The Idea of the Natural

                           *  The idea of the Natural *   

Now You See It, Now you Don't  

Physical endowment is not like intellectual endowment. It's visible. Size , build , agility 
are all visible. Practice and training are also visible, and they produce visible results. You would  think that this would dispel the myth of the natural. You could see Muggsy Bogues at five foot three playing NBA basketball, and Doug Flute, the small quarterback who has played for the New England Patriots and the sen Diego Chargers. You could see pete Gray  the one-armed baseball player who made it to the major leagues. Ben Hogan, one of the greatest golfers of all time, who was completely lacking in grace. Glenn Cunningham, the great runner, who had badly burned and damaged legs.  Larry Bird and his lack of swiftness. You can see the small or graceless or even "disabled" ones who make it , and the god-like specimens who don't Shouldn't this tell people something?

Boxing experts relied on physical measurements, called "tales of the tape," to identify naturals, They included measurements of the fighter's fist , reach chest expansion, and weight. Muhammad Ali failed these measurements. He was not a natural. He had great speed but he didn't have the physique of a great fighter, he didn't have the strength, and he didn't have the classical moves. In fact, he boxed all wrong. He didn't block punches with his arms and elbows. He punched in rallies like an amateur, which Jose Torres said was " like someone in the middle of a train track trying to avoid being hit by an oncoming train, not by moving to one of the other side of the track, but by running backwards." 

Sonny Liston, Ali's adversary, was a natural. He had it all-the size strength, and the experience. His power was legendary. It was unimaginable that Ali could beat Sonny Liston. The matchup was so ludicrous that the arena was only half full for the fight.

But aside from his quickness, Ali's brilliance was his mind. His brains, not his brawn. He sized up his opponent and went for his mental jugular. Not only did he study Liston's fighting style, but he closely observed what kind of person Liston was out of the ring : " I read everything I could where he had been interviewed. I talked with people who had been around him or had talked with him. I would lay in bed and put all of the things together  and think about them, and try to get a picture of how his mind worked. " And then he turned it against him.

Why did Ali appear  to " go crazy " before each fight ? Because, Torres says, he knew that a knockout punch is the one they don't see coming. Ali Said " Liston had to believe that I was crazy. That I was capable of doing anything. He couldn't see nothing to me at all but mouth and that's all I wanted him to see!"

Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee Your hand's can't hit what your eyes can't see. Ali's victory over Liston is boxing history. a famous boxing manger reflects on Ali: " He was a paradox. His physical performances in the ring were absolutely wrong.... Yet, his brain was always in perfect working condition." " He showed us all ," he continued with a broad smile written across his face, " that all victories come from here, " hitting his forehead with his index finger. Then he raised a pair of fists, saying : " Not from here."

This didn't change people's mind about physical endowment. No, we just look back at Ali now, with our hindsight,  and see the body of a great boxer. It was gravy that his mind was so sharp and that he made up amusing poems, but we still think his greatness resided in his physique. And we don't understand how the experts failed to see that greatness right from the start.

* Michael Jordan * 

Michael Jordan wasn't a nature , either. He was the hardest-working athlete, perhaps in the history of sport.

It is well know that Michael Jordan was cut from the high school varsity team- we laugh at the coach who cut him. He wasn't recruited by the collage he wanted to play for ( North Carolina State). Well, weren't they foolish? He wasn't drafted by the first two NBA team that could have chosen him. What a blooper! Because now we know he was the greatest basketball player ever, and we think it should have been obvious from the start. When we look at him we see MICHAEL JORDAN. But at the point he was only Michael Jordan.  

When Jordan was cut from the varsity team, he was devastated. His mother says, " I told him to go back and discipline himself. " Boy, did he listen. He used to leave the house at six in the morning to go practice before school. At the university of North Carolina, he constantly worked on his weaknesses-his defensive game and his ball handling and shooting. The Coach was taken aback by his willingness to work harder than anyone else. Once, after the team lost the last game of the season, Jordan went and practiced his shots for hours. He was preparing for the next years. Even at the height of his success and fame-after he had made himself into an athletic genius-his dogged practice remained legendary. Former Bulls assistant coach John Bach called him " a genius who constantly wants to upgrade his genius."

For Jordan, Success stems from the mind. " The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I've always said that I've always believed that. " But other people don't. They look at Michael Jordan and they see the physical perfection that led inevitably to his greatness. 

The Babe 

What about babe Ruth ? Now , he was clearly no vessel of human physical perfection. Here was the guy with the famous appetites and a giant stomach bulging out of this Yankee uniform. Wow, doesn't that make him even more of a natural ? Didn't he just carouse all night and then kind of saunter to the plate the next day and punch out home runs? The Babe was not a natural, either. At the beginning of his professional career, Babe Ruth bawas not that good a hitter. He had a lot of power, power that came from his total commitment each time he swung the bat. When he connected, it was breathtaking, but he was highly inconsistent.

It's true that he could consume astounding amounts of liquor and unheard-of amounts of food. After a huge meal, he could eat one or more whole pies for dessert. But he could also discipline himself when he had to. Many winters, he worked out the entire off-season at the gym to become more fit. In fact, after the 1925 season, when it looked as though he was washed up, he really committed himself to getting in shape, and it worked.

From 1926 though 1931, he batted. 354 averaging 50 home runs year and 155 runs batted in. Robert Creamer, his biographer, says,  " Ruth put on the finest display of sustained hitting that baseball has never seen. From the ashes of  1925, Babe Ruth rose like a rocket. " Through discipline. He also loved to practice. In fact, when he joined the Boston Red Sox, the veterans  resented him for wanting to take battling practice every day. He wasn't just a rookie; he was a rookie pitcher. who did he think he was, trying to take batting practice? One time, later in his career, he was disciplined and was banned from a game. That was one thing. But they wouldn't let him practice, either, and that really hurt.

Cobb argued that being a pitcher helper Ruth develop his hitting. why would being a pitcher help his batting ? " He could experiment at the plate, " Cobb Said. " No one cares much if a pitcher strikes out or looks bad at bat,  so Ruth could-take that big Swing. If he missed, it didn't matter. As time went on he learned more and more about how to control that big  swing and put the wood on the ball. By the time he became a full time outfielder, he was ready." Yet we cling fast to what Stephen Jay Gould calls " The common view that ballplayers are hunk of meat, naturally and effortlessly displaying the talents that nature provided. "