CHAPTER 1

Difficult Game ... Formidable System

Immortal New York Yankee outfielder Mickey Mantle and "Mr.October" Reggie Jackson summed up the sport of baseball whenthey analyzed their Hall of Fame careers.

"During my eighteen years I came to bat almost 10,000 times," saidMantle, who won seven World Series titles with the Yankees. "I struckout about 1,700 times and walked maybe 1,800 times. You figure aballplayer will average about 500 at bats a season. That means I playedseven years in the Major Leagues without even hitting the ball!"

Jackson, an outfielder and slugger who won three World Series ringswith the Oakland Athletics and two as a Yankee, had a slightly differentview of the same problem. "When you play the game for ten years, goto bat 7,000 times, and get 2,000 hits, you know what that means? Itmeans you've gone 0-for-5,000!"

That is the startling truth about a sport that can be a harrowingroller-coaster ride for even the most accomplished hitters. Batters oftengo through mind-numbing days or weeks without a hit. The successfulspell of 6-for-10 can just as quickly turn into a slump of 0-for-20,which will play mind games with the toughest competitors in thebusiness. Depending on which historical number cruncher you believe,the Major League Baseball record is 45 or 46 at bats without a hit byan outstanding catcher named Billy Bergen when he was playing forthe Brooklyn Superbas, the forerunner of the old Brooklyn Dodgers,in 1909. Craig Counsell, who won World Series rings with the FloridaMarlins and the Arizona Diamondbacks, went 0-for-45 in his finalseason with the Milwaukee Brewers in 2011 to either tie the record orfall one short. He did set a dubious record of sorts, going 0-for-July, arun of thirty-one fruitless at bats!

I watched my son Justin be tormented by the frustration offighting the ever-present slumps of the game through high school tothe pros, particularly an 0-for-37 run when he was struggling througha debilitating wrist injury in the Minor Leagues. I have watched prosbecome frustrated or shell-shocked after being swept with a "goldensombrero" (four strikeouts in a game, which is one more than a hattrick) at the plate or blasted by back-to-back home runs beyond thebleachers. I have seen Little League and independent select/travel teamyouth players reduced to tears when they swing and miss many timesin a game.

As the title of this chapter suggests, this is a very difficult gamewithin a formidable system. After years of watching moms and dads—especiallythose just starting out in Little League and select/travel ball—frettingover their sons' performances, I concluded that I needed topoint out in the beginning how physically hard baseball is, no matterhow far a kid is likely to travel in the sport. I have seen the parentalangst and the frustrations of youngsters who worry that they simply maynot have the goods or just need to develop physically. Maybe it is a littleof both, or as veterans of the baseball wars will attest, it might just bethe sport itself. Baseball does not suddenly become easy at any age. Thebaseball gods will smile on a select few and allow them to perform withdistinction over time, but they ensure that nobody ever truly masterstheir sport, not even Hall of Famers like Mantle and Jackson.

Hitting and pitching aside for the moment, it is my experiencethat it is just as daunting for a player and his family to negotiate the"system"—an assembly line from youth leagues through high schooland college to the two levels of the professional game, the Minor andMajor Leagues. For our family it was the great unknown, and with helpand trial and error, we managed to put the pieces together. Select/travelteams and showcases, college recruiting and the time...