Mental Game

The Yankees won again on Wednesday. A wild high-scoring game. Awful starting pitching from both sides. Yankees were 5-0 down before they came to bat. But they got those runs back in the first inning and then went on to win even though their starting pitcher gave up 9 runs. A classic come-from-behind win just like the Yankees of the late 90s.

So now they've won five in a row after their worst start to the season in 80 years. What changed? It's still basically the same guys. They didn't get stronger. They didn't develop new skills. The only thing different is mental attitude. Somehow they started believing in themselves. A couple of well-pitched games and the batters relaxed and started scoring runs again. So much so that even when their pitcher let them down, they had the confidence to go out and score more runs than he gave up.

As Yogi Berra said "Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical." I'm sure it's just as true of sailing. I start reading "The Mental Edge" by Kenneth Baum, determined to work seriously on my mental game this year.

Happy Birthday Yogi - 80 today. And thanks for the sailing tip.