| Very few athletes can comprehend what it is like to play professional sports. The pressure can be intense and gut wrenching to say the least. Roger Maris of the 1961 New York Yankees knew the cost of fame, fortune, failure and pressure better than most.
In the summer of '61 Maris chased a baseball record that put the pressure of the entire sports world upon his shoulders. His pursuit? To become the major league single season home run champion by surpassing the legendary Babe Ruth's 1927 record of 60 home runs.
Once thought to be unbreakable, Ruth's record was under siege in the summer of 1961. The quality of major league pitching had been diluted by expansion that year, while eight or more games had been added to the traditional 154 game season. The Babe's record was a prime target to fall.
Maris was a quiet, farm boy who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. He had spent the first seven years of his career in smaller baseball markets of Cleveland and Kansas City. A newcomer to New York, Maris was immediately uneasy and restless in his new big city surroundings. And Maris was viewed with suspicion because he wasn't a "true" Yankee.
As spring turned to summer that year, Maris was knocking the cover off the ball. Soon the overzealous media began projecting the possibility of breaking Ruth's record. With each home run came more and more questions.
"Can you break Ruth's record?" "How does it feel that you will probably surpass the great Babe Ruth?" "If you break the record, do you feel that puts you in the same company with the Babe?" Maris had a very difficult time responding to the media and all the questions. "How do I know? I don't want to be Babe Ruth," he blurted out on several occasions.
As summer wore on, Maris continued to hit home runs at an alarming rate. As the pressure increased, Maris' hair began to fall out in clumps. His pre-game ritual consisted of smoking cigarette after cigarette, while drinking gallons of black coffee. All the while, he spoke to virtually no one. Maris paced the locker room. "If I sat in front of my locker, my stomach turned to knots," he said.
The reporters of New York hounded him... "if the record is to be broken, it should be done by someone with greater baseball stature and greater color and public appeal... Maris is colorless... He is not more than a good big-league player... He is average in the field and often surly... There just isn't anything deeply heroic about the man."
On September 26th, the 158th game of the season, Maris tied the Babe's record. Maris went without a home run in the next three games. In the final game of the season, in his second at bat, in the fourth inning against Boston's Tracy Stallard, Maris lifted a 2-0 fastball at the knees into the right field bleachers. He had done it! The single season home run record was his.
Because the baseball season was eight games longer for the first time, then baseball commissioner Ford Frick decided to place an asterisk beside Maris' name in the record books. Thus, Ruth's record was semi-persevered.
Athletic Principle
"The only pressure I'm under is the pressure I've put on myself." - Mark Messier, Stanley Cup Champion, New York Rangers
What seems like a long drawn out story, the season of 1961 for Roger Maris, was a perfect example of paying a price and competing under pressure. The pressure of the legend of Babe Ruth, the media, the commissioner, and the fans of New York all paid a heavy toll on Roger Maris. When Maris should have been on the top of the world for his accomplishments, he was miserable and empty.
Former Yankee great, "Mr. October," Reggie Jackson summed it up perfectly, "I have so much respect for the man. For the mental part almost more than the physical. I mean, can you imagine what it's like to hit 61 home runs in a season? In New York?"
Pressure - it is a way of life in athletics. Pressure abounds... pressure to win, the pressure to make the team, the pressure to keep your position and ranking, the pressure of criticism and fame.
Basically there are two types of pressure that an athlete will face. The first type of pressure is the kind which you have control over. This type of pressure is usually the pressure that comes because you have failed to train and properly prepare. It shows up when you are out of shape - whether it be your cardiovascular system, your flexibility, your strength, your weight, or your mental state of mind. It is not being in the optimal combative state.
This type of pressure also shows up in your preparation for competition. This usually happens going into a battle without a plan or without a strategy. It is going into a tough competition without doing your homework on your opponent. All of this type of pressure is totally avoidable. The real problem is that you created this mess by not being disciplined to detail.
Another type of pressure is the kind that is unavoidable. It is beyond the realm of your control. This kind of pressure usually comes from outside sources. It is the pressure to live up to someone else's expectations. This is the kind of pressure you must learn to face, because there is nothing you can do to prevent it.
The most important issue to consider as an athlete and as a coach about pressure is how are you going to deal with it. It is there. It just won't go away. You can't run, you can't hide, you can't pretend it is not there; you must face it. Basketball Hall of Fame and NCAA National Championship Coach, John Wooden said this:
"If you are trying to live up to the expectations put on you by the media, parents, fans, your employer, or whatever else there may be, it's going to affect you adversely because it brings On worry and anxiety. I think that is the tendency of people who choke under pressure. They're thinking about living up to the expectations of everybody else instead of just doing their job the best they can."
