“Don’t f--- this up,” Paddy Steinfort tells a major league pitcher throwing his bullpen session. “Don’t f--- this up. Don’t f--- it up.”
Standing directly behind the right-hander as he heaves pitch after pitch, Steinfort fine-tunes his provocations: “Don’t hang the curveball. Don’t hang it out there. I haven’t got this pitch today. Is the coach coming out for a mound visit? Or is the GM in the stands looking at me right now?”
Steinfort is giving voice to the stream of distracting thoughts rattling around the pitcher’s head so that he can recognize and overcome them.