The Way of Baseball

by Shawn Green

  So, it was back to work on the stride.

  I knew that my front foot landing properly was my gateway to the zone. A fraction of a second late and the rest of my swing would have to rush to catch up; a fraction of a second early and my body would tense up as it waited. I reviewed the different types of strides I’d employed this season. I’d begun with a normal, traditional stride in which the foot just moves forward. Next, I changed to a Chipper Jones-style stride, which consisted of taking a small, quick step back (a mere toe tap) with my lead foot before striding forward, a sort of double-stride that got the process started sooner. That didn’t help. Next, I shifted to my Albert Belle-style stride, in which I’d pick up my front foot and then put it right back down in the same place, thus landing sooner. That didn’t work either. Finally, I tried my Jose Canseco-style stride, wherein I’d pick up my back foot about half an inch and then stomp it down immediately before striding with my front foot.

  Nothing worked …

  Was it time for my last resort?

  No stride at all.

  Without a stride, I’d be unable to generate much power. I recalled my former teammate Tony Fernandez, who used to sacrifice a few games by going with an ultra-heavy bat to get his swing right. He took the long view. Perhaps it was time for me to sacrifice some power over the following week in order to find my timing.

  The next day at the stadium, I had my day off. On such days, a player has two choices: one is to do nothing, the other is to get to work. Both options have value. Sometimes, the best thing a person can do is enjoy separation from the cause of the stress. Other times, some extra sweat helps resolve problems. I opted for the sweaty day, excited to work on my new stride or, rather, my no-stride.

  First, I did my tee work. Next, I took batting practice on the field, with no stride. Finally, I asked hitting coach Jack Clark to join me for a long session in the cage. We brought coach Manny Mota with us to do the throwing. I wanted to hit with no stride to the point at which I’d be physically unable to take even one more swing, pulling another old technique out of my bag of tricks: hitting to exhaustion. Of course, this approach cannot be overworked as it burns a lot of energy (and energy is more valuable than gold during a 162-game schedule). The purpose of the drill is to take the little man out of the swinging process and to reconnect with the simple, physical movement of hitting.

  I grinded through the first fifteen minutes, pretending my front foot was nailed to the ground. It felt awkward. After making sure Manny wasn’t going to faint from exhaustion, I asked him to throw another fifteen minutes. At last, Manny said in his heavy Dominican accent, “That looks better, Flaco, your swing’s shorter and quicker without your stride.”

  “Thanks, Manny. But I’m not done. Are you okay to keep throwing or should I grab someone else? I don’t want to kill you down here.”

  “Come on, Flaco. You know I can throw all day.”

  “Great,” I answered, wiping my soaked head and neck with a towel. “Hey, I hope when I’m ninety I’m in as good shape as you are!”

  He gave me a look, a smile, and then threw the next pitch behind my back.

  “Okay, Manny, I’ll just keep my mouth shut and swing,” I said, laughing.

  Over the next ten pitches, the little man finally packed his bags and it took over. My dog-tired swings, in conjunction with my no stride, became suddenly effortless (for the first time all season). I’d become a witness rather than a doer—line drive after line drive. I kept this up for nearly ten minutes, at which point my legs began shaking and I could barely rotate anymore.

  As I took off my batting gloves, I noticed a hearty blister on my hand. I was so connected to the act of swinging that I hadn’t even felt it. Now, it burned as my sweat seeped into the open wound. It felt good. Maybe the pleasure came because the blister was a badge of hard work, or maybe the pain just cemented my connection to the present moment.

  Maybe this blister was the start of something good.

  My work for the day was over. I took a shower before the game and changed into my uniform. Since I was going to be riding the pine, I wanted to be comfortable. I felt great having found a connection to the zone during my cage work. It didn’t matter that the connection happened during practice rather than during a game. Hitting is hitting, whether you’re playing wiffle ball or facing Cy Young.

  I was back on track.

