There’s been a subtle change on campus recently.
You may or may not notice it as you’re walking down 13th Avenue, but it’s there. The sidewalk seems just a little bit more crowded, and there seem to be more people everywhere you go.
I call this the nice-weather phenomena. As soon as the first sunny day comes during spring term, you start to actually see how many people attend the University. No one is hiding out because of the rain or the cold; they’re all walking about campus in their shorts and flip flops, enjoying the great weather.
The nice-weather phenomena can be attributed to baseball season, too. As the fraction of days that are above 60 F gets higher and higher, you know there’s baseball being played. It doesn’t work as well with college baseball because they start the first of February, but do you think it was a coincidence that Opening Day in Major League Baseball was greeted by sunny skies and 70 F? I’d like to think it wasn’t.
I’ve been in baseball mode since the Ducks started practicing this winter, but with the start of the MLB season, the transition is complete. Yes, the NBA playoffs will be on until the end of school, but it’s all about the Mariners and Ducks for me. I’m actually going to enjoy going to baseball games now, without fear of snow delays.
With all the games now, it has given me a chance to watch how players and coaches handle themselves. And the thing that really stands out is how confident and almost cocky most baseball players are. Mostly with the Ducks, because I interact with them every week, but what I’ve noticed from that team can be applied to pretty much any baseball player alive.
It’s true, too. Just watch how players handle themselves. They are so sure of themselves and confident that sometimes it comes across as arrogance.
But the thing is, you have to be like that if you’re a baseball player. You fail most of the time playing the game and if you’re anything but cocksure and confident, the constant failure can get you down.
“All baseball players have to have a little swag about them,” infielder Danny Pulfer told me the other day.
Head coach George Horton agrees. He said he likes his players to display a confidence and sureness about themselves; they just have to know when to rein it in.
I’m sure you’ve read or heard of instances where this confidence reveals itself in games. The most obvious is when Babe Ruth called his home run, but in almost every game little clashes creep up where one player will do something.
For example, on Friday against Stanford, freshman Tyler Anderson was cruising through the Cardinal. Then with two strikes on a player, he made a motion with his glove that signifies curveball. He told the batter what he was going to throw.
Pitchers make motions with their gloves during warm-ups to tell the catcher what they’re going to throw, but never during an inning. That’s just unheard of.
So, what happened? Anderson struck the batter out. That is serious confidence right there. Maybe he was just so in the moment that he forgot, but I don’t think so.
When asked about it, Horton just smiled and confirmed that Anderson did tip his pitch. When prompted for a little bit more about whether or not he liked it, he didn’t really say much. He did say he liked Anderson’s confidence, although he didn’t know whether or not he did it purposefully. He conceded, however, that usually it’s not a good idea to tip your pitches.
Granted, we would be having a very different conversation if the batter would have hit a home run, but the point remains: Baseball is about confidence. You can’t get away from it. Every little victory bolsters your resolve. To the untrained eye it can be taken for arrogance or cockiness, but I argue that even arrogance and cockiness are needed to a degree to be a successful athlete.
So as the nice weather continues to coax the baseball fans from the winter hibernations, start taking time to notice the little things in sports. Take notice in how a baseball player carries himself; try to figure out what a pitcher is throwing.
It’ll make the game more interesting, and you might just learn something.
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