From Training to High School:

Baseball is like a tree, and every tree has its roots, and the roots of baseball are in a person's training as a youth. However, a tree wouldn't function with only roots, and likewise baseball training as a youth is not what determines success. It is a person's determination growing up to become good, how hard that person works, and being in the right place at the right time.

Each of these aspects are important and will be broken down throughout this blog separately.  Most people are told being the biggest and strongest is best, but most people don't know what it really takes to compete at elite levels. Being the most athletically gifted can allow for more opportunity in baseball, and it is a big factor in the youth baseball stage, but once you get to the higher levels, everyone is big, and no one is exceptionally gifted comparatively anymore. What takes a good baseball player and that makes him great are mental edges. Little tricks that players are taught can make a big difference in the end, by separating the smart player from the good player.

There are three aspects to succeeding in baseball. The first is you have to want it. As cliché as that sounds, it's true. Personally I know that always working hard will get you far anywhere in life. One prime example of this from my life, which I will always take as a lesson from too, is the fact that when I was 12 years old, I received a call from a baseball coach from Detroit. He was the manager for the top ranked team in the entire nation, and was offering an all expense-paid trip to Orlando to play for his team in what is considered the hardest baseball tournament in the nation. This coach had the option of any player in the whole nation, but he played me. What he said, that lesson I learned, is that I'm one of the best baseball players in the nation, but the reason he picked me was, not that I'm the absolute best, but that I work hard always, and I never have an attitude or ego. After that year, I got almost 10 different offers to the same tournament the following 2 years.

The second part is knowing the mental aspect of the game. Knowing what needs to be done at what times can benefit the player immensely. Also, knowing little tricks, or in the words of my personal coach, "cheating the rule book," will give you the edge athleticism in its self can't give. Knowing how to seem quicker without actually changing athletically, and how to play the books will get you to excel, which brings me into my third topic.

Knowing what you need to do is a key part of the game. There are times when you need to be unselfish to win a game, and that selflessness, though it may not show in the stats, will show to the coaches that see that the team is first with you and will carry you a long way. Also, by "playing the books", the difference between a sac bunt turned base hit, and a base hit line drive down the line, is nothing in the stats or scorebook. Bunt or hit, the stats show a hit on record.

Baseball is 80% mental and 20% physical as my old coach used to say. Knowing the little tricks it what gets you far in this game. As I've grown, I been slowly told these tips which I wish to share, and hopefully I will be able to help someone out there, through this blog, that is going through the same thing I went through.