Courage is mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear or difficulty.

It takes courage to ask your baseball coach, “coach, will you let me have another chance at pitching, I like it and I think I will do a good job.” The easy way out is to not ask the question and continue to play right field for the rest of the season.

It takes courage to ask the coach that question in a bold way by looking the coach in the eye with spirit behind your words. The easy way out is to ask it by looking at your shoes while mumbling the words.

It takes courage to be at the pitcher’s mound in a close game, and after having blown the game by walking a number of batters and given up a number of runs, to overcome your discouragement and find the mindset to treat the next batter as if none of that had happened and to throw your best pitches with that next batter. The typical response is to get discouraged and feel sorry for yourself and want the coach to pull you out.

Fear guides you to not ask the coach for a chance to pitch or to ask the coach in an unconvincing way. Fear guides you to get discouraged in a high pressure situation when the game is on the line and you’re walking batters.

Courage does not replace fear, courage is exercised in a defiant way against fear, but it lives alongside fear.

When you pitch, there is a chance that you’ll win the game. And for each game that you win, you reduce your fear of pitching by a little bit and replace that little bit of fear with a little bit of confidence. There is also the chance that you’ll lose the game, but you can exercise courage when you’re losing the game by pitching your best even after walking a bunch of batters and having the other team score on you. And even if you blow the game you can practice courage by not being shaken by the loss, by quickly shrugging it off and not letting it upset you so greatly. It takes courage to cope with losing in a way that doesn’t negatively impact your performance in the next game. The best teams in baseball lose one-third of their games throughout the season.

Baseball teaches humility. Even the best batter makes an out seven out of every ten at bats. Players benefit from learning to check their pride at the door so they can do their best at the next at bat despite the outcome of the previous failures.

Acting bravely increases the possibility of a small victory, and even a small victory can make you feel cheerful, enlivened, excited, refreshed, stimulated. Courage is what can change a miserable moment into an exhilarating moment, and that’s why it is worth being able to identify when the exercise of courage can benefit you.

It can be very unpleasant to be under the pressure of having the outcome of the game in your hands, knowing that your performance can directly cause the loss of the game, but baseball is just a game and it doesn’t matter if you never pitch again or if you do pitch and blow the game. The only negative consequences of your performance is the impact on the respect that your teammates and coaches have for you. Baseball prepares you for other high-pressure situations that you will face in your life, by enabling you to practice at coping with a high-pressure situation at a young age.

Baseball also teaches you that if you’re going to put yourself in a high-pressure situation then you might as well improve your chances of having that high-pressure situation work out to your advantage by practicing often. The harder you work on improving your own skills through practice, the greater the probability that the high pressure situation will work out in your favor and you will win the game.