  The next game, I went to the plate with my no-stride approach. Because my swing was quicker now, it took me a few at-bats to recalibrate my timing. By my fourth at-bat I made contact, grounding out to the first baseman. I knew I just needed to be patient (like Tony Fernandez with his heavy bat). On my last at-bat, I got the timing right and laced a ball from the Expos pitcher, my good friend Matt Herges, off the wall in right-centerfield, my first hit in nearly twenty at-bats. It felt good, even if it resulted only in a smattering of mock cheers from the crowd. After the game, we packed our bags for a road trip to Milwaukee and Arizona. I was happy for a change of scenery, anxious to put on the road-gray uniform and play for a while away from the booing. Besides, I was hopeful about my no-stride approach. I’d finally snapped my 0-for streak. Maybe my timing was coming around sooner rather than later. Maybe something good would come of it on the road trip.

  The week that followed was like no other in my entire career. In some statistical ways, it was like no week any major league ballplayer had ever experienced. My swing became literally effortless, and everything came together to a degree that I never imagined possible. Psychologists call it a sustained peak experience. Ballplayers call it being in the zone or being locked in. Recalling the historic week now, I am struck by how intensely grounded I was in the moment. There was no past, no future, only the present. For that reason, the most accurate way of describing the zone may be to look back at what I was actually experiencing while in the midst of it.

  Milwaukee

  May 21, 2002

  I’m sitting here in my hotel room waiting for my midnight room-service snack, surprised by what happened tonight at the ballpark. I continued with the no-stride approach, figuring I’d sacrifice at least a week to get my timing down and start seeing results. But it showed up tonight. I stood in the batter’s box for each of my five at-bats with my attention focused on the image of my front foot being nailed to the ground. Only when the pitcher entered his windup did I extend my attention from that foot out to him. Wait a second … Sportscenter is about to show highlights of our game. I want to check out my stride in the two home run swings I had tonight.

  Hey, my swing looks so much shorter and so much simpler!

  But here’s another surprise on the television.

  I actually did take a stride, even though I intended to keep that foot locked in place. Still, the stride was smaller and more efficient than it’s been all year. It’s funny how, as a hitter, you have to intend to make extreme changes (such as having my foot nailed to the ground) in order to break bad habits, even though the actual differences between before and after may prove subtle, almost indistinguishable. It turns out that the intention of making a change may be as important as the actual mechanical change itself.

  I’ve experienced this during yoga sessions where I’ll move into different poses as my off-season instructor Steve guides my awareness: “Move your attention into your fingers, feel your whole hand on the floor. Now, feel your body lengthening through your shoulders. Imagine that your ‘sit bones’ are extending away from your heels.” He guides my awareness continuously during the workouts. When I first began, I was amazed that simply by imagining my rear end, or what Steve called “sit bones,” moving away from my heels, I could feel a deeper stretch in my hamstrings.

  I guess that’s no different than transforming life habits. The body and mind resist change. It takes not only time and repetition, but also often requires extreme intentions (such as my imagining my foot being nailed to the batter’s box) to achieve even subtle results. I notice this phenomenon in many areas of my life: working out, medit
ation, diet.

  Speaking of eating …

  Dave Roberts and I ate today at my lucky Italian restaurant, Giovanni’s, which I’ve been going to since my rookie year with the Jays. Last year, I went there every day of our three-game series in Milwaukee and I homered in each game. I told Dave the place had lots of homers in their chicken parm. And tonight he hit his first homer of the year! I guess we’ll be going back there again tomorrow.

  Seeing Sarge today also gave me a boost. I haven’t seen him since we were in Toronto together back in ’99. The Brewers are lucky to have him as their hitting coach. He rode me pretty hard on the field during batting practice, as he always loved to do. He joked with me, “Greenie, I’ve been watching your swing on television and it looks pa-thetic!” I told him I was getting my timing under control and that I’ll always be one step ahead of him. He laughed. I’m sure my two home runs tonight will shut him up for the rest of the series. He’s always been a big supporter, always a boost to my confidence.

