Heads up Baseball Playing The Game One Pitch At A Time

by Ken Ravizza

"This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills which help speed you to your full potential."---Dave Winfield

What does it mean to play heads-up baseball? A heads-up player has confidence in his ability, keeps control in pressure situations, and focuses on one pitch at a time. His mental skills enable him to play consistently at or near his best despite the adversity baseball presents each day.

"My ability to fully focus on what I had to do on a daily basis was what made me the successful player I was. Sure I had some natural ability, but that only gets you so far. I think I learned how to focus; it wasn't something that I was necessarily born with." -- Hank Aaron

"Developing and refining my mental game has played a critical role in my success in baseball. For years players have had to develop these skills on their own. This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills that will help speed you toward your full potential." -- Dave Winfield

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Psychology

Paperback

First published May 11, 1995

Reviews

[Eamonn Woods · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heads-Up Baseball, by Tom Hanson is an instuctional non-fiction novel that details the ins and outs of playing baseball. In this book, Hanson explores in great depth the mental aspect of the game and how to use a good mental approach to your advantage. The book details mental routines that develop confidence in hitting, pitching and fielding, as well as mentalities off the field. Hanson stresses the importance of setting high, but reasonable goals for yourself. And in doing this, you set yourself on the path towards success, because it is the accumulation of these acieved goals that accomplish great things. Hanson suggests many different mental techniques for every aspect of the game thinkable. I am able to utilize many of these tools in my own game. By having a strong mental approach, you are able to preform at a high level of play even when you aren't on your best game. I strongly recommend this book to any serious baseball player who seeks a edge over the competition. At a certain level, everyone has talent and physical ability, but it is those with a work ethic and mental approach who are really able to differentiate themselves.

[John Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this 3+ stars but it is not a 4. This book is dated and needs a freshening and the addition of some current thinking regarding prep and focus.

This is a good book to give to a U13 Baseball player or a 1st year U14 Softball player (maybe a heads-up 12). Great repetition throughout the book, hammer home the focus, mission, 1 pitchatatime messages! Good strategies for dealing with most aspects of playing the game. Most are basic, a few are deeper but it does put it all together in a very system-like fashion. Most players will have heard most of the Old Chestnuts used here before but the authors put it together as a system that many good players would evolve to eventually, thereby getting them the results of using them earlier.

By 16 competitive players should be doing all of this automatically and will need deeper more involved strategies to move their Heads-up games to the next level.

This is also a good guide for a newer coach at the U10 - U12 level looking to move forward with the group s/he has. You will learn what to help your players with next. Recommended with reservation.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every baseball coach should have this book and listen to it every season. I have the Heads Up Baseball 2.0 as well, but favor this book. The audio version is outstanding.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dozens of great ideas to help this little league coach of 7-9 year olds stay “in the moment.” Some of the strategies discussed I already use, while others I just learned and have begun incorporating into pregame, practice and game scenarios. I’m even using for my personal life such as business and community. Great stuff

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any person at any level of baseball that wants to learn the lessons that aren't taught at practice. Also a must read for parents of any youth player who may struggle with the mental side of the game. It's probably the most important aspect of playing baseball but the least focused on at the youth level.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful.

[Nall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some fantastic mindset/trading lessons here.

[Peyton Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

i liked it but it was kinda boring, only read it because of school

[Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was one I will read 100 times. This book is obviously aout baseball, but it is more about the mantal game of baseball that can go along with any sport. This book was really informative and i recommend it to anybody who is serious about baseball, as I am. This book really helped me figure out how to focus when things aren't ging my way.

They say that baseball is 2% physical and yup, u guessed it; the other is 98% mental. The more mental toughness you have, the better you can show your true ability. The book talks about playing the game one pitch at a time. This means to play ond focus on whats happening, not the past, and not the future, but what is going on right now. When you make a mistake, you brush it off and forget it and make it up next time. If you drag your feet about it, it tends to lead to another error, and another and so on, by that time your PO'd.

So for those of you who want to show your true ability to play the game, i encourage you to read this book. It asks you questions throughout the book and gives you a line or two to answer them. These questions it asks though, are very deep and take a long time to think about. After reading this book, i have seen a great increase in my ability and my thoughts, and so have my coaches. I really enjoyed this book and will read it plenty of more times!

