How to Be a Great Baseball Teammate

Baseball is a sport that’s meant to be fun. Unless you’re a great teammate, how can it possibly be fun?

That’s the first thing I tell kids. It’s also one of the first things a college coach tries to answer when he starts watching a player.

When your son shows up to the yard, people should want to be around him. They should gravitate toward him because he’s a leader. Not because he talks about how good he is. Because he leads by example. Because he brings guys up when they’re really struggling. That’s a great teammate.

The other version is easy to spot. The kid who only thinks about himself. Only talks about how great he is. Nobody wants to be around that. Over time it becomes a cancer. In the long run it will hurt him, because college coaches don’t want that in their clubhouse.

A staff can find another arm. They cannot live with a cancer in the clubhouse. They take the kid everybody wants to be around. The guy who sprints on and off the field.

If somebody’s struggling, he should go over, put his arm around him, and tell him he’s a really good player. Build him up. Build his confidence. When he does that for somebody else — and he’s sprinting, and he’s a great teammate — people will want to be like him. They’ll believe he’ll help them out just as much.

You can teach this. You don’t need another trainer for it. Watch how he talks in the car after a game. Does he only recap his at-bats, or does he mention the kid who sat at the end of the bench. That’s the start.

Model it too. The dad who only talks about how great his own son is is teaching the same cancer. Sit next to him. Help him see the other kid. Then let him be the one who walks over.

If he isn’t a great teammate yet, that’s a development problem. Treat it that way. The tools get him looked at. The clubhouse is how he stays.