The Make-Up of Perfection

Phillip Humber, the 29 year old right handed pitcher for the Chicago White Sox became the 21st pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball to pitch a perfect game. For those unfamiliar with the game of baseball, a perfect game is when a pitcher records 27 consecutive outs in one game without surrendering a hit or a walk.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Humber can be described as a young journeyman, having been drafted by the New York Mets, and playing for the Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals and currently for the Chicago White Sox. He will now be forever inscribed in baseball folklore. His feat of throwing a perfect game is remarkable, and the fact that he is only one of 21 people do achieve this goes to show that it takes more than just being a good pitcher. There is something deeper to making this dream come true, and perhaps it might be something that lays deep inside an individuals psyche.

I hadn't really heard of Humber before tonight, and I am sure that I am not alone in that fact, so it is hard for me to state which attributes he has that perhaps other great pitchers who have yet to join the elusive club of perfection don't, so I won't speculate. What I offer below is some attributes that perhaps Humber has, and utilizes better than others, which might have enabled him to become Mr. 21 (an awful nickname, that I am sure will not stick).

Support - It came as no surprise to me that Humber's first thanks was to his family. When you are a professional athlete, you need to have a family that understands that you might be gone for weeks at a time, in preparation for a large event or performing on the road. As a baseball player, you play 162 games a year, and half of those will be "on the road". In a large number of cases, a major league player may not live in the same city that he plays in.

This means that an athlete must be well supported by his family in order to give him the best chance to succeed. Yet Humber was also well supported by his second family; The Chicago White Sox. The look on the faces of the entire White Sox bench when the final out of the night was recorded was a look of shared joy, pride and happiness, as if they themselves had pitched the perfect game. Of course, the second group of people that Humber thanked were his team mates! Specifically he thanked his catcher AJ Pierzynski.

Faith - Even before Humber mentioned his wife and child, he spoke the words "God is so good". This speaks of a tremendous faith in god. Different to a Tim Tebow "My lord and savior Jesus Christ" type of faith. Humber is merely acknowledging his belief of god. We don't know which god Humber is referring to, just that he has belief.

So often we see professional athletes praying before and thanking god after a performance. Tebow of course brought this to the media spotlight with "Tebow-ing", yet athletes have been doing this for years. There are most certainly athletes who are not religious, and even those who straight up do not believe in god, and i am not suggesting that belief in god is a per-requisite for success. All I am commenting on is that Humber clearly has a strong belief in god, and in his mind, god helped him throw every single pitch of his perfect game.

Concentration/Focus - During his post game interview, Humber was clearly overwhelmed with what he had just achieved, yet when questioned about the first out in the 9th inning, he maintained that his focus was on not giving up the 4 run lead that the White Sox had, as opposed to ensuring that he made history. Even in the face of pitching a perfect game, Humber was only focused on doing his job. This could be described as being the true definition of perfection.

Bounce-back-ability - A phrase coined on a British soccer show called Soccer AM, Bounce-back-ability refers to the ability of an individual to come back from a significant bout of adversity. For Humber, this could of been his disappointing spells with his previous clubs, or even his recent Tommy Johns surgery, yet which ever way you look at Phillip Humber, he certainly has bounce-back-ability in abundance.

April 21st 2012 is a date that Phillip Humber, and baseball fans around the world will remember for a long time. Congratulations Phillip!

Photo Credit: Getty Images

 

Hockey - A Fighting Chance

I apologize in advance if you are a hockey fan or played hockey growing up. I have never been to a live Hockey game, and although I did play field hockey in college (in Europe it is a man's game), I have never played ice hockey. I don't however believe that those facts make my opinions on a certain aspects of the game irrelevant. In  the same light, if you had an opinion on professional wrestling, you would never hear me respond with "well you have never been in the ring, therefore you have no right to pass judgement".

I just bought my 4 year old nephew a Boston Bruins jersey. He looks adorable in this jersey, but after what I have witnessed this past week, when watching the Boston Bruins and the Washington Captials in the Stanley Cup playoffs, I am regretting my purchase. Hockey is one of the top 4 sports in the US, alongside baseball, american football and basketball. Soccer comes in at number 5 (if you count college sports as being the same as their professional counterparts). Yet if the actions that occur on a nightly basis on a hockey rink were to take place in any other sporting arena, then fines, suspensions and legal ramifications would be a regular news story on Sports Center. I am of course talking about the fighting, but more specifically the apparent "cheap shots" that are becoming very common.

Tim Thomas is one of the best goal tenders in the NHL, and was a key reason that the Bruins were able to win the Stanley Cup in 2011, however during game 2 of the Bruins Capitals game, Thomas, whilst defending his goal in the 3rd period of a 1 - 1 tie game, dropped his stick with the sole intention to punch Nicklas Backstrom in the head. Having watching this incident over and over again, there is simply no other plausible explanation that I can come up with, other than Thomas wanted to punch this guy in the head. If you have another explanation, I would love to hear it in the comments section. The video can be seen below:

Somehow, fighting has a place in hockey, and I personally find this to be disgraceful. A large percentage of youths today look up to athletes as their role models, and the message that the NHL sends to the youth of today is nothing short of irresponsible. Athletes might not ask to be role models, but the fact of the matter is that when you are being watched by thousands of people every time you skate, you are a role model, whether you like it or not.

There is no psychological edge to be had from winning a fight against another player, and in this case, Backstrom was able to score the game winning goal, in double overtime on Tim Thomas! As a Bruins fan, I was actually pleased for Backstrom. Tim Thomas let his team down, not by conceding a goal, but by forgetting who he is, and that is a TEAM member.

I know that fights occur in sports, be it from a late hit in football, or a struck batter in baseball, but these happen a handful of times in a season. Fights in the NHL have become part of the every day game. Take this example from a New York Rangers New Jersey Devils game, where 3 fights took place as soon as the puck was dropped.

 I just don't get it. If you want to see a fight, go and watch the UFC. I prefer to see scores settled by a demonstration of which athlete or team has the most skill. Set the example to those who aspire to be doing what you do by showing them that to be successful in life you need to be as good as possible at it.

I know that in one of my previous blogs I used the saying "For that that believe no explanation is required, and for those that don't believe, no explanation will do", and I stand by this, as it related to professional wrestling, however I am laying down a challenge to all hockey fans to justify how fighting has a legitimate place in ice Hockey. I know that sports are mental, but this might be a little too mental for my tastes.

Big Gamble: Boom or Bust, why do busts seem to happen so often?

There are about a million different reasons that a player can excel and a player can fail. In my last few blogs I have talked about the pressure to perform in sports. Many of these points run together. The contracts and trade deadlines both play a role in how well an athlete will do. I have already covered the previous two but there are still some much more that goes into whether a player will ultimately be a boom or a bust. The short answer for this main question is all these variables creates a very unpredictable situation. However I would like to go more in-depth and I will discuss three of these variables.

Lets start with the draft. When a player gets drafted and where he goes can completely change how the player will perform. There is a huge expectation difference between an early first rounder, later first rounder and a late round pick. The player that is picked first overall always has the biggest expectations to perform immediately. This is a big deal. The players that played well in college but can’t handle the pressure to perform at the higher level will fail like Vince Young or Jamarcus Russell did in the past. There are also the busts from the draft that are later in the first round of the draft. The first guy that comes to mind here is Brady Quinn. He was pretty successful during his college career, however he was drafted to a team that had very little support. He didn’t have quality weapons or a quality line to protect him. After a few years of just getting beaten down it started to wear mentally and his development suffered. By the time he fell out of favor with the team and was traded it was too late for him and he will be a career back up. There is also an issue when a quarterback goes to the wrong team with the system or the team does not adapt to the quarterback. When this happens it affects the quarterbacks mentality to perform. He believes he cannot adapt and no longer has the success he was used to. The final point on the quarterbacks is best put by Steve Young when recently interviewing Andrew Luck, “in college every wide receiver is open where as in the pros none of them are.” This is a big deal because if they can not adapt to no having as much success, they will not be able to cut it.

There are also players like wide receivers or running backs who can never get on the same page as the quarterback or coach and fall out of grace and then soon get traded or released, can handle it and just fall apart all together. Finally on the defense side a bust on the line are used to plowing through the offensive line but then move to the pros and the line is not as easy to get through. Once again the player cannot handle the increased difficulty and can’t get over the mental blocks. As for defensive backs they are used to covering wide outs that are mediocre and they look stellar. Now they cover big time receivers and can no longer keep up. This gets to them mentally and cannot handle no being great anymore. Some do get over this and excel but others do not.

The second variable that could make a difference whether a player is a boom or bust is the term regression to the mean. Regression to the mean is when an athlete has a great season, great week, or great game that is abnormal for the athlete and then they go back to their average level of play. It is easier to see these trends when an athlete only has one good game or a good week. It gets more difficult when they excel for an entire season. This is also difficult when they are coming out of college because they may not have too many seasons to compare to. This is one of the primary reasons I believe people end up being busts. Some athletes like in the NFL or NBA only play for one year. Then they ship off to the pro level where the expectations will never meet the athletes abilities, they were just good for a small mount of time. In the NFL this was pretty apparent with Vince Young. It was initially believe that Matt Leinert was going to be the best quarterback chosen in the draft until the national championship for that year. Texas beat USC and after that game Vince Young became the highest quarterback drafted. Now as it turns out they were both busts and the only player this is a starter in the NFL was the player taken after them (Jay Cutler). The point here is Vince Young had a good season but it was his great performance during the championship but that was about it. He performed average in the NFL and now struggles to keep a back up role. Players will often perform great for a year and then fall back to their average play. This is deceiving to teams looking to draft players because they may appear to be great but is actually average.  This occurs all the time in every sport and at different points in a player’s career. This is often what happens when a player who was not a starter gets the chance, does well and then falls back to average.

The third variable is injury risk. I will not address this fully in this blog as my next one will be all about injury. However I will say that an injury could ruin a player. There are the players that have known injury problems because they were injury prone during their college careers. However, sometimes it is not their fault. A player may incur an injury for the first time and does not know how to deal with it mentally. They may come back and play timid and with fear of re-injury. This causes problems because athletes have to be fearless when they play at that high of a level. Therefore it is sometimes an accident that a team doesn’t think about that causes the bust. Teams often do not test an athlete for mental stability in the chance that they do have a serious injury. They also do not test for emotional intelligence. Both of these factors could influence an athletes ability to come back from an injury.

Finally lets talk about the most recent fall from grace. The player that has been in the news lately names Matt Bush. He was a former #1 pick of the San Diego Padres back in 2004. Now if anyone knows anything about baseball, it’s that you rarely hear from draft picks immediately in this league. Even big shot Bryce Harper did not go strait to the majors. Well Matt Bush did not make it too far before crashing hard back to earth. He was just recently arrested for a DUI and a hit and run. After running from the scene of the crime, being tackled and hog-tied he yelled, “I don’t care” and then appeared to cry. So what happened here in this tragic case? We will never know for sure but it appeared to be a case of pressure induced self-abuse and self-fulfilling prophecy. I am going to take a guess that after 8 years after being a #1 pick and not playing a single major league game that he was feeling the pressure. What typically seems to happen in these cases are the player crumbles and starts abusing themselves, whether its drugs or alcohol. Also, the fear of failure and being labeled a bust is setting in and he wants something to blame it on other than his ability to play baseball, because an athlete’s ability is their identity. Therefore he went and caused this scene landing him in big trouble and as a result being labeled a bust and failure. However, he didn’t fail because he failed at baseball, but because he could not handle outside pressures. This let him keep his baseball identity but also led him down the road he set himself up for.

Know Thy Enemy - Brock Returns Home!

Photo Credit: PWInsider

WWE presented their biggest show of the year on Sunday, and as usual it delivered! The main event alone was a spectacle unlike any other, with live musical performances of each superstar's promotional music, and an entertaining match that sent the record breaking crowd home happy. However, what could end up outshining Wrestlemania could well be the return of Brock Lesnar, which occurred at the end of the WWE's flagship show Monday Night Raw.

Lesnar is a former NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion, and has previously held the WWE championship 3 times. But his rise to mainstream athletic fame came with his 4 year tenure with the UFC, the mixed martial arts promotion, where he twice held the UFC heavyweight title.

His final bout in the UFC was a disappointment for all involved, as Lesnar went in to this match after taking a lot of time off to recover from a stomach illness known as diverticulitis, and it was a simple looking kick to the stomach that eventually shut the door on Lesnar's MMA career.

The thing that i have heard for many years now, is that professional wrestling and MMA simply do not mix. Many professional wrestling fans stopped following wrestling when MMA went mainstream, and Lesnar was a big reason for the rise of UFC. What will they think about Lesnar's return? Can professional wrestling learn anything from Lesnar and his MMA experience? Are MMA and professional wrestling really rivals? I would say that for the 18 - 29 male demographic, they almost certainly compete for the same viewership (although not always at the same time).

This is a stroke of genius from the WWE! They have managed to get back on of their most popular superstars, who like The Rock, became an even bigger name whilst away from the WWE. Where Lesnar and The Rock differ is, that Lesnar is unlikely to ever be able to return to MMA. For the WWE, this is truly a case of know thy enemy, as they will have access to the experiences of Lesnar within the UFC, and more importantly have access to Lesnar to help build some of its up and coming stars with his name value and "real fighter" reputation.

I don't see anything mental about this move from the WWE, as long as Lesnar himself is committed to being there, and performing in the way that WWE expects!

Big Contracts Could Equal Big Problems

As we have seen in the past couple of weeks as the NFL free agency began, players are getting BIG contracts. This is occurring more and more as the price for players rises. Many athletes “deserve¹” the amount of their contracts and many don’t. The interesting thing about whether the player has played well enough to earn the big deal is if they can handle what the big deal means.

When the NFL free agency opened on March 13^th, many athletes flew off the board. Usually if you get a deal done in the first 24 hours you are making some big money. One of the players that intrigued me was Pierre Garcon who is now with the redskins but was formerly with the Colts. This is an interesting signing because he signed a 5 year $42 million contract. This is some pretty good money for a wide receiver. I will also be using an example of the huge payday of Calvin Johnson who just signed an 8-year $132 million. These two contracts are the difference between a good wide receiver and an elite, franchise, top 5 wide receiver. Now here is where the difference in their play comes in. Garcon was a wide receiver that filled the 2^nd/3^rd wide receiver in the system and was being passed to by Peyton Manning. We all know Manning makes everyone better. He was also matched up against the 2^nd or 3^rd best corner back on the opposing team instead of their best shut down corner. Calvin Johnson has been the number 1 wide out for the lions and has had a combination of matt Stafford, who is good but not manning, and his backups when he has been hurt. Johnson has been stellar against any and all opposing corner backs, even the best. So at this point in the discussion it would appear that the contracts make sense.

The problems with the large sums of money are when the player gets the new deal. If the player did not show up and play as they should they would never even receive a big offer. Now what happens when the players get a big deal? Some excel and some flop. Why does this happen? Well there are many variables that change with the deal but the two biggest are the team the player goes to and the mentality of the player.

We can only speculate about how the new contracts will play out however there are some contracts that were made years ago that we laugh about now. One that most football fans remember is the $100 million deal to Albert Hayneswoth. He played for the Titans getting a ton of sacks and tackles. He also was the anchor of the defensive line. He earned his new payday but that’s when it all fell apart. He got the deal and moved to the Redskins and tanked hard. He still had a few sacks but became lazy and a huge distraction instead of a huge force. He apparently could not handle the pressure of what a $100 million deal means. It means we are all looking to you for the anchor when he was used to being underrated help. This is what I mean by not having the mentality for a big deal. He became lazy, didn’t want to work anymore and felt “untouchable” when in reality he just became a loser.