When you step on the field of competition, you step on a field covered with "landmines" of pressure. At every step, at every turn is the possibility of a pressure explosion. As Roger Maris found out, expect it... it comes with the territory!
Life Principle
"Because of the demands on a goalie are mostly mental, it means that for the goalie the biggest enemy is himself. Not a puck, not an opponent, not a quirk of size or style. Him. The stress and anxiety he feels when he plays, the fear of failing, the fear of being embarrassed, the fear of being physically hurt, all the symptoms of his position, in constant ebb and flow, but never disappearing. The successful goalie understands these neuroses, accepts them, and puts them under control." - Ken Dryden
In his 17 year major league career, Kirk Gibson batted .268, stole 284 bases, scored 985 runs, recorded 870 RBIs, clouted 255 home runs, and compiled a .976 fielding average. Despite winning the MVP in 1988 and batting third on two World Series Championship teams, Gibson is remembered most for one of the most dramatic events in post-season history.
Hobbled by injuries, Gibson sat out the first game of the World Series against the Oakland A's.
Twenty-four hours before the opening game of the Series, Gibson couldn't so much as jog in his living room. He tried to swing the day before the Series began and couldn't. He was so beat up and certain he couldn't play that he didn't even arrive at Dodger Stadium in time to be introduced with the rest of the players and coaches during the pre-game ceremonies.
The Dodgers were trailing the A's 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and a runner on first. Gibson, who couldn't start because of a badly injured knee, came up to pinch hit against Dennis Eckersley, Oakland's All-Star closer. Gibson worked Eckersley from 0-2, to a full count.
Here are the exact words from Jack Buck who called the game for CBS radio:
"Gibson... swings! And a fly ball to deep right field! This is gonna be a home run! Unbelievable! A home run for Gibson! And the Dodgers have won the game, 5-4! I don't believe what I just saw!... I don't believe what I just saw!"
Kirk Gibson triumphantly circled the bases, pumping his fists all the way around the diamond.
"It's depressing and demoralizing that you can't be out there. That's what you live for, To play in those situations... So all through the game, while I'm icing, I'm working on It. Then here's the bottom of the eighth, then the top of the ninth. I'm sitting there in the trainer's room in my shorts, and something in my head says, 'It's time to get dressed.'"- Kirk Gibson
Kirk Gibson thrived on pressure. It was the pressure packed situations where Gibson could relax and just perform. Nothing bothered him. The bottom line was Kirk Gibson was a competitor, and pressure just fueled his fire.
Pressure or stressful situations can be your foe. Too little stress and you will be under-aroused, and not be fully motivated to perform. Too much stress and you will be over-aroused, and may panic, tighten up, thereby harming your performance. Either way, too hot or too cold, your performance will suffer.
Pressure really comes from you! Now that may sound strange, but it is true. Pressure and stress can come in many different forms; lack of time, grades in school, money, parents, boyfriend/girlfriend, injuries, trying to make the team, etc. Sports psychologists tell us that some individuals are bothered by certain things, while others have no problems whatsoever in the same situation.
The bottom line is nothing in particular causes stress. The pressure, the stress is caused by how you perceive the situation, the idea, the requirement, or the expectation. It comes down to how you interpret the event or circumstance.
It is important to realize that any pressure you do feel is caused by how you are looking at the situation. It is coming from your picture of how things should be, and what you think needs to be. By placing such values on an idea you begin to produce pressure, tension, stress, anxiety, and fear. No one can compete in their Ideal Performance State with that load on their back!
- If you find the pressure is building you can take the following steps:
- Understand that you are making the stress.
- Step back and identify what you are stressing over.
- Look for the solution to the specific problem (what can I do about it!).
- Get to work on the solution.
- If there is not an immediate solution, let it go...
- Refocus on an idea or thought that will help you.
Just by understanding that you are in control, you are a step closer to actually being in control. You have the power so use it!
When an athlete is worried about the possibility of a poor performance, they call the feelings they are experiencing "nervousness." When the same athlete is in a positive frame of mind concerning a competition, they call the feeling, "excitement."
You control the process! A simple trick is to "reframe" or rename the stress. Instead of focusing on the "butterflies" in your stomach as nervousness, call it instead EXCITEMENT. Be excited that you can compete. Be excited that this is the opportunity you have been training for. Be excited that this just may be your best performance ever.
Capture the attitude of Kirk Gibson, "That's what you live for, to play in those situations..." Love the moment!
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