it seems that the parent organizations ought to bear some responsibility for seeing that these things occur. Our Little League is in essence, a franchise of the Little League Baseball organization. Perhaps lobbying at that level as well as the local level would result in greater action.

Of course it seems a bit silly to think that we would need to advocate for such basic things but who would think a parent would make a child cry over baseball?!

Zen and the Baseball Swing

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My sons’ baseball pursuits have heightened my (deep) appreciation for the elegance of a baseball swing well done. The swing is such a technical beast. What seems so natural to a child becomes a complicated series of interactions to an older kid who begins coaching. At any point a player might hear:

  • keep your elbow up
  • keep your elbow down
  • hips first
  • hands first
  • swing level
  • don’t swing level

There is no one right approach and just knowing how to figure out what works for you is useful. It helps though to have a filter for sorting through the conflicting advise that one receives.

This is a terrific opportunity to consider the Eastern vs. Western split in how to approach a swing. The Western approach focuses on the mechanics and breaks the swing into each nuance. Hands relative to hips are examined. Drills are run to prevent lunging.

To understand the Eastern approach, check out Japanese slugger Sadaharu Oh’s A Zen Way of Baseball. In this we see a different approach, one that is more holistic. I love his appreciation of ‘waiting.’

The challenge then is to remember all the important mechanics while being sure to forget everything to swing natural. No wonder slumps are unavoidable.

The wonderful thing here is the teaching opportunity that this provides. This is a wonderful metaphor. Learn to be ferocious while also learning to be patient. Learn to stalk but stay relaxed. Great life lessons if the transfer is encouraged.

T206 Portraits

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I have had a fascination with T206s for a few years now. They kind of grab me. They bring me to a time and place that’s fun to think about. Lots of this is driven by my interest in that era – a time when my family began arriving in this country.

I was looking at my collection and was drawn to a few of the portraits – Frank Chance (yellow), and Mordecai Brown. They are magnificent images – period pieces. I have had a preference for the images in context rather then the portraits but these 2 images changing that opinion.

One reason I like these is that they match my view of what the player looks like in my imagination, and in real life! Chance’s T206 and Brown’s T206 both have a photo that shows how accurate the illustration is as shown on the excellent T206themonster site.

Better then the technical excellence is the emotional connection that comes from each. You feel like you know Brown. He just looks like a midwestern farm boy and you can see those eyes peering at a catcher intently. Chance’s image is a bit friendlier then his reputation but we all know that looks are very deceiving; that enigma is what charms me when looking at this card.

The joy of collecting is not about having, but holding, and contemplation of these 2 are great examples of how holding fosters a greater connection with the game.

Coaching Tip: Define Your Role

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I have had the tremendous fortune to coach my kids in baseball for years. I have seen countless problems between Dads and sons and I am so happy to say I have never had a problem with either child on the baseball field. It is 100% pleasure, and probably the main reason the game is so fun for me.

I take no credit for this. I just happen to have great kids. Thank goodness for their Mother! : )

I did stumble onto one rule that has been very useful. That rule – define your role before you start. I have two modes with my kids:

  • Dad Baseball: all fun
  • Coach Baseball: all business

If I am in Dad Baseball mode, I might at times switch to Coach Baseball but if I do, it is fully declared – I let them know that I am momentarily in Coach Baseball mode. And I make sure that Coach Baseball always has at least an element of Dad baseball in it.

This way the expectation is clear from the beginning. Even as a coach the intent is to always stay positive but the mode is definitely more demanding then Dad Baseball. As long as the kids know this up front they are good. It is all about a clear expectation for them, and mostly, for me!

When I started this I’d declare one mode or the other. Then I started asking them which they wanted. Now they tell me. I just grab my glove and let them direct me into the mode they want.

Hall of Fame Class of 2012

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I was excited to see that Barry Larkin was elected to the Hall of Fame today, joining Ron Santo at the 2012 induction. Both players deserve the award in my most humble opinion. Also nice that both players are high class, and the kinds of players you are happy to tell your kids about. For all the controversy that selection invokes I think both players fit well.

