Basically the Mental Game of Baseball is all about how you feel about yourself. Making you believe in your abilities internally is tougher than it sounds. An athlete will be the first to know when his/her confidence is starting to go south. Having a system, or mechanism to help hold off those self doubts plays a huge role in athletic successes. As a professional athlete coming up in the 1990’s, I experienced the stress, and self doubt that can occur, and be hightened, by the emergence of Sports talk shows, all sorts of media outlets covering games, and the internal pressures you put on yourself to succeed. I was introduced to a book called the Mental ABC’s of Pitching, by Harvey Dorfman,(then Sports Psychologist of the Oakland A’s) in 1990, and had the good fortune of being able to speak with him on the phone multiple times as well. From his book, and our conversations, I created a system based on 3 elements that I implemented into my Pre-game, In Game, and Pre-Pitch Routines. Those 3 elements were 1. Breathing, 2. Self Talk, and 3. Visualization. Through learning how to control my breathing, control the internal chatter inside my head, and visualize things that I could control, I became a more confident, poised athlete, and I am certain that it helped me gain an advantage over my peers and opponents, and prolong my career. I would encourage every young athlete to work on training his Mental Game, as much as he does his physical game.”