The Team, the Team, the Team

Some 6400kms away from New Zealand on the tiny U.S island territory of Guam, 18 Kiwis, ages 13-14, stood arm in arm in a circle, long after most everyone had left the ballpark. Jackson Tapiki belted out with his tired, raspy voice a church song his father used to sing. Though he doesn't remember what it was called, he remembers it word for word and anyone listening could hear and feel the emotion emanating from the group. Afterwards the team knelt down and set their caps down in the circle and resumed their arm in arm embrace as they prayed and gave thanks to their new found brotherhood and also their friends and family who supported them and made it possible for them to travel to Guam and challenge for the right to represent WBSC Oceania in the U15 World Cup to be held in July 2024.

3 long years had passed since the last time New Zealand was able to compete on this stage. Covid-19, followed by the floods and Hurricane Gabrielle had tried its best to suck the life out of the game these kids love to play. In fact, the first 5 months of 2023 produced more rainfall than the average annual rainfall in Auckland which couldn't have come at a worse time for the Auckland hopefuls as practices, games and tournaments were cancelled with regularity in the lead up to National trials in April. In Wellington, amongst other challenges, the lack of any 90' foot baseball diamonds in the area meant Baseball New Zealand's 2nd largest region couldn't train or play with regularity on the type of field they would be competing on unless they travelled an hour north to Levin. Elsewhere, players like Jacoby Golding made the weekly 5 hour trek from Christchurch to Nelson just to play, while his training, in part, consisted of pitching to a homemade strike zone on a fence. To say the cards were stacked against these aspiring ball players would be an understatement, but there's more to these Kiwi's than meets the eye.

The journey this team went on was not just a physical one. More importantly they underwent a collective mental period of growth in a very condensed 3 month period. How do you take 21 teenagers who have never played together, who were spread out across the country, primarily between Auckland and Wellington, with a couple of players in Hamilton, Christchurch and as far a way as Texas and prepare them for the mental rigors that lay ahead? We can talk about mindfulness, we can provide tools to deal with pressure and negative thoughts, but I'm a firm believer that steel sharpens steel.

Grinding Steel

Ty Cobb summed up mindset best in my opinion. He once said that baseball “should be an unrelenting war of nerves” and that “it's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest”. That's not just true in baseball, it applies to any sport that has an ultimate outcome of winners and losers. In the buildup, we could not replicate the high humid heat of Guam in a New Zealand spring, nor could we replicate the pressure of the games we would play, but we could hold off naming a travel squad and bring an extended squad together to compete for the right to wear the black jersey, which in New Zealand carries extra special meaning largely due to the storied history of the All Blacks. So we did just that. We ran them through a gauntlet of drills and games between themselves and a selection of older players. Long days in difficult weather, rinsing and repeating, teaching and creating an environment of effort and excellence. Our version of hell week to build character and mental fortitude. All the while molding them into a team, because as Tyrese Gibson said, “you will always grow through what you go through”. For in this way we began to build their mental strength and bonds of a brotherhood.

When I first got involved with baseball here in New Zealand, former World Champion Black Sox Dion Nukunuku summed up the differences to me between softball and baseball in New Zealand. He said that “softball was a team sport played by individuals, whereas baseball was an individual sport played as a team”. Profound, but true. The New Zealand Black Sox were, after all, 7 time World Champions because they bought into a team first concept. This reasonated with me because baseball is a highly individually statistically driven sport, but me being a football guy, it's all about the team, the team, the team. I employed concepts from Bo Schembechler and his ‘The Team’ speach. I also borrowed from Jim Harbaugh and his quirky competitive analogies because oddities leave a lasting impression. We reinforced the mental toolkit Coach Clayton Willocks provided and reminded players of concepts like the “standard you walk past is the standard you accept” from the San Diego Padres. More importantly, however, I leaned on the teachings of my former baseball coach, ‘Duke’ Defrates who wrote a book called ‘Baseball is Life’ - a 9 step blueprint for success in baseball and life.

My take on the concept of baseball is life however is summed up in one simple teaching. If you want to have a good life, a full life, a successful life, first learn how to be successful on the diamond. Many sports, but especially baseball is is frought with failure. We are going to strike out, we are going to get out, we are not going to make a play, we are going to make errors; some combination of these will happen more often than not. Baseball is after all, a game of failure and a game of ‘an unrelenting war of nerves’. For anyone who has been around me, on teams I've coached, they've heard me talk about how baseball is life. A microcosm of life. I live and breathe this concept to my players. Life is going to punch you in the face, it's going to throw you a curveball, it's going to knock you down. When it does, “try to land on your back, because if you can look up, you can get up” as Les Brown says. Notwithstanding, baseball and sport in general is going to teach you how to deal with these types of adversities if you are willing to listen and learn. Through these experiences we gain knowledge. Through knowledge we make improvements and verily we never stop improving. We must become relentless in our pursuits no matter how many times we fail, we must become hardened like steel and test ourselves against steel to sharpen our blades which is our toolkit for survival in our battle for supremacy as Ty Cobb put it.

Thank you for reading. Be sure and join us next week as we dig deeper into the mental journey of this team and developing mental fortitude.

Kia Kaha | Stay Strong