There were two other players I’d love to see get in because as far as I remember, both were dominant players in their era. Maybe it is just my memory, but there was no reliever more intimidating then Lee Smith. I remember watching him when he came into a game and he dominated. One of the standards that is asked of a candidate is, was he the dominant player at his position for a year, or his career? Smith was. When he retired he was the career leader in saves. I don’t think the traditional stats are tuned to the game of the modern reliever and I think that Smith is every bit as dominating as Sutter was in his day, accounting for the way the position evolved.

The other person I’d like to see in the Hall, is Tim Raines. Like Smith, this guy dominated. I feared him coming to bat every bit as much as I feared seeing Ricky Henderson come to bat. If you review his numbers you’ll see that he’s right in there with the average Hall of Famer. Besides, love seeing that Expos hat at the Hall.

For better reporting the always interesting Seamhead.com provides a dissection of the Class of 2012. As stated above I don’t agree on Smith, simply because in his day he was dominant. A real presence for more then a few years. Other comments of note:

  • I like this line: “Fortunately, one of the best aspects of the game are the debates it inspires. The players who are left over from this year’s ballot will certainly inspire that as we move towards future elections.”
  • I don’t have strong feelings about Edgar Martinez but I do agree with Andrew Martin that he belongs. The DH is a position, and Martinez was the best DH of his time and probably one of the top 2 ever.
  • Bagwell should be a no brainer as the article says, but surely it is the concern for steroids that keep him out. If it was known that he was a user I’d be ok with that. Doesn’t seem fair to judge him without more proof then we’ve seen.

One of my all-time favorites, Joe Posnanski has a post called “The Future (and Past) of the HOF. It is a terrific read, and way better then the blog you are reading now! Some highlights:

  • I keep forgetting this – from 1940-1946 only Rogers Hornsby was elected to The Hall. Apparently in 1939 a decision was made to slow down voting to assure only the best players got in. Probably a bit too tight….
  • How about this factoid that Posnanski shared: “*I found something interesting about the initial balloting that I did not know — apparently when the first 100 votes were counted, both Cobb and Ruth were unanimous. Then, the first ballot without Ruth came up and the counting committee actually stopped to wonder how anyone could leave off Ruth. Before it was all done (there were 226 total votes) they would find four ballots without Cobb, and 11 ballots without Ruth.“
  • There was a backlash against voting in Hank Greenberg. Really? The guy was dominant and spent 4 1/2 years in the military and still had great numbers. Never knew this.
  • He suggests that when considering steroid players we need to make a judgement, asking if the player would have been a Hall of Famer without the steroids and if so, vote him in. Bonds is in then, McGwire is borderline.

TTM, Kids, and Learning to Write

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I have 2 boys, ages 11 and 12. Both love baseball and collecting. They also love autographs in a way that greatly exceeds their Dad’s willingness to pay. While scanning about for information on autograph collecting I learned about collecting autographs through-the-mail (TTM). Seemed kind of like getting a map to the stars’ homes in Hollywood, but I purchased a wonderful catalog of addresses of major leaguers, current and past from Harvey Meiselman.

I bought the envelopes and stamps. My kids had to find a card to get signed and write a letter – a nice and sincere one – to any player whose autographs they wanted. Problem – my kids hate to write!  Both hated it and let’s just say that their ball playing was a bit better then their writing. Or so I had thought, based on their school experience.

If this was a school project and they had to write 5 letters each it would have been about 2 hours of pouting to 30 minutes of work. I was shocked / thrilled – each kid wrote and wrote and wrote. Probably about 15 letters each. And the letters were beautiful.

Let’s step back for a moment and ask, why didn’t my kids like to write? Did they really not like writing? Or was it the context of the writing. Let’s consider an academic term – goal-based scenarios (GBS). Let’s say you want to teach math to a kid who loves trucks. How should you team him math? Just start with math? No. The theory of a GBS is that a student doesn’t want to learn an abstract skill. He or she wants to achieve a goal that is meaningful to him or her. So if you want this boy to learn math, don’t teach him math – ask him to run a trucking problem. Give him a problem where he then needs math to run the company. Ask him how many trucks he should buy for his $10 and how far each truck can go on a gallon of gas, and his motivation to learn math will soar.

