When you walk onto the baseball field you have entered a competitive arena.  As you enter this arena you must be thinking of one thing...winning.  Get it in your head and set your site on that goal.  Doing this will allow you to prepare to win, if you prepare to win you will be playing the game offensively, meaning you will be aggressive at the plate, aggressive on the bases, and aggressive in the field. I am not telling you to go out there and run around without direction, I am telling you to prepare yourself properly and then go out and play the game in such a manner that it is obvious to everyone watching that your one goal is to win the game.  This may sound obvious but far too many people play not to lose. They worry about failing so much they forget to prepare themselves to win. Guess what happens, they lose, and they fail, not because they don't want to win, they just didn't give themselves a chance to win.  The game was over before it started because if you are afraid to fail, the thought of how horrible failure is will consume you, and when all you think about is failure that is what you end up with.

Go out to the playing field without any care as to whether you make an error, strike out, get caught stealing, or give up a home run. If you do mess up, so what it is part of the game, but if you keep your mind on the victory and on success you will prepare to be successful and you will do what it takes, and you will play loose. You are going to fail if you play this game, but the beauty is all you have to do is be successful 30% of the time and you are a great player. Next time you take the field do it with confidence, swing the bat, run the bases, dive for balls when you need to, just go out and play hard, because the best part about baseball is you can always get 'em tomorrow, play the game hard and good things will happen.

Sam Flamont played his college ball at Grand Rapids Community College and Western Michigan University. At Western Michigan Sam was rookie of the year his junior year, and offensive MVP, All-MAC first team and All Region his senior year. Sam was signed by the Detroit Tigers as a Free agent in 2002, and he played professionally for 4 years.  Now that his playing days are behind him Sam co-owns and operates In The Zone which is an indoor baseball facility in Traverse City, Michigan and runs his blog Baseball Around The Clock at www.samflamont.com.  Sam recently joined the coaching staff at Central Michigan University.