[Alex Curro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about baseball and how it is a game of failure and it shows how you can prepare mentally so that you can overcome this failure and perform to the best of your ability. I liked this book a lot as i am a baseball player myself and it helped me out a lot. I used to always get frustrated when I didn't perform well and I would "spiral out of control", as they put it in the book. Now after I read this it has helped me a lot as I have learned to control my frustration and make a change instead of getting mad. I also loved this book because it went into all aspects of the game, which means no matter what position you play or what your role is on your team, it will provide key information to help you with the mental game. There is a wide variety of information from something as simple as reacting to an error in the field, to teaching your players how to do these things in something they call "The Coaches Box". All in all this is a fabulous and helpful for both players and coaches and I highly recommend this book to anyone who not only wants to learn about the mental part of baseball but excel at it too.

[Kai Palchikoff]

'This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills which help speed you to your full potential.'---Dave WinfieldWhat does it mean to play heads-up baseball? A heads-up player has confidence in his ability, keeps control in pressure situations, and focuses on one pitch at a time. His mental skills enable him to play consistently at or near his best despite the adversity baseball presents each day. 'My ability to fully focus on what I had to do on a daily basis was what made me the successful player I was. Sure I had some natural ability, but that only gets you so far. I think I learned how to focus; it wasn't something that I was necessarily born with.' -- Hank Aaron 'Developing and refining my mental game has played a critical role in my success in baseball. For years players have had to develop these skills on their own. This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills that will help speed you toward your full potential.' -- Dave Winfield

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last baseball team I coached presented me with a new challenge. The boys were very emotional and seemed to fall apart under adversity. I looked around for advice on the mental aspect of the game. Heads-Up Baseball stands alone. Most baseball books can give coaches advice on strategy or drills to run during practice but Heads-Up Baseball offers tips on how to play the game one pitch at a time and controlling your reactions. Hopefully I'll be able to use this book next season and help my team learn self-control on the diamond.

[Rene Cortez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about baseball and how you can preapre yourself mentally and physically. It explains how baseball is a game of failure and how to overcome it. It also explains how baseball is mostly a mental game and how you can use that to your advantage. It walks you through the steps that you can be in in certain situations and and explains what you should do so you dont lose control of yourself. Overall this is a great book because it teaches you mental toughness a key to playing the game of baseball.

[Jason von Stietz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must read if you work with baseball or softball players of any level. Many of the concepts are fundamental to sport psychology in general. The book can be mined for mental skills to teach athletes. It can also be used as a workbook in which ballplayers read the lessons and complete the included worksheets. Either way, if you are working with ballplayers at a high level, you need to be at least somewhat familiar with the name Ken Ravizza and the concepts in this book.

[Logan Draper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a great help. This is for people who are interested in playing, coaching, or parenting someone who is playing baseball. It has a lot of interesting tricks and methods to help you with the mental game of baseball and I truly believe from a High School Baseball Players point of view that this is a must read if you want to play baseball with the mental side in tact.

[Ivan Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best advice in this book is about taking a deep breath before stepping in the batter's box. i do that now and it seems to really help to relax me. Trying to play the game one pitch at a time is more difficult but can also be helpful if I can do it.

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider it the Bible when it comes to sports psychology for baseball or softball. Any sport for that matter. Applicable throughout a lifetime.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focused on the mental part of baseball.

[Ann Schaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter's catching coach recommended this book to her to help work on the mental aspect of the game. This book works just as well for softball as it does for baseball. The concepts are very good to keep in mind, and I like the exercises of writing down your goals, your inner thoughts, and your plan to deal with various scenarios.

It's not the way it was designed to be used, but I read the book straight through in order to find out what it was all about. It would be better to take it one chapter at a time and focus on completing the exercises. I thought it was extremely redundant, even though the ideas were good. It's not rocket science, but instructs players how to use things like visualization, focus points, and deep breaths to maintain control of yourself. I really liked the idea of checking in with yourself to see if you are at a green, yellow, or red light.

I recommend this book is great for serious baseball or softball players, coaches, and parents. It's a good tool to work on the mental game.

[Tyler Tarpley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heads-Up Baseball is a great book about the mental game of baseball that really helped me a lot.

[Isaac James]

There are no quotes
Heads up baseball is a book that explains the mental aspect of baseball. It tells stories of situations in baseball and it explains how to get by them. For example, you have walked two guys on people on first and second. You can either think about the walks and the runners or you can focus on getting the last three outs. Then it explains what you can do to achieve your goal. This is what the whole book is about learning the game one step at a time!!