Three years ago, I can remember watching the 2010 College Baseball World Series on TV. It was an elimination game with South Carolina and Oklahoma tied going into extra innings. The Sooners went ahead 2-1 after the top half of the 12th. Coming to bat with two outs and the whole season on the line was Jackie Bradley Jr. I can still remember the sequence. He was down 0-2. He battled the count to 3-2 and then hit a line shot down the right field line to score one of his teammates that tied the game back up at two. Then Bradley scored the winning run moments later when a teammate singled up the middle to ice the game at 3-2.
Move ahead to Monday afternoon, April 1, 2013. The location: Yankee Stadium. It’s opening day and a 22-year-old rookie will make his Big League debut against one of the most storied franchises in all of sports. The same Jackie Bradley Jr. is now lacing them up for the Boston Red Sox. I hurried home during my lunch break from work so that I could see Jackie’s first at-bat on ESPN. Then I noticed all he had to do was face one of the most intimidating lefthanders in the game this past decade. That being Yankees ace CC Sabathia. The veteran pitcher stood tall at 6’-7”, 290-pounds and was just 60-feet, six inches away on a dirt mound and waiting to welcome the ‘kid’ to the Big Leagues!
Quickly CC got him down 0-2 in the count. I was even nervous for Jackie wondering what the outcome would be for him. He’s got Sabathia on the mound and 50,000 screaming Yankees’ fans trying to distract Bradley during his debut moment. Two runners on base for Boston. Now Bradley takes ball one. And another. He works the count to full. Then walks. Bases now loaded. Next Red Sox batter grounds to short. Relay to second. Bradley BEATS THE THROW which allows the Red Sox to get a runner home! A great manufactured run that was truly ignited by Bradley’s gamesmanship!
Upon Bradley’s return to the Red Sox dugout, I watched the ESPN cameras closely to see the reception Jackie got and pretty much every single veteran had the look of “admiration” and “respect” for the newcomer and this was just after his first career at- bat! What is the meaning of today’s story? It’s doing the little things to set the table for the bigger things to follow. Sure enough the Red Sox scored four runs during this second inning spurt mostly due to Bradley’s plate awareness, discipline as well as his jump and quickness on the base path.
"We’ve
liked the strength in his (Bradley) mental approach,” said Red Sox Manager John
Farrell. "He shows a very consistent approach at the plate. A lot of
people might want to maybe target the batting average, but in our player evaluation
it goes much deeper than that, when you see the consistency of at-bats he put
up.”
For reasons why the Sox Skipper made note of
Bradley’s plate discipline, it was first discovered back during the summer
after his freshman year of high school ball in Virginia when Jackie began to
focus on becoming a better two-strike hitter. To improve his game, he
specifically joined an American Legion team and simply worked on not swinging
the bat until he got to two strikes in the count. It forced him to bear down
and focus. Yes, he gave away some batting average points and long ball numbers
in the short term but the long-term gain from this unusual practice paid off for
him as detailed up above.
“People feel uncomfortable when they have
two strikes because they have that fear of striking out,” Bradley said. “I
wanted to make it feel comfortable for me no matter what the count was, whether
I had two strikes or not.”
During his high school days, Bradley was also
not considered a prospect in the likes of Mike Trout or Bryce Harper. He was
not drafted by the Major Leagues. Surprisingly he was not highly recruited by most
D-1 schools either. Once he started to play at South Carolina and into the
minor pro levels, scouts began to take note of Bradley’s extraordinary workouts
in practice and continual improvements to his game that definitely accelerated
his development up through the ranks.
One scout said: “He gets five games of
experience in one batting practice!” The Red Sox director of amateur scouting (Amiel
Sawdaye) who has watched Bradley’s practice routines many a times called it: “Power
shagging! He treats every BP like a game.”
Sawdaye also noted this about Bradley: “On
his (character) makeup alone, Jackie would have been at the top of the draft
coming out of college. His energy is infectious. The way he plays the game, the
way he prepares. He’s exactly what we were looking for!”
This piece is a tip-of-the-hat to Jackie Bradley Jr. for transforming
himself into a Big League ballplayer and to show everyone that no matter your
shortcomings, practice does – and can – make perfect! Scouts do take note of
the “little things!”
Keep pursuing your Dreams fellas!!!
Jim Loria
New E-Mail: jimloria0309@gmail.com
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BRADLEY ON THE MEANINGFUL ADVICE THAT HE RECEIVED FROM DOC RIVERS, BOSTON CELTICS HEAD NBA COACH DURING A RED SOX PRO DAY FOR THEIR FIRST YEAR PLAYERS: “Doc was saying about how a lot of players focus on
the beginning of the year and the end of the year, but there's still a
beginning, an end and a dash in the middle. He asked, ‘What are you going to do
with that dash?’ That's a quote that really stuck with me.”
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“You
say I started out with practically nothing, but that isn’t correct. We all
start with all there is. It’s how we use it that makes things possible” –
stated by Henry Ford, founder of the
Ford Motor Company in 1903
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“Nothing is Impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m Possible’” –
stated by Audrey Hepburn, one of the
great film and fashion icons
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MOTIVATIONAL
SIGN IN AN NBA TEAM WEIGHT ROOM: “Don’t confuse Routine with
Commitment!” … Always be conscious of playing the right way
in practice, in exhibitions and in games!
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"The real winners
in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that
they can make it work or make it better" – stated by Barbara Pletcher, Author
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