Pop Flies, Ground Balls and PFP
And how little mistakes may have cost the New York Yankees a World Series
Baseball coaches are an unusual breed. They tend to be obsessive, repeating the same instruction so much they become mantras rolling around rent free in your head. I can still hear Coach Hetland telling us to “have an approach” at the plate and Coach Rice pleading us to focus on hitting “middle away” (aka hitting the ball to the opposite field instead of pulling it).
They are also prone to spend hours working on the same drill until it is just right. Who knows how many hot summer afternoons have been spent fielding ground balls, catching pop flies, and working on run downs. I’d be willing to be that right now, some coach somewhere is on hour 3 of PFPs (pitchers fielding practice) in a musty, turf covered warehouse.
Two nights ago, the New York Yankees validated obsessive baseball coaches everywhere, as they blew a 5 run lead in Game 5 of the World Series thanks to unforced, completely unnecessary errors. Some of the best baseball players in the world made the kind of mistakes that keep coaches up at night. Aaron Judge dropped a routine fly ball. Gerrit Cole forgot to cover the bag on a ground ball to first. In one inning, they went from a 5-0 lead to a 5-5 ball game which ultimately ended in a loss. Not just any loss. THE loss that ended their season and handed the World Series to the Los Angelas Dodgers.
I have been in that musty, turf covered warehouse shaking my head as our coach rifled off the 324th ground ball of the night. I have laughed with teammates about the way that coaches seem to be convinced that a ground ball to the first baseman is somehow the most complicated play in baseball. Laughable as it may be, nobody on the Yankees was chuckling when the biggest game in the world slipped through their fingers thanks to careless mistakes.
Maybe, all those pop fly hitting/1st and 3rd drilling/PFPing/short hop catching coaches out there are onto something. Maybe, doing the little things right really does have big results. Maybe, there is a lesson in there for all of us. Not to take anything for granted, to pay attention to the details, and to be disciplined in the things we know are important, but aren’t always fun. Sorry for ever doubting you Coach.
**Alternatively - maybe that is all nonsense and the Yankees are actually the new victims of a classic baseball curse after a fan tried to rip the ball out of Mookie Betts’s glove during game 4. Only time will tell.