  Glad I stuck to my plan …

  Okay, it’s late and I’m tired. I hope Lindsay calls back soon so I can go to sleep. I’m anxious to hear about her doctor’s appointment. Six weeks pregnant! Things happen when they’re supposed to happen. We may try to control and change the flow of life to fit into our own schedules, but life moves at its own pace. All we can do is chop wood each day, and make adjustments as needed, and remain nonresistant to life.

  Phone’s ringing … a good end to a good day.

  It takes discipline to keep your eyes on process rather than on results. After all, resisting immediate failure is a natural enough impulse; however, doing so often means that you also unintentionally resist the potential for greater success. My disappointing first season in Los Angeles had taught me to fight for only one thing each day, remaining in the present moment. As long as I remained present, I’d be prepared when it arrived, the flow of life, the entry to the zone. That first game of the Milwaukee series, I recognized the emergence of it taking over my swing. That game was the start of something great, for which I needed only to discipline myself to remain present and let the flow of life take me for a ride.

  Midair

  May 23, 2002

  I’m on the plane now heading from Milwaukee to Phoenix and I’m exhausted. It’s safe to say that my inkling that I might be entering the zone after hitting two home runs on Tuesday night was an understatement. The next night against one of the best young pitchers in the game, Ben Sheets, I hit a triple and scored the only run of our 1-0 victory. Even though I struck out twice, I felt great at the plate (it is possible to have good at-bats that end in strikeouts).

  I woke up this morning feeling physically tired but unusually alert and aware after last night’s game. I didn’t make it back to Giovanni’s for lunch today, because I had to get to the ballpark at nine for the one o’clock start. I guess Giovanni’s isn’t the source of the magic. Otherwise, all that happened for me at the plate today wouldn’t have happened.

  Superstitions are fun, but they don’t explain success. Still, baseball players are famously superstitious, probably because superstition seems to offer a way to control those things that are actually out of our control, such as finding the zone. The truth is that even the most skilled hitter can’t dictate when the zone will arrive or how long it will stay. The common anxiety attached to that lack of control explains why so many of us, myself included, naively choose to believe that if we repeat all that we were doing as we entered the zone we’ll manage to hang onto it. In baseball, teammates and coaches harp, “Don’t change a thing!” So, streaking ballplayers eat the same meals in the same restaurants, leave for the stadium at the exact same hour, and try to do everything else in the same manner as before.

  If only it were so easy.

  The only real way to exercise any control of the zone is to simply be prepared for its arrival. I learned that if I followed my routine with complete presence, chopping wood and carrying water each day without worrying about the past or the future, the zone would show up. Yes, sometimes I needed to tweak my swing. But, after that, the best thing to do was to absorb myself in my daily routines. Unlike superstition, a routine is an exercise of discipline, creating a space through which the zone can enter of its own volition. When we practice our daily chores without ulterior motives, a routine becomes like the rubbing together of two sticks; if you keep at it fire eventually happens. You don’t know exactly when it will arrive—it just does.

  And, when the zone arrives, daily routine becomes critical to sustaining it. Nothing yanks you out of it faster than the little man jumping on your shoulder to whisper, “Wow, isn’t this wonderful! Let’s think about how great we’re feeling at the plate and how we’ve finally got it all figured out.” The best way to guard against that little man is to rely on your daily routine, done with presence. Achieving the state of no-mind is the key to getting into the zone and sustaining that state is key to staying there for as long as possible.

  Back to the journal entry from May 23, written when I was traveling at 38,000 feet high, both literally and figuratively.

  … I poured every cell of my body into today’s game. Sixfor-six for first time in my life (including Little League), with four of the hits being home runs! I’ve repeatedly recapped today’s game with the media and my teammates, so I may as well put it here too. I’ll write about it and then it’ll be over. Just as I use my batting gloves for closure after both home runs and strikeouts, I’ll use the completion of this journal entry as my symbol for closure. Today’s game is over and I have a new game tomorrow.

