October 20th, 2014
World Series thoughts
I would have been happy for any of the 10 teams that qualified for postseason play to have made it to the World Series. I have friends, former teammates and former opponents who are now coaches on all 10 teams. But now that the Royals and Giants are there, it is refreshing as a former player and lifelong fan of the game that teams with something inside of their minds and bodies trump the continuing litany of mostly meaningless stats identified by acronyms (that a lot of us still don’t understand) spewed out almost defiantly to try to have us believe that’s what determines the final score.
The final score is the only real meaningful number out there. Because anyone who has ever played knows what my friend Buddy Biancalana wrote in his guest post to this blog is true. I won’t bore you with my stats but in September of 1967 I enjoyed a similar period of time that Buddy had in the 1985 World Series.
How I wish I knew then what I know now about “getting in your own way,” “trying too hard” and many other things that keep us from performing our best at the right time. I never knew how right I was when I would holler in the dugout prior to taking the field before heading out to the mound, ” Okay guys, let’s cut our heads off and let our bodies go to work.”
My hope is that each of these teams can keep playing the game with the same unbridled enthusiasm and fluidity that they have done so far. It has been a real pleasure to watch the game played as art and not science.
Both teams come into the Fall Classic with monentum. I really feel it will be more difficult for the Royals to keep theirs than it will be for the Giants. Kansas City will have had a longer layoff. San Francisco is in a more fluid mode.
MadBum (my favorite pitcher in the big leagues) will be on regular rest. He is the best I’ve seen at a young age of “letting his body do the work” — not overthinking. He also seems to be able to repeat a fluid motion better than most we have seen in the past few weeks.
I am not a prognosticator, so I would never say the Royals can’t do it, I just think they have a more difficult challenge ahead of them than the Giants, who seem to able to treat these World Series games as everyday Spring Training games. Selfishly, I hope that these two teams continue to play the game this week with the same “intensity without tension” (credit to Joe Torre for that saying) displayed by Lorenzo Cain and many of his teammates, and Hunter Pence, The Panda and their teammates.
It may open the door for those of us who recognize the game is played by real people, not robots, They have different feelings every day like all of you. It would be nice to get equal airtime to educate and inform fans about the art of the game. If the “numbers nerds” and “stat geeks” predict the Giants in five or the Royals in six, ask them if they can tell which games they will lose.
Statistics and records in baseball are great to use for historical purposes. The numerous graphics and metrics tell you what happened in the past, but the outcomes of the games you watch today and tomorrow will be decided by the things that Buddy refers to in his article. How do I know? I’ve been there and done that. And sometimes didn’t do that!
Why the Royals Will Win or Lose the Series, From a Neuroscience Perspective
The following is a guest post by my friend, Buddy Biancalana:
With the success of this Royals club, it is kicking up many questions and memories about our 1985 World Series win against the Cardinals. Many are asking my opinion about how the two teams compare and if the club can stay hot. I am really enjoying watching the city come alive and the exhilaration so many are enjoying. What a wonderful time!
As you may know, my notoriety was achieved from one week of my career when I had a zone experience in that ’85 Series, in which I played the best baseball I ever played. After hitting just .188 during the regular season, I hit .278 with a .435 on base percentage and played errorless at shortstop. It was as if the game was in slow motion. I felt like I had more time, I wasn’t thinking and my swing and my defense were more fluid and effortless than ever before. I was told I received the highest number of MVP votes for a position player. (Bret Saberhagen deservedly won the award.)
A big question surrounding the club going into Spring Training the following season whether I could sustain my level of play and keep the shortstop job. The question loomed even larger in my own mind, because I had no idea what took place that allowed me to play so well the previous October, so I really had no idea how to repeat it. I was hoping I could, however I felt quite a bit of anxiety wondering if I really could.
It turned out that I did not keep the job, and was out of the Major Leagues just 18 months later after suffering a career-ending back injury. Regardless, my level of play diminished greatly.
As I look at this current Royals club, I see a team that has a great bullpen, good speed and excellent defense. The biggest thing they have going for them may be the huge wave of momentum they are riding. They and their hundreds of thousands of followers are hoping the wave doesn’t crash over the next week or so, like mine did after the ’85 Series.
Over the years, there have been many great players who have not played well in the postseason. Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Prince Fielder are three, who for the most part have not produced in October.
In the first two games of the Royals’ Division Series win against the Angels, the trio of Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton were a collective 1-25. I’m sure that is not what Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto had in mind when signing the three to contracts in excess of $500 million. The fact that they struggled does not indicate they are not still great players, however it very clearly indicates they do not understand on the most fundamental level what makes them great.
There is a process quantified by Dr. Fred Travis, director at the Center for Brain Consciousness and Cognition, as to what takes place in the brain when any athlete is playing at their best. It is called “The Fluid Motion Factor.” When an athlete is “in the zone,” the information they are processing is moving to a part of the brain called the cerebellum uninterrupted by the prefrontal cortex. It is what I experienced when playing in the ‘85 Series. It is the only way that fluid motion is produced in the body and what many of the current Royals have been experiencing over the first eight postseason games.
Salvador Perez, their All-Star catcher, may be one of the few who is not experiencing the Fluid Motion Factor. Thus far in the postseason, he is hitting just .118 with a .143 on-base percentage, despite a career average of .280 with a .315 OBP. As great as A-Rod, Bonds, Fielder, Trout, Pujols and Hamilton are/were, often in the postseason the Fluid Motion Factor has shut down, which caused their performances to suffer.
The concern for the red-hot Royals is that the Fluid Motion Factor can leave them just as quickly as it came, and like me in the spring of 1986, they may not know where to look to regain it. The good news is that Dayton Moore has not tied up over $500 million in three players.
Buddy Biancalana is a former first-round MLB draft pick and played six seasons as a Major League infielder with the Royals and Astros, winning the 1985 World Series with the Royals. He is the co-founder of PMPM Sports-Zone Training and the co-author of The 7 Secrets of World Class Athletes.
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