"Devotion to Routine"...

I thought that a lot of you would be interested in this one. My dad emailed this to me. This however, is only a portion of the article, but I thought this was the part that stood out to me.

Devotion to routine

It shouldn't be hard to figure out which day is Schilling's to pitch. For one thing, he wears the same ensemble to the park -- one his wife and kids choose for him in spring training -- every time he pitches. Luis Gonzalez, Arizona's All-Star outfielder, threatened to burn Schilling's clothes after one season.

In that sense, Schilling has something in common with Nomar Garciaparra: a devotion to routine that does not vary.

"Mentally, I try to put myself in a place I can only get to once every five days," he said. "The only difference between my first start in spring training and my last start in the World Series is the game itself.

"I think if you have integrity, if you have pride, if you have respect for your teammates and the game, some sort of routine will develop naturally, because nobody just shows up and plays and does well for an extended period of time."

Fear of failure, he says, is a great motivator, and his pregame preparation reflects an attention to detail that very few pitchers approach. From Maddux, he said, he learned that the key to preparation is understanding when a hitter is going to swing at a pitch and when he is going to take one.

"Once you understand that," he said, "the key is throwing a strike when he's taking and a ball when he's swinging. It can be done. Hitters are creatures of habit. They do things on certain counts and in certain situations that they don't in other counts and in other situations. For a freakin' $13 million a year, is it too much to ask me to know when that is?"

Tony Gwynn, the future Hall of Famer from the San Diego Padres, inspired Schilling to amass his video library. Schilling was due to pitch against the Padres the night after Gwynn had five hits in a game. As he lay in bed, Schilling said, he was frustrated at the thought that Gwynn, a passionate student of pitching, knew exactly what Schilling planned to do the next day. Schilling decided that imitation was the highest form of flattery, and like Gwynn, he amassed a video library of every game he was in.

"I can break it down any way I want," he said. "I can pull up Andres Galarraga's at-bats against me and break them down by count, by pitch selection, pitch location, pitch result -- whatever I want to look at."

During games, it is not unusual to see Schilling position his fielders. They go along with it, because the results speak for themselves.

Even at 37, Schilling doesn't expect those results to change. At the outset of every season, his goals are to make 35 starts and pitch 245 innings, which averages to seven innings a start. No six innings and out for him.

"I've always felt as a starting pitcher that your reputation is made after the sixth inning," he said, "and what you do in the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings facing guys for a third or fourth time. That is really an in-depth look at how good you are.

"Top-of-the-rotation guys are not six-inning guys. Top-of-the-rotation guys, you're paying them (a) to win games and (b) to pitch innings. Nothing can be done without pitching innings. If you pitch your innings, and if you have the talent, all your other numbers will fall in place."

The rest of this article can be found on:
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2003/12/03/new_sox


Thanks Dad.

 

Great post...terrific information from the people that would know

 

Nice article!

"I think if you have integrity, if you have pride, if you have respect for your teammates and the game, some sort of routine will develop naturally, because nobody just shows up and plays and does well for an extended period of time."
Most important paragraph as I see it! Youngsters at the HS level need to understand this and appreciate it more... When their approach is like that of the above their success ultimately comes thru.... Whereas those that MAY HAVE TALENT yet do not see as the above continue to wonder WHY WHY? Thier game suffers and most often they look to someone else to blame agree or disagree???