I can honestly say that the game of baseball and softball made me who I am. When I look back on my years of painful raspberries and distinct tan lines, I realize that the better I got as a player, the better I got as a person.
As corny as that sounds, something about who I was on the field translated to who I was off of the field. The resiliency that it takes to play these sports instills humility and hard work into every player until it comes naturally in everything he or she does.
1. You will always have a chance to redeem yourself.
My dad, who was also my coach, always told me this. He was not wrong. Whether it was the next at bat or a defensive play, I was almost always able to redeem myself from a strikeout or an error.
In life, it is the same. It may not be within the same hour, the same week, or even the same year, but something will come along that will reboot your self-confidence. Redemption is yours if you do not let past mistakes get in the way.
2. You are not going to be perfect, but you can still be great.
Statistically, a great hitter in baseball and softball hits three out of every ten times at the plate. An out-of-this-world hitter hits four out of every 10 times. In a game, if a batter hits twice out of the four times at the plate, that batter had a good game.
You are going to inevitably swing and miss. It is a part of life; it is a part of the game. Being perfect should never be the goal because it is impossible, being great is.
3. "Potential" is a scary word.
When I was a sophomore in high school, my varsity coaches said that I had potential to be a great softball player. That meant that I had to work just as hard, if not harder, to get there. I was not going to get there naturally.
4. Mentality is half of the battle.
A majority of the game is mental. That is why it takes someone who really knows the game to enjoy watching it (it's not "boring"). A defensive player could have the best arm in the league, but if he or she does not know where to throw the ball, that "great arm" is essentially useless.
Also, in a game where failure is inevitable, it takes a lot to get your mind back on track. It takes a lot of the "on to the next one" mentality, which helps off the field. Do not get a call back after an interview? On to the next one. Doesn't work out with the person you liked? On to the next one because, remember, you will always have a chance to redeem yourself.
5. Rely on your the people around you, and let them rely on you.
Baseball and softball is a weird mix of individual and team play. When on the field, each player is a decent distance away from the next. Reliance on each other is necessary to be successful. As a shortstop, I could go an entire game without getting one ball hit to me. However, I needed to trust that my teammates would get the job done when they were getting the action on the field. And, when I was getting the action, I needed to make sure that they knew they could trust me.
When working with a team for a project or in the workplace, you need to have that weird mix of individual and team. You need to know that bettering yourself as a person or an employee is going to help the team. You cannot control what everyone is doing on the team. If something is in their hands, you cannot snatch it from them because you think you can do it better. Help yourself and you will help the team.
6. Without communication, success is limited.
The mental and the individual/team aspect of the game can easily be meshed together by communication. My coach used to spend time teaching us how to communicate with each other on the field. Knowing where all nine players are on the field is hard when everyone is focused on something different, whether it be the runner on base or the ball. Yelling where the ball needs to go is an overlooked key to success; everyone needs to be on the same page.
When it comes to any kind of relationship, miscommunication never goes over smoothly. Generally speaking, when trying to get on the same page as someone else, all it takes is some honest communication. Like on the field, we cannot read each other's minds.
7. Practice makes (almost) perfect.
Like I said before, we cannot be perfect, but we can be great. We all have the potential to be. Potential takes hard work and practice. It does not come naturally. (Deja vu, anyone?)
Some days I needed to be on the field taking ground balls for an hour after practice ended. Some days I need to stay in the library all day before I figure out how to reorganize my paper. We complain and say, "What a waste of time." It is not, though. The practice, one, does not go unnoticed, and, two, helps more than you would think.
8. To better yourself, you need to face someone better than you.
To be completely honest, our softball team was good. A lot of the teams we faced in our league was not at the same level we were. So, we did not know how talented we were until we started to face teams that were just as good and better than us. Those games were the true test. Those games made us better.
You will get beat out by some people in every aspect of life. However, in those situations, you will find out what you need to change to become better. You learn nothing when you skate through life walking all over people who cannot compete with you. It is when you face someone better that you figure out who you are.
9. It is the best damn game in the world.
...in my totally biased opinion.
