Baseball has been called the great American pastime throughout the years. This sport holds a special place in millions of people’s hearts all-around the world. A big reason for this is because a great number of us have played baseball when we were adolescents or have been lifelong fans of professional teams like the New York Yankees. The Yankees have set the barometer in measuring success in wins by capturing 27 World Series Championships. However, Championships aren’t the only measurement of success for sports teams. 

I have personally been involved in baseball as a coach for 18 years. Through these years I’ve see many ways measurement of success could be defined in this great sport. This success rarely, if ever, comes down to wins and losses for coaches that focus on the players. The first this I do to gauge success for my teams is to set goals. Once these goals are clearly defined then those goals will serve as our road map throughout the season. 

So what is a “goal”? According to Business Dictionary a goal is An observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed timeframe. With that in mind, goals I set for my teams are 1) Have each player improve from day one to the last day 2) Players always show respect to others 3) Never give up on yourself or your team mates 4) Be competitive every time we step on the field 5) Help the player to understand the game of baseball so they come to love the game for what it is.

I choose this topic for my second blog because a youth baseball team I coach just wrapped up our season with a heart breaking one point loss in the semi-finals to the first place team in our league. During the season we had ups and downs but we did accomplish the five goals I set for my teams. Did we win the championship? No we did not. However, all eleven players improved, they respected everyone, they never gave up even though we endured a 4 game losing streak, we were always competitive and most importantly the players gained a better understanding of baseball and loved playing this season.

Some people would consider the season a failure because we didn’t bring home a trophy. Once again, that is the wrong reason to coach youth. It was a success because we helped instill important life lessons to our players. Going forward in life they know to strive to become better in anything they do everyday, always respect others, never give up, always strive to be the best (competition) and love what you do. Just think how successful these young men will be if they apply these life lessons to their college, family and professional lives. 

That is how you measure success.

ACR