Zach Greinke is a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals who started the season with an incredible scoreless innings streak. During spring training, however, hitters pounded the ball against him. What happened?
He spent all of spring training throwing (his new changeup) even though hitters battered it like crazy. “He didn’t care about the results,” current Royals G.M. Dayton Moore says. “He just wanted to get a feel for the changeup.”
Why did he stick with his changeup even when hitters battered the ball all over the park?
Moore says, “That’s what’s so amazing about Zack. He doesn’t need the changeup to be good. He’s already good. He worked on it because it can help make him great. And that’s what the great ones do.”
During the off-season, he did not worry about results. He worked on perfecting an additional pitch. He did not want to be good; he wanted to be great.
During the off-season, what is your focus? Are you caught in an atmosphere of constantly trying to impress your coach for playing time or scouts for a scholarship? Or, are you working on new skills that will make you a better player, maybe even a great player without fear of the immediate results?
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