{"id":918,"date":"2007-02-12T13:42:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-12T13:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/chatteringmind\/2007\/02\/heavy-breathing-on-mound.html"},"modified":"2007-02-12T13:42:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-12T13:42:00","slug":"heavy-breathing-on-mound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/02\/heavy-breathing-on-mound.html","title":{"rendered":"Heavy Breathing on the Mound"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone interested in the mainstreaming of Eastern philosophy will find this New York Times Sports section article by Lee Jenkins <\/a>fascinating. It’s about the yoga and meditation work some pro-ball pitchers are incorporating into their training. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can calm yourself down in the middle of those poses, you can do it in the middle of the game,\u201d said Errol Simonitsch, a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins. \u201cThat\u2019s why, before every pitch, you\u2019ll see me take a deep breath.\u201d<\/p>\n

By thinking about his breaths, Simonitsch is limiting how much he thinks about his pitches, and he has a better chance of blocking out distractions. He simply rocks and fires. By the time he reflects on the pitch, it is already released.<\/p>\n

This technique was popularized by [the Giant’s Barry] Zito, who takes so many deep breaths on the mound that it can look as if he is hyperventilating. When [the Tiger’s Joel] Zumaya made his major league debut last season in Kansas City, he ran down the tunnel for a moment to do his breathing exercises.<\/p>\n

No one laughed at him, at least not after he touched 103 miles an hour on the radar gun. And no one laughed at Zito, not when he signed a contract in December for $126 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was a little kooky at first,\u201d said Jason Hirsh, a pitcher for the Colorado Rockies. \u201cNo one does mental training. Everyone just tells you to get big and strong. But I always thought, If it works for those other guys, why can\u2019t it work for me?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone interested in the mainstreaming of Eastern philosophy will find this New York Times Sports section article by Lee Jenkins fascinating. It’s about the yoga and meditation work some pro-ball pitchers are incorporating into their training. \u201cIf you can calm yourself down in the middle of those poses, you can do it in the middle…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHeavy Breathing on the Mound - Chattering Mind<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2007\/02\/heavy-breathing-on-mound.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Heavy Breathing on the Mound - Chattering Mind\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Anyone interested in the mainstreaming of Eastern philosophy will find this New York Times Sports section article by Lee Jenkins fascinating. 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