Brent Mayne

Wise Elders

I was reading an article in the USA Today about veteran players mentoring young guys and there was an interesting segment on the relationship between Omar Vizquel and Elvis Andrus. I guess Vizquel was brought over to the Rangers to show Andrus the finer points of playing shortstop and provide some veteran presence.

So in the article, this is what Andrus says he’s learned from Omar. “It’s mostly about how to anticipate plays, little things about my footwork. He tells me 80% of the game is preparation. Try to simplify everything – see it, move your feet, throw to first base.”

Fantastic. It’s exactly what I always harp on…anticipation and simplicity.  I love to hear it from other sources, and this time it comes from Omar Vizquel, a future Hall of Famer. If you have the ability to see action and imagine the possibilities before they happen, you’ll be ten steps ahead of the competition and maximize your God given talent.

It’s really not an option. All good big leaguers do it consistently. The simple fact is, God didn’t create a good enough athlete to compete at that level without anticipation. Get your thinking done early, prepare, anticipate, then just play and react in the game.

The other point is – make things as simple as possible. Get rid of all excess movement and get the most out of the least movement. Go from point A to point B to get it done. Going from point A to B to C to get it done is too slow to compete at the highest level and will eventually leave you by the wayside…regardless of how superior an athlete you might be. Good luck.

How to Pine Tar a Glove

If you’ll remember back a couple blogs ago, I told you how much I loved pine tar.  I used it on everything. Hold up, first a quick disclaimer before we get into all this…I’m not completely sure about the legality of tar and it’s uses (so it you get in trouble, don’t blame me)!

Here’s some of the things I liked about pine tar. It gave me and the pitcher a better grip of the ball. It helped me catch pitches cleaner because the tackiness of the tar in my glove eliminated the rotation of an incoming pitch, thus stopping it from rattling around once caught.

Maybe most importantly, I think tar is the best glove conditioner you can use. After a few applications, the goo will form a dark barrier between the leather of the glove and the pounding of a ball. This will prolong the life of your glove and keep it tighter.

Apply it to any portion of your glove that looks the slightest bit light, faded, dry, or roughed up. Especially the pocket area since it takes the most beating. And don’t forget the laces. This will eliminate premature tearing of the glove as well as give you all the benefits mentioned in the earlier paragraphs.

So here’s a step by step guide to pine tarring your glove…

1. What you’ll need….Good pine tar (very important…must be the super gooey kind, not the watery crap that is sold in most stores. I’ll try to find a brand name for you in the future). A glove. A clean rag that you can destroy (make sure your mom knows this rag isn’t coming back). Optional…a pine tar rag.

2. Turn the glove inside out.

3. Take the pine tar and apply it liberally to the glove. You can either do this by pouring directly out of the bottle or by using a pine tar rag.

4. Use your hand or the pine tar rag to massage the goop into all of the nooks and crannies of the glove… especially those areas that look dry.

5. Take the clean rag and wipe off the excess. Don’t wipe it all off, just clean it up a bit.

6. Turn the glove back to normal and lay it out in the sun till it dries.

7. Once the game comes, you can decrease the tackiness level by either rubbing it again with a clean rag or by touching the area with some rosin. That’s it, you’re done.

Here’s what the final product looks like after repeated applications. Note the two dangling laces that are normally used to keep your thumb in place. I preferred to leave them untied and to saturate them with tar. That way, I could just touch them with the fingertips of my right hand so I could get a better grip.

I hope this helps. More importantly, I hope I don’t get in trouble for sharing this with you. Good luck, have fun, and do me a favor….don’t get caught!!! Happy Easter.

Padding

O.K. I’m going to come clean right now and admit it. I was a complete pussy when it came to my glove hand. I’m sorry, it just flat hurt when I didn’t use a pad, AND a batting glove with a pad, AND the already mentioned thumb cast. I honestly don’t know how guys catch bare handed. It looks uncomfortable to me and I know it hurts. Obviously, they must have a higher pain tolerance than I.

Anyway, now that we’ve established that I’m a pussy, here’s the special batting glove I used. You’ll notice they came with a pad sewn in. I used Franklin batting gloves for my whole career. Why? Because they made a good product, were a pleasure to work with, and most importantly, paid well. 

What do I mean by “a pleasure to work with”? That means when I asked for something, I got it. If I needed new batting gloves, they should be in my locker within a couple days. I was of the opinion that of all the issues and problems we had as big leaguers, equipment and money shouldn’t be one of them.

Basically it was a win-win situation for me and the equipment companies. I’ll agree to be a walking billboard for your product, and in return you’ll pay me some dough AND provide me with the gear – pronto.

But I digress. Apparently I’m trying to change the subject of me being a pussy. 

So back to the subject. Here’s a couple images of the gloves I used. One with homemade padding and one with a palm/finger pad built in. The weird thing is, the better the glove, the less cushion I needed. Some gloves just hurt and some didn’t. 

Here’s a photo of the “thumb cast”. This little guy is made out of a material called “ortoplast” and saved me many a time.  I’ll devote a future blog to this thing down the road.  All for now….adios.

Kids, Dads, and Little League (easyblogdayforme)

This might be the easiest blog entry I ever write. It seems someone else already wrote it for me….follow this link. Enjoy your day.

Sugar

If you’re over 16, go out and catch the movie “Sugar”. It’s one of the finest baseball movies I’ve ever seen. This fictional film chronicles the career trajectory of a young pitcher named Sugar Ramos from his town in the Dominican, to spring training, to a class A team in Iowa.

The actual baseball action scenes are just OK as far as the realism goes (I’ve obviously got a pretty critical eye though). However, it really doesn’t matter because this movie is all about the other stuff. I was shocked how well writer-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck captured the stuff that makes up minor league culture. The bus rides, the loneliness, homesickness, success, failure, injury, seeing friends get released, having young guns try to take your job,  groupies, hotel rooms, the competition, road food, bonus baby players, drugs, language barriers, prejudice, host families, and music to name a few of the things they replicate with spine chilling accuracy. I could really identify with, and had many of the exact same feelings as Sugar in this film. 

This subtle, effortless, quiet movie transcends the cliches of your typical baseball movie. It’s more about a young guy coming of age in a big world, trying to figure out where he fits in. It’s dead on and I loved the way it comes together in the end with the subtle facial expressions of Sugar.

I’ll be curious to find out how people who didn’t play pro ball react to this movie. Will it resonate with them as much as with me? All I know is, if you want to experience what it feels like to be a young kid from the Dominican uprooted to Iowa, or for that matter, a kid from Southern California living and playing in the Dominican (me), go see this flick now. In my opinion it’s a beauty. Let me know what you think.