I went to a see a couple of St. Louis Cardinals games at Busch Stadium over the weekend, and it got me to thinking about how baseball and bass fishing have something in common.
As some of you know, I grew up in south Missouri and was a Cardinals fan at a young age. We didn’t have a TV, but I would watch at a friend’s house or lie in my bed at night and listen to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon call the games on a small transistor radio.
I truly love the game and have found that a lot of other avid bass anglers love it as well. The late Jerry McKinnis comes to mind as he actually played professionally in the minor leagues.
While watching the Cardinals, I was reminded of a quote from the great Ted Williams who once said, “Baseball is a field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of 10 and be considered a good performer.”
That’s true of fishing as well. Think about it: If you go fish 10 tournaments and have good success in three of those, you’re on a pretty good roll.
Just like in baseball, you’re likely to fail more times than you succeed.
So, you have to learn to deal with adversity. Both sports are games built around failure, with moments of success mixed in. Obviously you have to be a good angler, but to elevate those moments of success you have to accept periods of failure. I didn’t say like it or get comfortable with it, just accept that’s the way the game is.
That’s what good baseball hitters and good anglers do. It’s a huge, yet often overlooked difference between those who are average and those who are above average or even great.
And like a baseball player, anglers struggle to get out of a slump because they let the failure get into their heads.
Admittedly, I’m just as guilty. I carry way more baggage to the next event than I should, and it’s something I’m really working hard to correct.
Of course, forgetting a bad tournament isn’t an easy thing to do. But if you talk to anglers who handle it well, it’s often because they think about what they did wrong and then work to correct it.
If a hitter can’t hit a curveball, he spends time working on it. Working with a pitching coach and just plain old hard work.
If the pattern at the last tournament was scoping, get better at it. Were you on the bank flipping laydowns and the top finishers were finesse fishing? Get better at it.
If you lost key fish, was it because of a bad hook? Not retying? Poor hookset? Those are fixable. But there are times it just happens, and you have to accept it and move on.
I think one of the best solutions to getting your head straight is to go fishing and have fun; that’s why you got into bass fishing. Enjoy the sport for what it is and allow that enjoyment to take the pressure off and let it come back to you.
That’s what good baseball players do. They realize failure is just a part of the game, but they don’t let it clutter their minds and interfere with their love of the sport.
It’s okay to accept defeat. Just don’t carry it mentally the next time you step to the plate.