My kids’ TTM project was a GBS. They had no interest in writing but they sure wanted autographs. And they wanted to share their stories with the ballplayers. The result was a series of great letters and we did nicely in getting cards and balls back.

What does this say about my view of modern education? Well, that should be obvious…. Schools do what they do but it’s a parent’s job to make up for what schools don’t provide. All I have to do is come up with the right GBS. Then let the kids be themselves.

Speaking of TTM, a few ballplayers were exceptional in what they returned. Don Mueller sent back a very nice note on the ball and a note on the letter. George Shotgun Shuba sent a book and a very nice note. And Carl Erskine sent a beautifully inscribed ball along with a card and a very nice note. Thanks to each of them.

Durability of Pitchers Since the Deadball Era

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I’ve read a few books of late that impress upon me how many more innings pitchers would throw, pre 1920. By how much though?

I pulled some data from Baseball-Reference.com. I started with a random assortment of pitchers. Five were from the deadball era, and 5 would be considered modern. All are either in the Hall of Fame, or heading there. The pitchers are:

Deadball

  • Brown
  • Johnson, Walter
  • Mathewson
  • McGinnity
  • Waddell

Modern

  • Clemens
  • Glavine
  • Johnson, Randy
  • Maddux
  • Martinez, Pedro

I pulled their career data from Baseball-Reference.com and looked only at the average # of innings pitched. What I learned was:

  • the modern pitchers averaged 6.55 innings per game
  • the deadball pitchers averaged 7.24 innings per game

So no surprise – the deadball pitchers would go deeper into a game. But the 10% difference surprised me; I would have expected a bigger difference. I can’t draw any conclusions here as this is a very non-scientific survey. As this was my first foray into analysis I decided to get a bit more rigorous. (As if I know what that means….)

Digging further….  I pulled from Baseball-Reference.com a list of the top 25 pitchers based on WAR from 1876 to present. I then calculated the number of innings pitched per season. Some findings:

  • Pud Galvin led the list, averaging over 457 innings per season. (Never knew much about Pud Galvin!)
  • the 11 pitchers from the deadball era were at the top of the list
  • the first modern pitcher was Robin Roberts
  • The overall average innings pitched per season for all 25 was 284 innings. The average deadball pitcher threw 353 innings per season. The average modern player pitched 238 innings. A difference of over 30%.

These results surprised me. Remember, I am only looking at the top 25 pitchers based on WAR. The modern pitchers included many of the durable pitchers of the era: Niekro, Ryan, and Perry but no modern pitcher beat any of the deadball pitchers. What was most surprising was how the group sorted with every top WAR Deadballer being above even the best of the modern players.

And if you asked which of the Top 25 WAR pictures would lead the moderns, I would not have guess Robin Roberts. Probably wouldn’t have been in my top 10. He’s the answer though.

I then checked the modern players. Justin Verlander lead the league this year with 251 innings pitched. That would put him right in there with the other modern players, but nowhere near the deadballers. That sent me back to baseball-reference. I did an easy sort showing that the leaders in innings pitched is dominated by the deadballers. Only one modern pitcher cracked the top 100 for the all-time list of innings pitched per season. The first modern to appear is Feller, at #79. Roberts is next at #102.

Verlander’s 250 innings for the year would put him at 482 for all time. 2011′s iron man is a babe in the context of history.

So the conclusion that deadballers were more durable did not surprise me, but after my initial (flawed) investigation, I was surprised at how much more durable they were. Some things to investigate:

  • Who was Pud Galvin! And how durable was Robin Roberts?
  • Is there a relationship between the # of innings pitched per season and WAR? Is it inverse, or random, or neither?
  • Why were the deadballers so much more durable?

