David Huzzard: A few thoughts on grit

Grit is nothing that can be displayed on a baseball field. This is my belief; it is a debate we can have and it would probably be a long debate. Baseball is a game of skill, and in the course of a game of baseball, a player displays skills honed through years of practice. Grit is very much a part of the makeup of a baseball player, but it is never displayed on the baseball field. Girt manifests itself in the batting cage or weight room or on the practice field taking ground ball after ground ball when everyone has long been home for the evening.

Last weekend, I completed a 101-ton challenge at the gym I go to and I casually threw it into my scheduled workouts. I treated it like it was nothing. Somewhere in the midst of doing 10 sets of 10 on squats, I realized the challenge itself wasn't that much of a challenge. I had my wife and one of our independent contractors covering most of my visits for the day, but I was done before 8 a.m. I had lifted 101 tons, had the entire day in front of me and grit had nothing to do with it.

The hard work had already been completed long before the challenge even started or was even a thought in the gym owner's mind. The gritty part was waking up at 4:15 a.m. every morning to go to the gym for the previous 12 weeks and eating 8 ounces of chicken and 6 ounces of green vegetables every 2 hours for the same 12 weeks. That is what took determination and force of will. Actually going to the gym last Saturday morning and lifting 101 tons wasn't anything more than an extra workout for the week. Sure, I woke up the next morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, but I still was up at 4:15 a.m. and going to the gym for my next workout.

I am nowhere close to being a professional athlete or having the natural ability to have ever even been a terrible baseball player. The point is grit can't save a bad baseball player if it's all they have when they step on the field. No matter the force of will it will never replace natural talent or the true grit it takes to train and hone the skills needed to truly be an excellent baseball player. Talking about grit is a great talking point and it can be used to give color commentators a way to say even the slap-hitting glove-first utility infielder is adding something to the team.

Grit is a very important part of baseball, but it isn't something that happens on the field of play. By the time the players are in the midst of the game, all their girt has been spent getting to that field. Once the game begins, it's time to let their reactions and natural ability speak and then when the game is over the gritty players will be the ones that stay after to study their swings and put in the work to improve what was wrong during the game. Grit is the hours spent in the batting cage, weight room, and practice fields. It isn't running out every weak grounder right at the second baseman or running after every foul ball deep into the stands.

David Huzzard blogs about the Nationals at Citizens of Natstown. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidHuzzard. His views appear here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our regular roster of writers.