Bio Sketch --- Charles A. Maher, PsyD, CC-AASP is Sport and Performance Psychologist and Director of Personal and Organizational Performance for the Cleveland Indians. He has been with the Indians for 20 years and he has been involved in sport and performance psychology for 30 years. He also has served as a sport psychologist during this time for a range of professional teams, beyond the Indians, including the Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Browns, Chicago White Sox, New York Jets, New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild, and San Antonio Spurs as well as with tennis players, boxers, and other elite athletes. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Rutgers University where he serves as a consultant to the Department of Sports Medicine as well as to the Rutgers football and men’s and women’s basketball teams. He is a licensed psychologist and has authored many books and journal articles. His most recent baseball book is The Complete Mental Game: Taking Charge of the Process, On and Off the Field. He has had numerous professional experiences in helping to clarify substantial
throwing problems and resolving these problems with baseball players and other athletes and furthermore, he also has worked over the years with government agencies and private corporations, worldwide. He also has been a high school baseball coach, a high school and college basketball coach, as well as a special education teacher and special services director in public schools.
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These methods, which can only be briefly discussed in this article, are the following:
• Deep breathing
• Meditation
• The MAC approach
The effective use of deep breathing is a very effective and economical way for staying focused, in the moment, and on the immediate task at hand.
When a baseball player breathes deeply from their diaphragm, not from their chest, they will feel centered, both physically and mentally. This kind of feeling of centering will assist the player to be ready to pay attention to what matters in the moment—to be focused.
Deep breathing will also assist the player from recovering back into the moment when they have lost focus.
Baseball players are encouraged to learn how to breathe deeply, from the diaphragm and to practice this kind of breathing.
Meditation is another method that can assist the player in learning to detect when they are focused and when they are not.
During meditation, the individual focuses on one thing and only that one thing.
This one thing may be the player’s breath, a number, a feeling, or some other key thought or word that will be there center of focus, or anchor point. In essence, when attention drifts away from the center of focus on which they are meditating, the immediate task then is to bring oneself gently back into the present moments and paying attention to that center of focus, nothing more nothing less.
Another very effective way of learning to have consistent focus on the task at hand is the MAC approach. This approach was developed initially and validated by Frank Gardner and Zella Moore, two performance psychologists.
I have adapted the MAC approach for use with professional baseball players, many of whom have found it to be a valuable way of keeping their minds in the moment.
Basically, the MAC approach for baseball players involves the individual player learning to use three steps, before, during, and after a game: