Baseball Training: Motivation of 5 of Baseball’s Best Ever Hitters
Here’s a section on motivation from my doctoral dissertation entitled “The Mental Aspects of Hitting” featuring my interviews with Hank Aaron, Rod Carew, Stan Musial, Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Oliva.
This is from the Discussion section after I’ve presented each player’s individual story…
Motivation is seen as the foundation upon which all other mental aspects depend. This is because motivation was the force that moved them to participate in baseball, and the loss of it precipitated their retirement. It is not possible to conclude, however, that motivation to play baseball and specifically to hit necessarily came first chronologically. That is, that their motivation to play led to their confidence, preparation, concentration, and game strategy. Rather, any of the five aspects could have come “first.”
The methods employed in this study did not attempt to determine such a relationship. In fact, my belief is that each element influenced each other continuously and
that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to tease out the primacy of one mental aspect over another.
This view is in agreement with the concept of mutual simultaneous shaping espoused by the naturalistic researcher (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
The initial motivation to play baseball for all of them seems to have been an internal factor, a love of playing.
In particular, they had a love of hitting. This love manifested itself in spending a lot of time swinging a bat. Each of them, either in the interview or their book, told of playing various forms of baseball for hour upon hour in their youth.
Both Oliva and Aaron mentioned hitting bottlecaps, while Yastrzemski spoke of spending countless hours alone swinging at a wide variety of objects. Carew opens his book saying “I love hitting. I always have” (Carew et. al, 1986, p. 1). I would say that this love of hitting was the cornerstone for the mental aspects of hitting for the participants in this study.
They may, however, have loved it for different reasons. Exactly what they loved about it was not discussed in the interviews.
A second internal element to their motivation was having a dream of someday playing in the major leagues and of being a star. Yastrzemski imagined being a big leaguer while doing his “gimmicks” when growing up, while Carew laid in bed dreaming of playing in Yankee stadium.
Musial pictured himself hitting big league pitching when in his middle teens, while Aaron aspired to the image of Jackie Robinson, and Oliva set his sights on becoming another Al Kaline. Both Oliva and Aaron said they were motivated by their desire to be the best. “I wanted to be to be one of the best players that ever played the game” said Aaron.
Pride was discussed by both Oliva and Carew as key motivators, and was also implied by the others. Pride is of great significance in this age of lucrative, long term contracts. Without considerable internal motivation, it could be easy to withhold the amount of effort necessary to maximize performance, particularly in the area of preparation.
Another key internal motivator was that hitting was fun. Oliva spoke of it being a game that is played, and that play was fun. Seeing baseball as fun also made the “hard work” that they mentioned less hard. Carew seemed to be speaking for the group when he said “I think we all know the fun that we get out of being able to hit. So we want to make it more fun for ourselves.
The more we worked at it the easier it became and the funner it was for us.” I got the impression they also enjoyed talking about it.
While the internal motivators dominated the hitters’ initial participation and doubtless continued to influence them throughout their careers, a variety of external factors also entered into things as their career progressed. Aaron and Musial adjusted their hitting styles slightly to hit more home runs and gain the external, primarily financial and attentional, benefits of being a home run hitter.
Musial said “Ralph Kiner came up in the late forties and started to hit home runs, more than anyone else, and pretty soon he was getting more money than anyone else. Well, that got me thinking…” Although it was not discussed in the interview, Aaron’s book makes it clear that much of his motivation in his final years was the desire to put him in a position to help blacks gain their rightful place in society.
In the end, it was the loss of motivation that precipitated their retirement. Yastrzemski was hitting .320 in his final year until the Red Sox dropped out of the pennant race. Without the possibility of winning a pennant, he lost his motivation to compete and with it went his ability to concentrate.
Aaron was still productive the year he broke the home run record, but without that motivator, he found his interest in playing disappeared. (Both Oliva and Carew left baseball before they wanted to. Oliva’s legs simply gave out and the Angels and Carew were not able to agree on a contract.)
In sum, motivation is viewed as the foundation of the mental aspects of hitting because it determined whether or not the hitters played baseball and it was the driving force behind their attention to the other mental aspects of hitting.
The primary motivators were internal, such as the love of hitting, pride, and fun, but external factors also played an important role in their hitting.
Baseball Coaching: How to Motivate Today’s Player
Straight from the mail bag today:
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Coach Jason writes:
IN THESE DAYS OF ‘EVERYONE GETS A TROPHY’ AND IF YOU DIE IN THE VIDEO GAME YOU GET UNLIMITED LIVES … HOW DO YOU MOTIVATE A KID THAT HAS ABOVE AVERAGE TALENT TO EXCEL AND NOT JUST PLAY AT THE LEVEL THAT IS HIS COMFORT ZONE?
YOU KNOW, HOW DO YOU GET
100%-ALL-OUT-WIN-OR-GO-HOME-WITH-MY-BALL EFFORT?
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TH: First of all, you might not be able to. For a coach or parent, a player’s motivation lies in the land of “I care about it but I can’t control it.”
Understanding what you can and can’t control is a foundational element of the mental game.
Hitters need to realize (“realize” is a whole different ball game from “knowing”) they can’t control getting a hit; pitchers need to realize they can’t control getting a batter out.
