Everybody Gets A Fast Ball Once In Awhile, Laugh And Swing
Posted in Freshwater Angling on the January 31, 2010
Much can be gleaned by spending time with a baseball pitching machine. The best instruction taken from baseball or a softball pitching machine actually have nothing to do with baseball. Poised in front of the plate with balls flying by at 70 miles an hour lends itself to some serious life lessons. Everyday a thousand things fly past every normal Joe and Julia walking the street. Hundreds of decisions are made every second. 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, zip up my fly now or wait until I can duck into a closet, run to catch the cross light or wait? Facing baseballs tossed 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 going to try to get him out. That’s the nature of the sport and the way it is played. 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 is the way the game is played, the objectives are clear and the roles are obvious. A batter strikes out after swinging the bat at three balls in the strike zone. Is he angry at the man on the mound? Heck {no|darn no way|. If anything he 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 took his swings and he will live to play another day.
For a lot of folks life is not as black and white or as confrontational as baseball. Life is much more like confronting a batting machine. The machine cares about nothing. It doesn’t care if the batter is black, white, purple, tall, short, or shaped like a gourd. It just keeps throwing pitches. It doesn’t care if the batter zings it out of the park or fans the air.
That is the way the world is for a lot of folks. Things are coming at them a million miles an hour. Should they swing, pass or duck? If they get beaned by a ball 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 throwing things at them. They can gripe and complain, argue and weep. It won’t help, but they are welcome to act badly if it comforts them. The real energy 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 the pitches just keep coming. That is what is so great; you can just keep swinging.