Much can be gleaned by interacting with a baseball pitching machine. The best lessons taken from baseball or a softball pitching machine actually have very little to do with baseball. Standing in the batters box with balls flying by at 70 miles an hour offers itself to insight and awareness. Everyday a hundred issues 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, wait until I’m in the bathroom to readjust the equipment, run to catch the cross light or wait? Facing pitches thrown by a machine is a good exercise and perfect metaphor for life.

A major league baseball player knows that every time 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 waste time griping about why the pitcher is a slider, or why he’s making it hard to hit a homerun. The batter isn’t angry because the pitcher is throwing fast balls and change ups to try and fool him. The batter won’t feel sad because he thinks the pitcher doesn’t like him. It is the way the game is played, the objectives are clear and the positions well defined. The batter is out if you miss when swinging at three balls in the strike zone. Is he angry at the man on the mound? Heck In fact he probably admires the pitcher for his skill and is mad at himself for not doing better. The batter made his decisions, to swing hard, to bunt or to watch the ball go by. If he grounds out or goes down swinging, he goes back to the dugout, disappointed, but knowing he will swing again. He doesn’t blame anyone else or make a bunch of excuses, or feel like the pitcher was being unfair. He swung away and he will live to play another day.

For a lot of folks life is not as black and white or as oppositional as baseball. It is much more like confronting a batting machine. The machine cares about nothing. It doesn’t care if the person with the bat is black, white, purple, tall, short, or shaped like a gourd. The machine 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 quick as a major league fastball. Should they swing, bunt or duck? If they get hit by a pitch do they run out to the mound and pick a fight with the mechanical arm? No, they do not. A mechanical bean ball is not a malicious action. Life is just throwing things at them. They can spit and holler, cuss and kick. It won’t help, but they can do that if it comforts them. The true focus needs to go into getting back into the box and facing the next ball, watch it come in and decide whether to swing or pass.

Baseball has much to teach us all. Baseballs basic rules can become rules for living. Take a swing or let it go, 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 cool about life is; you can always take a swing.

Related baseball articles:

1. Start Improving Your Swing With Pitching Machines
2. Batting Cages – A Vital Tool To Help Develop A Skill
3. Keep Your Game Up With a Commercial Baseball Pitching Machine
4. Guidelines For Teaching Groups To Become Better Coordinated
5. Why You Need Good Mechanics as a Pitcher

Category: Baseball Training• Tags used in this article: batting  List of baseball jargon  Pitcher  Strike zone 

Baseball articles on the web based on related keywords: batting  List of baseball jargon  Pitcher  Strike zone