DENVER (AP) — Imagine baseball had this inspirational slogan on a T-shirt: Give 70% effort.
It’s not quite as catchy as the 110% baseball players have been instructed to exert since Little League. But maybe, just maybe, Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s on to something with his theory that going 70% might be the way to be his best self — and cut down on strained obliques or pulled hamstrings in the process.
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Only, hustle is woven into the fabric of the game. Nicknames derive from it (Charlie Hustle) and awards are built around it ( Heart & Hustle ).
This season, hustle has already come into play on several occasions. Most notably, when Juan Soto, the Mets $765 million star, didn’t run hard to second base after smacking a ball high off the Green Monster at Fenway Park.
In this modern era of baseball, where the average salary topped $5 million for the first time this season, the politics of hustle may play a role. There’s the fundamental notion of hustle (run everything out) set against the possible ramifications of hustle (injuries to high-priced players).
To the old guard, though, hustle is a non-negotiable. A lack thereof risks the wrath of not only teammates but a spot in a manager’s doghouse. Which is why Chisholm’s 70% mindset doesn’t quite fly for Ron Washington, a gritty player back in the late 1970s and ‘80s who now manages the Los Angeles Angels.
“You give the visual of 100% at all times,” the 73-year-old Washington told The Associated Press. “The only person who knows you’re 70% is you, but don’t tell people you’re 70%, so when they see you dog it, they say, ‘Well, he’s only 70%.’”
The definition of hustle
The Baseball Almanac defines hustle as “to play aggressively, quickly, and alertly.”
Translation: You know it when you see it.
Two months ago, Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. criticized manager Brian Snitker’s lack of response to Jarred Kelenic failing to hustle out of the batter’s box. Acuña was removed from a Braves game on Aug. 19, 2019, when he was slow to leave the batter’s box on a long drive that bounced off the right-field wall for a long single.
“There’s no blanket thing,” Snitker said after the Kelenic situation on removing players for lack of hustle.
To Washington, the definition of hustle has “changed in this generation,” he said. ”Because (the lack of hustle) wouldn’t have been allowed in other generations. … Now people don’t want to pull their best player off the field when he acts like an (expletive). I’m sorry. They don’t want to pull him. Because you pull him, you just gutted the whole team.
“Back in the day, they didn’t care. You didn’t hustle, your (butt) is off the field. And you know who took care of it when they took you off the field? The players. Not management. Not the manager, not the coaches. The players took care of it.”
That’s Vinny Castilla’s take, too. The two-time All-Star for the Colorado Rockies in the 1990s had veterans pull him aside when sometimes “you don’t feel too good and you don’t go 100%.”
“The veterans step in and say, ‘Hey, man, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to hustle every day,’” Castilla said. “Hustle doesn’t change. … Some players love to play hard and get their uniform dirty, and some players don’t like to do it.”
Give 100% of how you feel
Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said that he generally expects players to give 100% each day, but that’s relative to how their feeling. As a recent example, Lovullo cited star outfielder Corbin Carroll, who was nursing a tight hamstring during a series in Cincinnati.
“For Corbin the past couple days, just give me 100% of what you have,” Lovullo said. “So, yeah, we’ll protect players.”
In most cases, Lovullo said, hustle is a hard thing to turn on and off.
“If a player is healthy, I feel like there’s no reason to not go 100%. To run fast, you’ve got to practice running fast,” he said. “To throw hard, you’ve got to practice throwing hard. You can’t turn it on and off. I think you’re risking injury when you don’t go hard and then all (of a) sudden you need to go hard.”
The 70% approach
Chisholm believes he found the key to playing well and staying healthy by going 70%. The New York Yankees infielder postulated that his success since returning from the injured list has been caused by limiting intensity.
“Play at 70%: defense, offense, running, everything,” Chisholm said. “Stay healthy. You don’t overswing. You don’t swing and miss as much, and you’re a great player at 70%.”
Of course, that wouldn’t have gone over well with “Charlie Hustle” himself — the late Pete Rose, who elevated hustling to baseball an art form.
That was also before the age of the viral bat flip. Admiring homers is not just permitted, it’s encouraged — and doesn’t result in a fastball to the ribs the next go-around at the plate. In Soto’s case, he appeared slow out of the box after watching what he thought was a homer.
It’s a different time from Washington’s day.
“The game became young and it got to the point where we don’t want to hurt nobody’s feelings,” he said. “I don’t remember (longtime big-league manager) Gene Mauch giving a (expletive) about hurting my feelings. … You didn’t get the job done, then I’m letting you know you didn’t get the job done. And if you don’t want me screaming at you, guess what you better do? Get the job done!”
It’s a balancing act for sure.
“Some days are tougher than others. We always say that,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “We’re going to play hard for 27 outs. There’s gonna be days where Woody (22-year-old budding star James Wood) sometimes will run out a groundball because he knows he’ got a chance to make it. There will be some days where he hits a 110-mph one-hopper where he doesn’t go hard out of the box, and I can understand that.”
Hustle, much like Chisholm’s theory, remains complicated.
“Some of it is what you would call eyewash, and some of it’s real,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy explained. “Real hustle means staying present in the game and staying on the game, being relentless in pitch-to-pitch readiness. Sometimes you can’t even see it. I can see it.
“Your mind’s decided on something else. You’re worried about your contract or you’re worried about next year or you’re worried about a .300 batting average versus .299. I look at that as kind of lack of proper focus, not necessarily not hustling, the actual physical hustle. I think these guys play their (butts) off.”
The stare
Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger learned the importance of hustle through a stare. He and his teammates growing up called it the “Clay Stare.” It was the look from Bellinger’s father, Clay, his longtime coach who helped instill the values of the game.
“You don’t ever want the ‘Clay Stare,’” Bellinger said. “My dad was always like, ‘Hey, run balls out. People are always watching.’”
Bellinger’s been benched in his baseball career, like when he was with the Dodgers in 2018 and manager Dave Roberts sat him for not hustling on a double.
“Hustle, I think, it’s one of the few things in this game you can control,” Bellinger said. “You can’t control where you hit the ball. But you can always control hustle and energy.”
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AP Baseball Writers Mike Fitzpatrick, David Brandt and Ronald Blum, AP Sports Writer Steve Megargee and AP freelance writer Mike DiGiovanna contributed to this report.
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