Now for the caveat – I have no clue if what I am doing is accurate! It was interesting to me but this is the first time in my life I have done any sort of analysis like this. I am not a statistics person and can barely help my kids with their middle school math homework. All feedback is most welcome!

Speaking of durability, I just learned on Baseball-Almanac that in 1906, a pitcher named Jack Taylor was relieved, ending a streak of 1,727 innings without needing a relief pitcher. That is over 190 games without going to the bullpen!

My Grandfather, and my first T206

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My maternal grandfather – like all my grandparents – was an amazing person. He was born in Lithuania, and like many East European Jews, left around the turn of the century. His journey was complicated as on his way to America he got sick and was not allowed to leave England for a year. He eventually got to America where – despite not finishing high school – he spent a career with the government, sending 2 of his children to medical school and the third to university.

I was fortunate to have him in our house for the last few years of his life. He was neither a sports fan nor a collector. I was about 9 and a huge baseball fan and very much into collecting. I’ll never forget him giving me a baseball card while standing in his room. I remember where I was standing when he gave it to me, that it was a sunny day, and that I was awfully psyched. It was a card he got not long after arriving in New York. The card was quite beaten and ripped but I loved it for its age. I don’t recall how he got it or why he kept it.

That card had quite the history with me. I traded it once to my friend David. I think I got half his cards in return for it. I figured it was pretty well beaten, so I might as well get a bunch of newer cards. Later I got David’s entire collection, including my Grandfather’s card, in return for a baseball glove. Not quite the acquisition of Babe Ruth but for me at the time almost as good.

A few years later I traded the card again at a card show. I have no idea who I got for it but it was probably a beaten card from the 1960s. Stupid teenager. The image of the card remained though I lost the physical card.

Fast forward about 30 years. I was in a baseball card shop with my kids when the proprietor showed me a T206 of John McGraw. Thunderbolt. The card was the same style as that card my Grandfather gave me. Made me feel 9 again, and I flashed back to getting the card from my Grandfather. Three days later I went back to the shop and bought the McGraw card. I then bought a book on T206s, The T206 Collection, and the first thing I looked for was that card. I found it. George Browne. And I distinctly remember that card was a Piedmont. Chicago.

I went on a T206 binge and I had to get a George Browne. My Grandfather’s card was Browne on Chicago, but as my Grandfather spent most of his life in Washington DC, I got a Washington card. My favorite T206.

Looking back on it I can’t understand how I could have let go of my Grandfather’s card, even once, let alone twice. But I did. I wish I could get the original card back. And I really wish I could learn the story of that original card but that story is lost. It does remind me though to get other stories from the people that are around to tell them.

Having another copy is almost as good because it still connects me to him and brings back every one of the memories that that card took me through. I tell my own kids this story all the time and I am glad to have this opportunity to keep him alive in them.

 

Hall of Fame, and Standards

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“Standards set, standards met.”

Few things improve a business like standards. If you allow a sales person to just sell, you’ll get results based on the skill of the person for example. You are person dependent. If you install a system, results improve significantly. A system would consist of:

  • a define process for how you do things
  • a goal
  • measurements that allow you to track performance against that goal
  • communication about that goal

If you have a process for quality, checklists, and a clear agreement on what the goals are – you are moving towards depending on the system, and not the people. That allows scalability and growth.

I just finished reading Bill James‘s “Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame.” In this book he presents a series of arguments for who belongs in the Hall, and who does not. Along the way he provides some standards for how we should think about who belongs. And he takes a critical view of the selection process.

Seems that the Hall has a problem with standards that a well-run business would never have. There is no standard to use for evaluating candidates. Rather than argue about who should go in, there should probably be arguments about the standards that should get used. Standards don’t get applied blindly but would allow a healthier debate.

I suppose the Hall of Fame is quaint and fun because there are these people that get to sit around and debate who belongs. I can imagine a veteran’s committee engaged in dialogue like the Founders discussing the constitution. It would be nicer though if the process was more structured.