Three Cheers!
This Saturday is Opening Day for the Harbor Springs Little League. The warm sun this afternoon sure makes it feel like baseball weather. There is a phrase often used in baseball practice: "Trust the Process." In my line of work, we use "respect the process." The intent is the same. One should focus attention on the steps not on the outcome.
The idea is to deal with what is right in front of you. Young players are unlikely hit a home run if their approach is focused on hitting a home run. Heck, seasoned players won't do much better. By paying attention to the mechanics of putting the ball in play each have a far better chance of success.
Last week, I talked about how the greatest hitter ever, Ted "The Kid" Williams, put the ball in play a third of the time. Williams respected the process so much he wrote a book called "The Science of Hitting." The photo on this post is a heat map Williams created of the strike zone. Without the benefit of computers, he used his own eye and his batting statistics to break down the strike zone into a set of mathematical probabilities.
What is amazing to me is how hard it is to put a baseball in play. A pitch thrown smack in the middle of the strike zone will result in a hit 40% of the time. That's it.
Over the last few months, our town has made huge strides on the complicated issue of our zoning code. The Planning Commission is regularly putting the ball in play in an incredibly difficult situation. Their success is the direct result of respecting the process. Their focus on going line-by-line through the code is about the steps not the outcome.
The outcome, a zoning code that reflects our community's needs, will come eventually. Our odds are better if as a community we continue to respect the process. A process that has been intense, informative and important. But, like hitting a home run, incredibly hard.
There is a famous John Updike essay written about Ted Williams' last career at bat.
Updike sets the scene:
"Understand that we were a crowd of rational people. We knew that a home run cannot be produced at will; the right pitch must be perfectly met and luck must ride with the ball. Three innings before, we had seen a brave effort fail. The air was soggy; the season was exhausted. Nevertheless, there will always lurk, around a corner in a pocket of our knowledge of the odds, an indefensible hope, and this was one of the times, which you now and then find in sports, when a density of expectation hangs in the air and plucks an event out of the future."
Despite the odds, in his last career at bat, Ted Williams hit a home run over the center field wall. He would, of course, run the bases in a hurry, head down, like he always did. He returned to the dugout and sat on the bench with his team. Despite the crowd's euphoric cheers, Ted did not come out for an encore or to tip his hat. As Updike wrote, "Gods do not answer letters."
Today, I’d like to take a second to cheer the team on the Planning Commission. Your respect for the process has been inspiring and I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the outcome ended up a home run.
With full knowledge of the odds, I have an indefensible hope.
Thanks to each of you for what you continue to do to support one another this spring. If you are interested in the full John Updike piece on Williams' last at bat (which is some darn beautiful writing) you can find it here: https://www.newyorker.com/.../10/22/hub-fans-bid-kid-adieu