Jordan Stephens is one of my favorite Rice players. He's finished up the season in Double A with the White Sox's Birmingham Barons. You might enjoy this interview Jordan Stephens interview

Even though I have excerpted a lot of the interview below, I recommend a full read (about always wanting to be a ball player, not having a back up plan, life at Rice, value of finding a job you love, life in the minors).

Here are some choice moments,

Recovering from Tommy John surgery

Quote:The psychological aspect behind a surgery like this is the hardest part. You went from a part of the team to apart from the team. I was still at the practices and games for the most part, but you know you’re not helping anything anymore. While disconnected from the team, something I never discussed with any teammates, I still had a lot to handle on the physical side, which became a great escape. Working hard has never been a problem for me and is something ingrained into me by my dad. I was only supposed to go to the rehab specialist twice a week, but we became close, so he let me come 3-5x a week. The remaining days were supposed to be done with our Rice trainer. Once the beginning rehab stages were done, I began pushing myself wherever I could. If I was supposed to do an exercise at 10lbs for 10 reps and 3 sets, I would do 12lbs for 11 reps and 3 sets. Every day I would do this. Rehab on something like this, something so critical to my career, was nerve wracking. You never know if you’re doing something well enough, and you won’t know until your first game back. However, I was going to do everything I could to be at my best when that day came.
Ironically, my timetable on my return matched me up with the series against the University of Texas. So I had my goal in sight, I knew how I was going to get there, and my results didn’t disappoint.

and his approach to pitching:

Quote:What do you feel is your strongest asset-whether physical or mental-as a ballplayer?
One of my strongest assets is my ability to look at things on a deeper level and to be a strategic thinker, like my dad. I am very interested in the psychological aspects of life and have read many books on how humans think and why we think like that. I’ve read many reviews on myself, and the common perception is that I’m very competitive and relaxed on the mound. I think that comes from being able to assess a situation from a realistic perspective. I know my abilities, I know that the greatest hitters get hits 3/10 times, and I know that most hitters I face are less than that. So typically, there is about a 75% chance that if I toss the ball down the middle, the hitter will still get out. Then I take my own pitching abilities into account, and I expect that number to rise to around 80%+. So any situation I’m put in, I expect the hitter to fail 80% of the time or more, and that keeps me always in the position for success. Once a pitcher can not only understand that, but believe in it, I think they will gain a great amount of confidence. Then you just have to pay attention to a hitters reactions and use common sense to figure out what he wants to do and what you want him to do. Often times, a starting pitcher’s job is to play puppet master. We are trying to throw a pitch to a certain spot to make that hitter do a certain thing, such as a double play. Starters, like myself, want to go as deep into games as possible, so early weak contact is our favorite thing.

and the power of noticing, active engagement and living and executing in the moment:

Quote:Do you have any advice for young ballplayers hoping to be where you are some day?
For any young players that want to be a professional baseball player, my answers to the previous questions should help them out. Never let anyone tell you who or what you should be. If you want something bad enough, there is always a way to achieve it, because success is never far from failure. I’d advise kids to not only just watch baseball, but study it. If a game is on TV, you have a free pitching or hitting book right in front of you. Watch how different pitchers attack different styles of hitters and how they set up pitches. Be able to understand that everything works both ways. While a pitcher will set up a certain sequence of pitches on the first at bat for a hitter, that pitcher can usually remember what he did and be able to continue to work off of that. Likewise, as a hitter, you should know not only how you were pitched in your first at bat, but you should know why they did it and how you reacted to each pitch. A bad swing on a chase curveball in the dirt makes its reoccurrence likely in your second at bat. So if you find yourself 0-2, you can be confident that you know what’s coming (Although a savvy pitcher may bust you in 0-2 before throwing the curve, because he knows that you know what happened last time). Baseball is all about playing the odds. You take what you know, you guess what you don’t, and you make the best decision you can based on that information. Baseball is a thinking man’s game… that’s why many people think it’s boring. They don’t realize that when a pitcher throws 100 pitches, that was 100 individual decisions that were thought out to comprise one big story (the game). One bad decision can change everything, and that’s what makes baseball so great. I would tell every kid to analyze the game and not to just focus on the physical parts. Understand the game on a deeper meaning than just strikes and balls or hits and outs.