In today’s baseball society, most coaches, players, and parents have all separated the physical and mental parts of baseball. As Dr. Hanson says, “baseball is played by humans. It isn’t played by a brain and a body separately. They’re one thing, [but] we’ve split apart the two.”

Mental Game of Baseball expert Dr. Tom Hanson author of Play Big: Mental Toughness Secrets that Take Baseball Players to the Next Level.

“I’ve spoken with some agents about the mental game,” says Hanson. “And they’ve said, ‘Oh yes that is so important, but fortunately my guys have never needed it,’ but I’ve always thought this to be a terrible thing to say because everyone needs it.”

Dr. Hanson then goes on to talk about how coaches should coach so they don’t derail progress of their players. He uses the example of “If a player is hitting and his hip is going out, then don’t only say the hip is going out because you’re not just talking to a hip. You’re talking to a whole human being.”

“When coaching,” Hanson says, “for me it’s ‘why did you do that’ more than ‘you did this wrong or do this instead.’”

Another thing a coach needs to do, as Hanson says, is “Let them be relaxed.” He also says “a coach needs to be more of a mentor than a dictator. He needs to be open for change.”

Hanson goes on later in the interview to talk about a player’s mental state in a game. Players “add too much meaning to the game. They look into the stands and look for parents and girlfriends and say to themselves something like, I better not make mistake in front of all these people.”

He really emphasizes that “Bashing yourself is not helpful in anyway, but taking responsibility for actions is what helps you.” Dr. Hanson says, “taking responsibility for your actions is the first step of heads up baseball, and knowing yourself is what can help you the most.”

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