Having watched so many hundreds (maybe it's thousands, but I can't be sure) of hours of baseball, I feel an empathy with pitchers that runs deep and wide. Although this doesn't keep me from muttering curses at them anyway, the more I work on writing, the more I understand the pitcher's plight.
First of all, there is the pressure to perform. There is a lot less talk about a flagging offense in baseball than there is about poor starters and scuffling bullpens. And it's true: it doesn't matter how much run support a team gives a pitcher if the man on the mound walks too many and gives up too many long balls. But, if the starting pitching is decent, and the bully is even reasonable, there's still not as much focus on the bats as there is on the arm and the man behind it.
As a struggling writer, I know that sense of pressure. With no team behind me to provide support, there is even more pressure to perform. And the more people tell me to write, the less I do it. It's some kind of perverse mindset that makes the ideas go flat and the keyboard loom too large, every time someone asks me, "So, have you written anything lately?" I have to imagine it's a little like the reaction that a pitcher has every time the pitching coach gets on him about his ERA, or how many walks he issued in the last inning. Somehow, the mind digs in and then the body won't cooperate. But, if things are going well, and the ball is flying to the plate and then dropping into the dirt, or hovering around the corners and fooling batters into swinging when they shouldn't, a pitcher can do no wrong. Same thing with writing. When it flows, it flows and there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it. But there is no way to force the words to appear on that blank page.
An athlete's mind and body somehow have to work together, but not consciously. Tension in a pitcher or batter is anathema to success. As soon as a batter tenses up, his rhythm is thrown off, his mechanics aren't in sync, and he'll strike out, ground out, or fly out: anyway it's an out. A tense pitcher literally tries to get too perfect and starts nibbling. Trying to find the strike zone will surely lead to balls, walks, and runs scored.
Writing is much the same. Trying to write is impossible. That awful Nike ad was unfortunately right, in that one does have to "Just do it." Trying to be perfect as a writer leads to frustration and eventual "writer's block." There is no perfection in baseball or writing. But if you approach the plate or the keyboard relaxed and "in the zone," the stats are in your favor that you'll meet with some success.
It's a bummer being a fan of a losing team. Following the Diamondbacks for the last couple of years has been an exercise in frustration often times. But, it's also interesting, because you do learn a lot more from watching mistakes than from seeing success. As I have followed the trial and error of the Dbacks, I have discovered much about the importance of perseverance, patience, loyalty, and the willingness to try new things when the old just isn't working anymore. I have also learned that, truly, winning isn't everything, but it sure beats the heck out of losing. As I have struggled personally over the past couple of years myself, I am also realizing those same things. I am not going to try to be perfect. But I am going to keep trying. I am not going to expect to win all of the time, but I am not going to brand myself a loser. And if I compare myself in the rankings to all of the other teams out there, I will be totally disheartened. What I will do though, is focus on improving my own performance, increase my own stats, and expect that in the long run, even if I don't win, hopefully I can be proud of how I played the game.
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