Looking at the Bigger Picture to Relieve the Pressure

No matter what, the Oakland Athletics in the Billy Beane General Manager era have always seemed to get off to slow starts, but then turn it on post All Star Break and just play completely out of their mind.  Before the Detroit series began, ESPN's Buster Olney tweeted that the A's were 80-40 since June 1 of last season, best in the Majors.  Interestingly enough at the time that included an 8-2 start in which they swept a road trip in Houston and Anaheim.  But, you just said that the A's never do well in April!  I guess this year is a different season eh?  Makes you wonder if they can keep it up all year.

Walk Off #1 - Josh Donaldson

In the past two days, the A's have gone 1-1 and had their 9 game winning snapped.  I am also safe to say that I am not a jinx to the A's because I started out 0-2 until they won the game Friday night on Josh Donaldson's walk-off homer.  While in the stadium, I know that the A's have a tendency for these walk-off's, so I try to take a picture of the moment as it happened.  I am fortunate that I was able to get Donaldson's walk-off as the ball begins the flight of landing about 10 feet left of the foul pole.  Before then I was taking photos of literally every single moment trying to catch the perfect moment.  The walk-off was great, but my favorite photo was that of Jorge L., who was wearing a sombrero and an old school Athletics block lettering jacket from the late 80's/early 90's.  I used to have one as a kid, but I am not sure what happened to it.  I wish I had one now because that is some nostalgia right there.

Anyways, onto the game the A's lost, which was Saturday.  The A's were facing Cy Young award winner Justin Verlander who won Game 5 against the A's in the American League Division Series last October.  This guy is arguably the best pitcher in the game throwing high 90's when he wants to and he mixes his pitches so well.  You literally have to hope he makes a ton of mistakes or your team has a pitcher that kicks butt that day because he always has a chance of winning.  The same thing goes for Felix Hernandez, who constantly beats the A's on Opening Night for what has seemed like the past 800 years.  Basically, what I am saying is that Saturday was a "heat check" for the A's.  If they won, then they would have a 10 game winning streak. If not, they would go and try to win the series Sunday, which they will now do.

If you were reading twitter and message boards today and I told you the A's were 2-8, then most of you would have believed me.  As I said in an earlier post, the first 15-20 games of a season are magnified.  Take the Los Angeles Angels for example.  Los Angeles is predicted to win the division and perhaps the World Series, but they are off to a slow start.  Some of their fans and media are in complete panic mode.  I think they just need to chill.

The funny thing about sports is that they aren't like everyday life, such as those that work 9-5.  If your team wins 60% of their baseball games, you are considered to be really good.  If you shoot 50% from the field in basketball, you are considered to be great.  If you get hits 35% of the time, you are considered to be a Hall of Famer in baseball.  Now take that comparison to your job.  If you failed at worst at 40%, you are on the unemployment line.  This is one reason why I think people take sports so seriously.  Any time that one fails, they are chastised by the fans and media.  Superstars in every sport are looked through a magnifying glass and are chastised when they lose.  What if I went to your job, followed you around all day, then wrote for a major media outlet an article on how terrible you were at work that day.  Who cares if the last 5 years that you worked there were absolutely perfect, but for this one day, everything just didn't work out.  In this article I would write that you are just terrible at making deadlines because you didn't make that important phone call out of state to get the correct product needed.  What you would try to explain to me was that the company had failed to returned your calls for the past month and was delaying your product from being shipped out.  I as a journalist failed to let that happen because I care about the classic phrase, "What have you done for me lately."  Well lately you missed a deadline, so you are going to hear it.  Now that is pretty unfair isn't it?

Let's Celebrate and Have a Good Time.  Jorge is!

For the past couple of years, I have been mentoring my 13 year old cousin in golf.  She started two years ago and asked me to play in an Adult/Junior tournament with her.  I have played off and on since I played on the high school golf team, so I was willing to do it.  She wasn't very good at the time, but she was willing to work at the game, take lessons and be committed.  Two years ago she couldn't make a 3 foot putt as she drove it about 5 feet past the hole.  A year ago she shot 114. 6 months ago, she was averaging 100.  A month ago she was averaging 95.  Two weeks ago, she broke 90.  This past Thursday she shot a 78.  The day after though, she shot a 90 and then the day after that she kept on getting frustrated because she was looking to shoot the lower scores again.  My aunt said that she was getting frustrated to the point where she was acting negative around people during her round.  Today was the first time I got to play with her since she shot 78 and when I joined her and my uncle on the 7th hole, I figured out in 2 shots what her problem was; she was rushing and not taking her time.  She ended up with a 49 on the front 9.  I mentioned that she should first calm down and do not expect to shoot a low score every single time.  Instead of putting all of that pressure on yourself to do well, just take a deep breath and let everything flow as it should be.  Have fun and just play.  Do what is natural and celebrate the moment that you are in.  Look at what you have done to get to this point.  Also, do not let your frustrations show to others when you are being watched.  She shot a 39 on the back.

If you really continued this far reading all my rambling, thanks.  This was pretty much a rant, but my point is that in anything that someone does I try to just enjoy the moment that I am in.  I want to win just as much as the person next to me, but sometimes that won't happen.  The best way I believe that this should be handled is to look at the big picture.  I know that can be very tough, but focus on the improvements that you have in your hobby or line of work.  I find that if I just take a moment to look at the big picture, I can really see how far I have come in what I am trying to accomplish...

Believe in yourself and others...