Handing Over the Ball

You know the walk before it happens.

Bases loaded, one out, and you have thrown twenty six pitches this inning. You got the first guy to chase. Then a walk. Then a seeing eye single that found grass nobody was standing on. Then another walk. Your arm feels fine. Your head does not. And here comes your coach out of the dugout, taking the long way, not looking at you.

He puts his hand out. He wants the ball.

Every pitcher who has ever competed has stood on that mound thinking the exact same thing. I can get out of this. Give me one more hitter. One more pitch.

Handing it over is not quitting

That walk to the dugout is one of the loneliest walks in sports. You give up the ball, somebody else finishes what you started, and the box score still has your name on it. It feels like failure. It is not. It is the day you learn something a lot of grown men never learn: you were never the only one holding this thing together.

Scripture says it plainly. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” That is 1 Peter 5:6. Read it again and notice the part we skip. The proper time. Not your time.

The pitcher who fights his coach for one more hitter is telling everybody in the park that the game revolves around him. The pitcher who hands the ball over clean, gets in the dugout, and pulls hard for the kid who replaced him is the pitcher who gets trusted with the seventh inning later in the year. Coaches notice. Teammates notice sooner.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It is knowing exactly where you fit in something bigger than your inning.

What to do in the next ninety seconds

• Hand it over clean. Ball in the coach’s hand, eyes up, no theatrics on the way off.
• Get your jacket on and be the loudest voice in that dugout for the guy who took your spot.
• Then, and only then, go find out why the fastball flattened out.

When a player comes to me after an inning like that, the first thing I want to know is not his mechanics. It is how he handled giving up the ball, because that tells me who I am actually coaching. Some guys need a hand on the shoulder. Some guys need to be told straight that they quit competing in the middle of that at bat. You cannot know which one a kid is until you study him. Then we go to work on the arm, we test it, we retest it in two weeks, and we find out what actually changed instead of hoping.

Parents, he is watching your face

He is going to look for you when he comes off that field. If the first thing out of your mouth is about the umpire or the coach’s decision, you just taught him that his character depends on the scoreboard. Try one question instead. “Who did you pull for after you came out?” His answer will tell you more about the man he is becoming than any stat line ever will.

The eighth day

The eighth day is the day after. The first day of a new week. Same guy, clean page. Sunday you hand the ball over. Monday you get your work in. Same delivery, better direction, better man.

You will get the ball back. Be the kind of teammate they want to hand it to.

Get a Verse and a Drill in Your Inbox Every Week

Get a short weekly email with a Scripture verse, one training tip, and nothing else. No spam, just the same message you get here.