  My first at-bat was against Glendon Rusch, a veteran left-handed pitcher who is aggressive with his fastball while also mixing in some breaking stuff. With a runner on second and a 0-2 count, I took a fastball high for ball one. The high fastball was intended to set me up for the next pitch, which I suddenly knew would be a breaking ball over the plate that would start at that same height but break downward into the strike zone. He was hoping I’d be fooled and take strike three. I wasn’t fooled. I hit the pitch just inside the line past the first baseman for an RBI double.

  In the second inning, with runners at first and second and two outs, Rusch threw a breaking ball for a strike (a smart pitcher will often start you off with the same pitch you pounded for a hit on your previous at-bat, betting that most hitters will mistakenly think he’s scared to throw the same pitch). Next, he threw a hard fastball inside for a ball. Immersed in the moment and with my awareness completely directed out to the mound, I knew what he was going to throw next even before he did.

  He was going to come inside on the next pitch.

  While I got into my stance, I imagined a pitch coming on the inside corner to make sure my eyes would be ready for it when it happened. Next, I placed my attention on my front foot being nailed to the dirt and then moved my attention out to Rusch as he came set. He threw a fastball on the inside corner and I hit a high fly over the wall in right field for a three-run homer. (It’s so nice to be hitting the ball with backspin again! Those high pop-ups carry for an eternity when my swing is right.)

  By the time my third at-bat rolled around, I was locked in. I led off the fourth inning against a rookie I’d never faced before, Brian Mallette. He threw me a 1-1 slider on the inner half of the plate and I put it over the fence and onto the walkway in right-center field. I didn’t even feel my legs moving as I jogged around the bases. When I faced him again in the fifth inning, I no longer needed to focus my attention on my right foot being nailed to the ground.

  Everything was working now on its own.

  His first pitch was up and away for a ball. Somehow, I knew what was coming next: a two-seam fastball away. I wasn’t thinking about it with my mind, no guessing. He wasn’t tipping his pitches. I just knew. This sense of knowing came from a place much deeper than the mind. I was almost out of my body. At that moment, there wasn’t a pitch near the plate that I couldn’t handle. When the pitch came, I launched it deep into the seats
in left field. I floated around the bases with blissful ambivalence, fully occupied as the watcher rather than my usual role as the doer. Of course, I was happy to have just hit my third homer of the day (and fifth in three days), but I was residing in a place beyond numbers.

  Fully engaged in the now, without the slightest feeling of anxiety or judgment about what was taking place, I led off the eighth inning against another new pitcher, Jose Cabrera. Sure, I wanted to hit a fourth home run, but I didn’t change my approach. He threw a 1-0 fastball down, maybe even below the strike zone, and I lined it right back up the middle for a single. Even though it wasn’t a home run, it may have been the hardest ball I hit all day.

  When I got back to the dugout, five for five, manager Jim Tracy said to me in his Southern accent, “All right, Flaco, take it on in and shower up. We’ve seen enough of your act today!” It’s always nice to leave a blowout game early, but I told him I’d rather finish this one. In the top of the ninth, Adrian Beltre hit a two-out homer to bring me to the plate for a sixth at-bat. The opposing crowd welcomed me with cheers. As the game was already a blowout, I think almost everyone on the field and in the stadium (except Jose Cabrera, out on the mound) wanted to see me hit a fourth home run.

  I walked up to the plate. I couldn’t help wondering if Cabrera was going to put a ninety-plus miles per hour pitch into my rib cage. I wasn’t worried (God knows every part of my body has tasted leather over the years), but just curious. Plenty of teams would send such a message for the next time they faced me (which is next week in Los Angeles). I dug into the box and realized that the little man was giving it one more try to distract me. My attention had been so focused today that maybe he thought my exhaustion had weakened me. It almost worked. I stepped out of the box, took a breath, and said to myself, “There’s no sense thinking now.” I shifted my attention back into my body and then onto the guy on the mound, dissolving the little man.