Dr. Tom Hanson, HeadsUp Baseball 2.0

HeadsUp Baseball and The Truth About the Mental Game

By Dr. Tom Hanson and Ken Ravizza

Take a breath.

Have a routine.

Go to your focal point.

Play one pitch at a time.

All these are solid tips for improving a player’s mental game.

If you tell a batter to 1) put his back foot in the box, 2) take a long, slow breath and look at the bat label, and 3) step in and tell himself “See ball, hit ball,” you may help him. That’s a signature move from our best-selling book, HeadsUp Baseball, and a pre-pitch routine you saw daily if you watched the recent College World Series.

Having a simple routine like that can help a player be more confident, focused, consistent and overcome failure. When the pitcher steps on the rubber, it’s usually helpful to have a simple game plan to execute.

But if that’s all you teach your players about the mental game, you’re leaving a lot of good performance and life-enhancing learning on the table.

It’s Not That Simple

The mental game is complex. It’s messy. It can’t be taught or learned over night. Almost no one “masters” it. Even the best of the best players struggle with it. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, the game will kick your butt. You can go from feeling unstoppably confident to feeling totally lost in a day – or even one pitch.

We’ve been in major league clubhouses where top all-stars tell us, “I stink. I can’t hit. I have no idea what I’m doing up there.” World champion pitchers dominate one day (or one week, or one season) and then a moment later may doubt every pitch they throw.

One long-time, highly successful major leaguer you’d know if we said his name says, “I’d say the most common thought I had during my career was, ‘I’ll never get another hit.’” Confidence is fragile!

A current major league all-star shortstop has worked with Ken and Heads-Up Baseball for almost 10 years…but he still has a hard time staying confident. “I know all the right stuff to think and do,” he says. “Why is it so hard to actually do it?”

We often hear a player say, “Oh, I see what you mean by playing ‘one pitch at a time.’” And then a couple months later the same guy says, “Oh, NOW I understand playing ‘one pitch at a time.’” And then a year later he’s taken it to another, deeper level of understanding “one pitch at a time.” And a couple of years later he’s gone even deeper and e...