For Green, the ball began to look smaller and smaller the longer
he went without a hit. But it was Buddhism, which he had long
practiced, that Shawn leaned on to prevent this vicious cycle from
destroying his career. Instead of giving in to those churning thoughts
—instead of trying harder and harder—he tried to clear his mind
entirely. Instead of fighting the slump, he was going to try not to
think about it at all.
It seems crazy, but it isn’t. “Man is a thinking reed,” D. T. Suzuki,
one of the early popularizers of Buddhism in the West, once said,
“but his great works are done when he is not calculating and
thinking. ‘Childlikeness’ has to be restored with long years of training
in the art of self-forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks yet
he does not think.”
The way out of the slump wasn’t to consult experts or redesign his
swing. Shawn Green knew he had to get rid of the toxic thinking that
had knocked him off his game in the first place—the thinking about
his big contract, the expectations for how he wanted the season to go,
the stress at home, or the critics in the media.
He had to push all that out of his mind. He had to let his training
take over.
On May 23, 2002, Green was struggling to do exactly that. It was
the rubber match in a series against the Brewers. The Dodgers had
eked out a 1–0 victory the night before, and lost the night before that.
Green’s own hitting was sporadic and discouraging. So when he got
to the ballpark that morning, he worked to give himself a fresh start.
First in the batting cage, and then at the batting tee, he slowly,
patiently, quietly cleared his mind. With each swing, he tried to focus
on the mechanics, the placement of his feet, really planting himself
where his feet were—not thinking of the past, not worrying about
what was coming in the future, not thinking about the fans or how he
wanted to hit the ball. Really, he wasn’t thinking at all. Instead, he
repeated an old Zen proverb to himself: Chop wood, carry water.
Chop wood, carry water. Chop wood, carry water.
Don’t overanalyze. Do the work.
Don’t think. Hit.
In his first at bat on that day, Green took two strikes in the first
two pitches. His mind burbled a bit—Is the slump going to keep
barry
(Barry)
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