negative thought, stop, let it run its course, and then let it go. âCause it doesnât mean crap. The only thing that matters is focusing on the task at hand, which is making that pitch. The task at hand.â
Itâs a page right out of classic Zen meditationâstop, label the distracting thoughts, and return to your breath. Dorfman reminded Moyer of one of baseballâs most infamous cases of the yips, when Dodgers second basemen Steve Sax suddenly, inexplicably could no longer make the rudimentary throw from second to first. If, when Sax fielded the ball, he thought to himself, Iâm not going to throw this ball away , he might have thought he was thinking positively. But he was actually focusing his mind on committing an errorâin effect, directing his body to do just that. A better thought, Dorfman explained, would be, Iâm going to hit the first baseman with a throw thatâs chest high .
To get there, though, the player has to learn to think about what heâs thinking. To reformulate his thoughts. Dorfman suggested an exercise. âI want you to rephrase everything youâve already told me, taking out all the âcanâtâ stuff, all the negativity. Restate it. Go ahead. I challenge you.â
This is going to be hard , Moyer thought. How do you positively observe that you canât throw your curveball for strikes? He stammered and stuttered, started and stopped. Finally, he came to this: âIâm going to throw a sweeping curveball that catches the inside corner to a righthanded hitter.â
Dorfman seemed pleased. But, he said, just stating that isnât enough. âYou need to see it,â he said. âYou need to visualize the flight of that curveball before you throw it. So you say it, you see it, and then you throw it.â
In this way, Dorfman explained, the mind was as much a muscle as any other on the pitcherâs body: âWeâre training it.â
Moyerâs own idol, Steve Carlton, was the master of such training. Carlton considered pitching nothing more than a heightened game of catch between him and his catcher; the batter was merely incidental. On days that heâd pitch, Carlton would lie down on the training table after batting practice and close his eyes. Teammates would laugh, thinking he was napping. In reality, he was imagining his âlanesâ in the strike zoneâan outer lane and an inner lane. Heâd imagine the flight of his ball within those lanes, over and over. The middle of the plate didnât exist in his mindâs eye, and nor did any menacing hitters or rabid fans. He was fixated on those lanes. He was focused, as Dorfman would say, on âthe task at hand.â
The moral of the Carlton example? âItâs not about anyone else,â Dorfman said. âItâs all about you . Youâre the one with the ball in your hand. Youâre the one everyone else reacts to. Youâre in charge.â
It had been so long since Moyer felt in charge on the mound. He had always wanted to be Steve Carlton, who, miraculously, heâd beaten in his major league debut for the Cubs five years earlier. Growing up in Souderton, Jamie would be in front of the big color TV every fifth day in the living room of that modest house on North Fourth Street, watching Lefty, who always seemed so in control of his emotions and surroundings. He might not have Carltonâs heat or his world-class slider, but he could certainly emulate his mastery of the mental game.
It had been two hours. âGo relax in your room, watch TV,â Dorfman told him. Instead, Moyer flopped on the twin bed in the Dorfmansâ guest room and flipped open a notebook. He hurriedly scribbled notes, fearing heâd forget what he just learned, even as he was excitedly unsure about precisely what he was learning.
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Jamie Moyer had never before been fearful on the mound. Even as he dominated in high school and at