Likewise for the coach and parent re: player motivation
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But of course that doesn’t mean you don’t do anything about it. I could go on for book length about this question.
But today I’ll touch on one often overlooked piece: context.
By context I mean the surrounding elements in a player’s physical world which give rise to his all-importnat inner context (beliefs).
Let’s just say by context I mean his environment.
So my answer to Coach Jason’s question is to improve the player’s context.
(The normal approach is to focus on HIM. I’m saying focus on his environment.)
Put him in an environment that inspires him; gives him a taste of a good life that could come from playing good baseball.
For example…
Why is Tampa a baseball hot-bed producing more players than many other similar sized metro areas? There are “cues” in the Tampa environment that suggest a good life if you play good baseball.
And since this Tampa player and that Tampa player and that other Tampa player made it big and you are from Tampa YOU can make it big too, if you work.
A young Tampa player at my son’s Citrus Park field, for example, sees trophies of State Champions that have come before, including last summer’s Little League WS team.
The success is palpable in the environment.
I also felt it the first time I walked onto the Yankee’s minor league complex. The environment elevated performance.
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So my answer is to put this player in situations where success is expected. Hard work is the norm.
And where he can taste success. Taste passion. Taste the fun that comes from really committing and playing full out.
And the “taste” is hugely important.
A great talent can’t just be told about the great fun possible if he works hard, he needs to experience it.
So look for ways to get him that taste. One example is a personal brush with a role model. Another is my Baseball Success Secrets Coaching Program.
www.BaseballSuccessSecrets.com
Each week he’ll get an exercise to do that will give him the FEELING of great success. Feel success enough and you start to want more.
It’s like a drug. So maybe think of yourself as a “success pusher” — giving a player samples of the success feeling until he gets hooked.
Of course, just like a hitter, you can do everything right and still strike out. (but it’s not very smart to focus much on that…)
Dr. Tom
Tom Hanson, Ph.D.
p.s. Re-formatting my dissertation has taken a lot longer than I anticipated and I apologize to BSSCP members, but I’ll be done in the next few days.
Part of the delay is I’m re-experiencing it for really the first time since I set it aside in 1992.
Reading the words of Oliva, Musial, Aaron, Carew and Yaz has really been inspiring to me. The info in these 335 pages is staggering.
And my colleagues are wondering what I’m thinking giving it as a bonus for a $4.95 investment.
So once I get it done and do the “FAST START” bonus teleseminar Thursday night I will re-evaluate whether I will let it out for gratis.
So if you haven’t yet got the CD “The 7 Success Secrets of Baseball’s All-time Best” and the 2 weeks in my coaching program (with exercises that let you taste success) and my “Confidence Conditioning for Baseball” program and my doctoral dissertation (“The Mental Aspects of Hitting) for just the shipping cost, please do so now before I re-evaluate my bonus offer and start selling my
dissertation:
www.BaseballSuccessSecrets.com
p.p.s And please tweet this.
p.p.s. Last second thought: Coach or parent, YOU are a major part of his context. So you can upgrade his context by upgrading yourself. THAT is what my program does for you.
New Baseball Training Success Program Announced
What does it take to succeed?
I mean REALLY succeed?
That’s a question I’ve been asking for the past 18 years and I’ve made a good life by practicing and teaching what I’ve learned along the way.
I’ve never been more excited about what I am about to offer the baseball world than I am today and after this quick announcement, I’ll tell you why.
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Mark Your Calendar
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On Monday, September 14th from noon to 4pm Eastern time I’ll be broadcasting live the first ever “Success-athon”
online TV show.
No, I won’t be taking pledges, but I will be taking questions!
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Tune in by going to www.BaseballSuccessSecrets.com and entering your name and email address.
You’ll also immediately receive:
* My write up of my interview with Hank Aaron (a copy of which is in the Baseball Hall of Fame);
* My interview with AL Home Run leader Carlos Pena on how the Rays went from worst to first last year;
* A recording of my teleseminar “The Two Plaguing Baseball… and How to Cure Them,” in which I explain how the we’ve been robbing our players and ourselves of our potential for both results and enjoyment…and what one simple shift we can make to fix the problem;
*and a transcript of a powerful interview with Tony Robbins on how to succeed at anything.
Get all that here for no charge:
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New Program Launch: Tuesday Sept 15
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All this is in preparation for my new program, “The Baseball Success Secrets Coaching Program.”
On Tuesday next week you’ll be able to get “7 Success Secrets of Baseball’s All-time Best,” the one CD where I reveal everything I can about what I’ve learned studying and coaching baseball’s all-time best.
I’m on a mission to help baseball players, coaches and parents perform great, have more fun, and learn life success skills.
This program will bring together everything I’ve learned the past 19 years studying and coaching and practicing and put it’s it in a format that compels you to succeed.
I’ll tell you more in the next couple of days, but right now I’d like you to go get the hours of gratis success instruction at: www.BaseballSuccessSecrets.com.
Sincerely,
Dr. Tom
Tom Hanson, Ph.D.
p.s. What did you notice so far about your own energy since my email a couple of days ago? Do you feel like your energy is expanding or contracting?
Consistently notice that and you’ll elevate your game markedly.
p.p.s. The place to go now is www.BaseballSuccessSecrets.com
Please forward this email to your list of friends who are interested in baseball success.
Thank you.