Everybody Gets A Fast Ball On Occasion, Laugh And Swing
Posted in Fly Fishing Gear on the January 31, 2010
Much can be gleaned by spending time with a baseball pitching machine. The best lessons taken from baseball or a softball pitching machine actually have very little to do with baseball. Standing in the batters box with balls flying by at 70 miles an hour lends itself to some serious life lessons. Everyday a hundred issues fly past every normal working stiff. Decisions are constantly being made every second. Should I have decaf with artificial sweetener, should I scratch my nose before putting down the donut, should I call Teddy back, take the stairs or elevator, use blue ink or black ink, zip up my fly now or wait until I can duck into a closet, run to catch the cross light or wait? Facing baseballs tossed by a machine is a good exercise and perfect metaphor for life.
A major league baseball player knows that whenever he goes to the plate, the pitcher is trying to strike him out. That’s the game and the way to play it. The batter doesn’t whine about why the pitcher is a slider, or why he’s making it hard to hit a homerun. The batter isn’t mad at the pitcher because he is throwing fast balls and change ups to try and fool him. The batter won’t feel sad because he thinks the pitcher hates him. It’s how you play the game, the objectives are clear and the positions well defined. A batter strikes out after swinging the bat at three good pitches. Is the batter angry at the man on the mound? Gosh {no|darn no way|. In fact he probably admires the pitcher for his skill and is mad at himself for not doing better. The man with the bat made his choices, to swing hard, to bunt or to watch the ball go by. If he grounds out or goes down swinging, he goes back to the dugout, disappointed, but knowing he will swing again. He doesn’t point the finger at anyone else or make a bunch of excuses, or feel like the man on the mound was being unfair. He took his swings and he will live to swing again.
For most people life is not as black and white or as oppositional as baseball. It is much more like confronting a batting machine. The machine has no worries. The machine doesn’t care if the person with the bat is black, white, purple, tall, short, or shaped like a gourd. The machine just keeps tossing pitches. The machine doesn’t care if the batter zings it out of the park or swishes forty times.
That is the way life is for most people. Life comes at them quick as a major league fastball. Should they swing, pass or duck? If they get hit by a pitch do they run out to the mound and take a swing at the mechanical arm? No, they do not. A mechanical bean ball is not a malicious action. Life is just tossing some bad pitches. They can spit and holler, argue and weep. It does no good, but they are welcome to act badly if it comforts them. The true focus needs to go into stepping back to the plate and facing the next ball, watch it come in and decide whether to swing or pass.
Baseball has much to teach us all. Baseballs basic rules can become rules for living. Swing or pass, it’s nothing personal. In the game of life, we’re always at the plate and the pitches just keep coming. That is what is so great; you can just keep swinging.