Regression to the mean

Original post:  May 20, 2015

Part of the human experience is learning to deal with frustration and disappointment. It's true at work and it's true in our home lives as well.

My son is in his first year of kid-pitched baseball. He can get quite competitive (don't know where he gets that from). His team, the Cubs, is scheduled to play 14 games in total before the playoffs. They started off on an incredible run. They were 7-0-1 heading into this week's games. Yes, there are ties at his age.

On Monday, they started off poorly. They only play six innings. The teams can only score a maximum of five runs in the first five frames. The Cubs gave up the maximum ten runs in the first two innings--largely because their fielding is atrocious. While they battled back to tie the game, they ended up losing 16-14. It was not a winning result and the kids were disappointed. With the short season, they played again last night (Tuesday).

Unfortunately for the boys, their poor play carried over into this game as well. Their opponent, the Rockies, are the best hitting and highest scoring team in the league. They punished the Cubs. To be honest, I didn't appreciate the opposing coach calling for steals while up ten runs, but that's for another story. Worse still, my boy was frustrated by both the solid hitting of the other team and the many poor plays by his own team members. Simple plays which could have helped the team get out of the inning turned into comical errors and runs for the other side.

I was not happy to see my boy stomping around and glaring at his teammates. After the game, he was in a foul mood and filled with tears. He did not want to talk about the game. I made him a deal. We could go for frozen yogurt (one of his favorites) if we could sit and talk calmly.

Once he had cooled down, he started digging into his mounded bowl and we talked. We reviewed his performance and talked about what we might do differently next time. He agreed that as a pitcher, he couldn't control the actions of his fielders. We'd work on improving his pitching, but there were two immediate things he could do to help his team. First, he could anticipate where the plays would occur and back up his teammates. If a ball was overthrown, he could support his fellow players and possibly prevent further damage. Second, he had to stop with the tantrums. All of his demonstrations would only serve to upset his teammates further. Additionally, his raging would take away from his own performance since he would lose control of his pitching. He knew that his pitching angry made him perform worse. He could be upset, but he had to keep it inside and not take it out on others or let the other team know it was affecting his game.

We both vowed to leave the negatives inside the building and forget about it leading out the door.

I also couldn't help myself. I had to explain to him the fancy concept of "regression to the mean". I don't expect him to remember it, but baseball does help teach the concept well. Hot streaks and luck play a major role, but teams usually find their talent level over the course of the season. I'm sure we'll keep coming back to the same lesson. Hopefully, it will help him later in life. You never know what sticks and what doesn't.