If we go back to Garcon, he has been a number 2 or 3 wideout. Can he handle the on field attention of being a number 1? Can he still run good routs and get separation against the top corners? Can he handle his price tag following him and a team looking for him to be the best on the team? All these questions will be answered in time.

There was an interesting contract situation during this current NFL season. Ryan Fitzpatrick of the Buffalo Bills was signed to a big extension during the season because the team was 5-2 and he was playing great. Now I mentioned 2 of the biggest reasons for a flow was a team change and the mentality of a new deal. In this case he did not change teams so the issue would appear to be mostly mental. What happened was the Bills went 1-8 in their final 9 games and finished last in their division. It would appear that he could not handle then mentality of the price tag he now has. Before he was playing as an underrated quarterback that had not done much great until now. After he got the deal he was no longer underrated and players were coming after him instead of ignoring him.

The same story goes for all sports not just in the NFL. Its easy in baseball, basketball, and most positions where there is 1 starter in football. It changes a bit when you look at the NHL where for offence there are usually 4 per position and 3 per position on defense. In the NHL you can be a 1^st line center, 2^nd line center, 3^rd line center, or 4^th line center. All of these positions play during a game just some get more time and shifts than others. Now a big contract can mean so much more than other sports where you are a starter or reserve. If you have played out your rookie contract say it was for 4 years and the player was a 2^nd line center and did pretty well. Now he gets a huge second contract and a team looks for him to be their franchise 1^st line center and leader of the team.

This is very dangerous territory. Depending on his personality he could be great or he could flop. If this player got used to his underrated 2^nd line, not having the pressure to carry the team, he may have issues mentally being the one to carry the team on his shoulders. There is a big mental change when a team looks for you to carry a team when you were happy being support. Some players will play better when they know they are not the best and only the support of the team.

The tough part about this whole situation is as an athlete you want to be the one who leads the team and is the best. You don’t think about your role and want to make more money. Therefore a player would be insulted if the general manager went to a player and said we don’t want to move you into a top line role because you play better as support and not leader. If this league was not so money driven and players did not have such big egos this may actually be more possible.

If sports were more sensitive to the mental side of the game contracts would be done very differently and I believe there would not be as many busts. This is because we would look more to see if the player can handle the role change instead of just throwing money at them in hope that they can handle it. This could not work in today’s system because they go where the money is and not where they may actually fit best. Its tough to say how a player will mentally react to a new contract, with the current system you just have to throw the money at them and hope they can handle it.

These big contracts don’t even begin to skim the surface of the reason big contacts and the jump from college to pros creates so many busts. Look for the next blog examining the college to pro bust rate.

Notes:

1- I put deserve in quotes because its debatable that they actually deserve that sum of money.

Tiger Woods and the Self Fulfilling Prophecy

So much has been written about Tiger Woods. Even more has been said about the man who held the number 1 world ranking in golf for over 5 year. Yet this past week during an interview with ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi, Tiger uttered perhaps his most telling word yet. In response to the question “What drives you?” Woods responded with his typical focused and composed stare by using one simple word; “winning”.

You see, Tiger still believes. He believes that he still has the ability to recapture his old form and make that comeback that the media are equally as obsessed with as he is. Tiger Woods is a sports blogger’s dream! The material practically writes itself, yet for me, a blogger who focusses on the mental aspect of sports, Tiger Woods is still a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Yet following his latest interview, some pieces of this mystery wrapped enigma are beginning to become clearer. Specifically what motivates Tiger Woods and how he is using the concept of the self fulfilling prophecy to drive him forward.

It is no secret that Tiger Woods has an obsession with catching and over taking Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 golf majors (Woods is stuck on 14), and this is clearly one of his central motivators, yet winning in general also clearly motivates Woods. He is closing in on 100 worldwide victories, and if Woods does reach that number, it will certainly go down as a historical moment in sport.  So Woods it appears is beginning to take a more systematic approach to his obsession. One win event at a time. 

The self fulfilling prophecy is when the capabilities of an individual are determined, and then due to these determinations, the capabilities are matched via performance. With Woods, by his continual referral about his desire to win, he is willing this event to happen. By continually referring to winning, perhaps he is trying to psych out his fellow tour members, and put the thought in their heads that this is the Tiger of old, and that he is still to be feared as he once was.

I hope that Tiger Woods is able to return to his old golf self. That Tiger never spoke about winning, he just won. He is now forcing the term winning to become part of his own everyday lexicon, and in doing so is willing the self fulfilling prophecy to take over. That sounds a little crazy, and perhaps it is, but after all, the one thing we do know is that sports are mental!

I SUPPORT P90X and P90X2 and you should too! (Part 2)

In my last blog, I tried to give you some of my thoughts about P90X and even admitted to some of the many mistakes that I made in my first round of P90X. When I began my second round of P90X, I had that experience behind me and made a few major changes. 

The man himself - Tony Horton!

Change 1 - Plan Ahead! I not only decided to do P90X (again), but I made the commitment to go back to back with P90X and the brand new P90X2. This gave me a 6 month plan, and addressed the 91^st day problem that I referred to in my previous blog. 

Change 2 – No more “cheating”! I know that I wasn’t really cheating by using a chair to help with the pull ups, but the fact is that I could do 5 or 6 before I started the program without the chair, and with the use of the chair I was able to do 18 – 20. Towards the end of my first round, when I decided to take the chair away, that 18 – 20 number dropped drastically to 8 – 10, and this was motivationally demoralizing.  When I began round 2 of P90X, I didn’t use a chair, and by the end of the 90 days, I was happily banging out 20 pull ups, and always increasing the number throughout the 90 days.

Change 3 – Nutrition is my mission! Let me admit that I have a problem, bordering on having an addiction. I love chocolate and cookies (especially ones that my family brings over from the UK). When starting P90X, these things WILL slow you down, they definitely slowed me down. During my first round, I took no notice of the nutrition advice that came with the program, so when I decided to go for another round of P90X, I committed to sticking with the nutrition plan. This included incorporating protein shakes and/or bars into my daily routine. Take the time to take a good look at what you eat – it is only now that I realize that the reason I do not have that washboard 6 pack is because of my own poor choices of food.

With these changes in place, I pressed play, and continued to press play day after day for 90 days. But there was one more change that I made, and this would be the change that allowed me to not only complete the program, but also follow through on my 91^st day plan and beyond. I told anyone and everyone exactly what I was doing. This is the notion of having a support system in place, and for me, it made me accountable to all of the people who I had told. I told my wife, my family, my work colleagues, my facebook friends and I even tweeted to Tony Horton himself (I never did get a reply by the way Tony). Now of course, my real hope was that all of these people would come up to me and tell me that I was in great shape and ask me if I had been “working out”? Only for me to reply “working out? No, I have been P90Xing it!”

Results aside, by completing the exercise program, and actually sticking with it (yoga and all – but more on that in part 3), the feeling of satisfaction was just as important to me as the other benefits normally associated with exercise.

Have you ever wondered why so many people, and feel free to include yourself in this problem, are unable to complete an exercise program from start to finish? One of the biggest reasons for this is that they have no one to hold them accountable for their goals. This is why I told everyone I knew that I was doing P90X. Developing a strong or vast support system will ensure that someone will help you maintain your goals. No one can physically force you to work out, but having a support system will increase your chances of finishing what you start!

In part 3, I will share some of my thoughts about P90X2, and will also share with you some of my obscure observations about all the characters and interactions that went down in the P90X DVD’s. It’s not to be missed…Thanks for reaching, and remember that sports really are MENTAL!