Anyone who has been around me on a baseball field, knows the respect I have for the game and appreciation for its history, who played the game before any of us were around, and how long America's national pastime has been a staple of its society.
That being said, I've always felt that players, once they've crossed the white lines onto the field, should hustle to wherever they're supposed to be. Whether it's in practice, a game or in a camp setting, I've always felt this set the tone with how someone should play the game, and has a direct impact on results for individual players and the teams they play for. I prefer to associate with players that approach the game in that manner, and coaches who stressed that approach to the game.
A story I like to tell young kids comes from Derek Jeter's biography (fitting story, coming just a day after he got his 3,000th career hit) and a story from his rookie season with the Yankees in 1995. Don Mattingly was in his final season with the Yankees, and the two were the first players to their spring training complex in Tampa, Florida one morning. They walked out of the dugout, onto the field and just before crossing the foul line onto the field, Mattingly stopped, looked down, and said, "Well, we'd better run." Jeter asked why, and Mattingly replied, "Because you never know who is watching."
A great story for young players, who hopefully take it to heart and apply it to how they play the game. I always tell them, if you're a middle school guy, you never know when one of your high school coaches might be at the field watching, and you want to make a good impression on them. So goes for a high school player with a college coach in the stands, a college player with a pro scout at the game, and so on.
This message was relayed this past week in the first of a few days camps I'll be working while in my tour of duty with the federation. The first day, the kids were walking everywhere; running 3/4 of a lap before warm-ups, then walking the remainder of the lap; walking to and from the bleachers to the field after water breaks; walking from station to station, or on and off the field when we scrimmaged. Finally, I said to myself, 'I came here to coach this game my way, so it's time for the talk'.
I've discovered the word for 'run' in Hungarian is 'Futtatás' (fu-tosh). We pulled the kids into a huddle, and I expressed to them in English and had it translated to Hungarian how in 27 years of playing the game and 11 years now of coaching it, how much respect I had for the game. I pointed to another American working the camp, Anthony Bennett, who is the hitting coach for the senior national team here and the manager of the top intraleague team in the country. I said that he has been playing the game even longer than I have, and played it at a higher level (he played minor league ball in the states, and professionally in Europe, Australia and Japan), and that I bet any player he played with that ever amounted to anything got there in part because of his hustle and respect for the game. Anthony nodded in agreement.
From there, 'Futtatás!' became our rallying cry for the week. Some kids initially didn't enjoy it, especially with temperatures pushing 90 all week. But by the end of the week, we had kids sprinting all over the yard, and even had a jingle going, 'Everybody Futtatás, Eeee-verbody Futtatás' with kids and coaches shimmying a bit as players ran to their station or position.
Parents came to the camp to watch the players all participate in a game called 'Russian Baseball' on the last day ('Russian Baseball' has a player at each position, and they rotate after each batter so they can play every position, sprinting to their next spot after a base hit or out is recorded). You could tell they were impressed with how the kids were moving, the energy they displayed, and the spirit they seemed to approach the game with.
At the end of the last day, several kids and parents came up and said how much they had learned over the course of the week, and a few of the kids said they'll 'Futtatás' whenever they play and would tell their buddies and teammates to do the same.
That makes you feel good, and hopefully stands as one mission accomplished.
(For a few pictures from the camp, click here)