Quite often the only skill development worked on in practice scenarios has to do with improving the physical part of the game.  Don’t misunderstand me here, the physical part of the game is crucial to your success, but without a sound mental game, your physical skills won’t be maximized.  How much time really during your baseball instruction is spent on the mental side of the game?  I’m not talking how many times it comes up in a practice, but I’m asking how much time is devoted in your practice time to learning each of the following baseball skills:

1.      Building confidence in your game

2.      Creating belief and a positive self-esteem on the field

3.      Visualization and imagery

4.      Dealing with failure

5.      Creating a winning attitude

6.      Eliminating fear

7.      Strategic goal setting

There is little disputing the fact that the above skills are valuable to any athlete's game. But, if they are so valuable, wouldn’t you think that they would be taught more or than in passing conversation?   Not so surprisingly in this day and age of competitive baseball, the mental side of baseball IS being taught more, just not at the lower levels of baseball (HS and below). While it’s great news that the baseball world is developing clear training programs for performance psychology, you still may be on your own for finding some mental baseball instruction up until the collegiate level.  The articles I write here on this website and my blog are a good place to begin.

So if professional baseball organizations and collegiate programs are investing time and money into having sports psychologists work with athletes on mental skill development, why isn't everyone?  The answer is, it's tough.  For athletes, there is sometimes little immediate feedback.  Mental baseball training is not black and white like hitting a baseball is.  With physical baseball instruction, you either hit it hard or you don't.  The observation by the athlete of success or failure is immediate in this case. mental training is different, it’s long term; results are not always seen immediately.  In addition, few coaches or instructional facilities have the time or the capacity to teach it.

How important is learning how to embrace and master the mental side of baseball?  Combined with your devotion to physical improvement, it will be the deciding factor for what gets you to the next level.  Don’t simply take my word for it, do your own homework and dig into this subject a little bit on your own.  Ask any college coach, professional player, or scout how important understanding the mental side is for starters.  Just make certain that your learning on this topic doesn’t stop only with this article.