“Baseball” in a Nutshell

• stadmin
• June 23, 2025
• 5:45 pm
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• “Baseball” in a Nutshell

I'm coaching Maddux's 10U All-Star team again this season and we had our 1st game on Saturday.

The team played great and won 4-1 but the point of this blog has nothing to do with that win.

Maddux, after absolutely crushing the ball in our 3 All-Star scrimmages leading up to our 1st real game (3 doubles, several walks and 0 strikeouts), went 0-3 with 2 strikeouts on Saturday.

Welcome to baseball, young man!

In one at-bat, he hit a routine groundball to SS and got thrown out at 1st. Nothing interesting to learn from that trip to the plate. Most of the time a player hits the ball fair in baseball, he gets out.

But his other 2 ABs, which resulted in strikeouts perfectly captured two "isms" of baseball that all young ballplayers need to learn.

"Baseball is a game of inches."

In his 1st AB, he took a good pitch on the outside corner for Strike 1, fouled the 2nd pitch straight back for Strike 2, and then on the 3rd pitch did a great job of keeping his hands back on a curveball and hit a hard groundball past the 3rd base bag that rolled to the LF fence, but went foul by about an inch or two.

He then worked the count full, fouled off a few more 2 Strike pitches before ultimately hitting a foul tip into the catcher's glove.

Definitely a legit strikeout, and of course he was disappointed walking back to the dugout.

But had the 2 strike curveball been hit a couple inches closer to the bag, he would have been standing on 2nd base with a lead-off double, scoring 3 pitches later when our second hitter ripped a base hit to the outfield.

The difference between leading off the game with a standup double and then scoring to give our team a quick 1-0 lead was literally inches. Instead, he led off the game with a strikeout. Better get to used to it, kid, because the difference between "out" and "safe" and "hero" or "zero" is often just a couple inches in this sport!

"Lots of things are totally out of our control."

In his other strikeout, he also had a competitive at-bat fouling off good pitches and not swinging at bad pitches to once again work himself into a full-count.

The final pitch of the at-bat was a solid 5 inches outside, he didn't swing, and the umpire said "STRIKE 3!" and for the second time in the game, Maddux found himself walking back to the dugout after striking out.

The fact is he went 0-3 with 2 strikeouts. Period. No excuses. But not all 0-3 days are the same!

On a different day, the exact same process at the plate (a couple inches in his 1st AB and a different call on the last pitch in his 3rd AB) would have resulted in a 1-2 with a double, walk, a run scored, and 0 strikeouts stat line.

I get this. Coaches and adults who understand baseball get this. But kids (Maddux included!) don't get this yet and it's our job to teach them by making sure that we respond appropriately and rationally to their process and results.

And that said, there will be lots of 0-3 days (for him and every other ballplayer) that are the result of bad swings, poor timing, weak hits, and good pitching. That's also a totally normal and expected part of the game, but as we're trying to teach young ballplayers how to deal with the emotional rollercoaster that baseball often is, celebrating good ABs regardless of the result is crucial!

So much of what happens on the baseball field is out of the player's control, and again, the sooner they learn this fact the better because that's truth about the game from Little League to the Big Leagues! Bad hops, bad calls, and what the defense does while we're hitting are all common instances of "out of our control" that can mess with ballplayers' heads, but are actually not worthy of expending energy on because nothing can be done to change those outcomes.

Example 1: an infielder moves his feet correctly on a groundball, gets his glove down, does everything right and then the ball takes a bad hop and he is charged with an error. Out of his control..."Baseball" strikes again!

Example 2: a batter correctly doesn't swing at a pitch well out of the strike zone but still gets rung up with a backwards K. Out of his control..."Baseball" strikes again!

Example 3: a batter smashes a line-drive in the gap but the CF makes a diving catch. Out of his control..."Baseball" strikes again!

Example 4: a pitcher throws a great pitch that catches the corner of the strike zone but the umpire calls it a ball. Out of his control..."Baseball" strikes again!

This is why the process is so important; a ballplayer has complete control over that part of the game every time he steps on the field.

The results are so often out of our control in baseball (especially compared to other sports) that developing mental toughness by focusing on and rewarding the process is essential to becoming a successful ballplayer.

This is often more difficult to do in "big games" like All-Stars or during the playoffs when the results are magnified and it's precisely because of that fact it's even more important as coaches, players, and parents that we emphasize the process above all else.

After our game on Saturday, Maddux was ecstatic that our team won (especially after going two and BBQ during All Stars last year!), but I could tell that his own performance was bothering him. He had a great regular season, a great All-Star pre-season, and is batting lead-off for our team - I'm sure he had high expectations of himself and probably felt like he let the team down by not having a better game at the plate.

I explained all this to him yesterday (intentionally NOT right after the game when young emotions are the rawest) not only so that he felt better about a performance that was better than the results showed, but to prepare for him for the next time this inevitably happens...which could as early as today's Game 2!

Our goal as parents and coaches should not only to be build good ballplayers from a skill standpoint but resilient young athletes; all of whom will one day be grown men who will need all of the life skills that youth sports can be so good at teaching.

Play Hard, Have Fun!