Much can be gleaned by interacting with a baseball pitching machine. The best instruction taken from baseball or a softball pitching machine actually have nothing to do with baseball. Standing in the batters box with balls flying by at 70 miles an hour offers itself to insight and awareness. Everyday a hundred issues fly past every normal Joe and Julia walking the street. Decisions are constantly being made every minute. Should I wait for this car to pass, should I scratch my nose before putting down the donut, should I call Teddy back, take the stairs or elevator, use blue ink or black ink, wait until I’m in the bathroom to readjust the equipment, run to catch the cross light or wait? Facing pitches thrown by a machine is a good exercise and perfect metaphor for life.
A major league baseball player knows that whenever he goes to the plate, the pitcher is trying to strike him out. That’s the game and the way to play it. The batter doesn’t whine about why the pitcher is throwing so hard, or why he’s making it hard to hit a homerun. The batter isn’t mad at the pitcher because he is throwing fast balls and change ups to try and fool him. The batter won’t feel sad because he thinks the pitcher hates him. It’s how you play the game, the objectives are clear and the positions well defined. A batter strikes out after swinging the bat at three balls in the strike zone. Is he angry at the man on the mound? Gosh darn no way admires the pitcher for his skill and is mad at himself for not doing better. The man with the bat made his decisions, to swing hard, to bunt or to watch the ball go by. If he pops up or strikes out, he goes back to the dugout, disappointed, but aware that he will step into the box again. He doesn’t blame anyone else or make a bunch of excuses, or feel like the pitcher was being unfair. He swung away and he will live to swing again.
For most people life is not as black and white or as confrontational as baseball. Life is much more like facing a batting machine. The machine has no worries. It doesn’t care if the person with the bat is black, white, purple, tall, short, or shaped like a gourd. It just keeps tossing pitches. It doesn’t care if the batter zings it out of the park or fans the air.
That is the way life is for most people. Life comes at them quick as a major league fastball. Should they swing, pass or duck? If they get hit by a pitch do they run out to the mound and pick a fight with the mechanical arm? Nope, they do not. A mechanical bean ball is not a malicious action. Life is just tossing things at them. They can gripe and complain, cuss and kick. It does no good, but they are welcome to act badly if it comforts them. The true focus needs to go into stepping back to the plate and facing the next ball, watch it come in and decide whether to swing or pass.
America’s past time has much to offer all of us. Baseballs basic rules can become rules for living. Swing or pass, it’s nothing personal. In the game of life, we’re always at the plate and there are no strike outs. That is what is cool about life is; you can always take a swing.
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January 23, 2010
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