Bill Buckner and A Nightmare Come True

What We Say Shapes How We Play

Despite a successful playing career that spanned 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, Bill Buckner is most known for one infamous play in the 1986 World Series. It was Game 6 and the Boston Red Sox were on the verge of a championship, leading the New York Mets in extra innings and a strike away from securing the championship. In the 10th inning, a slow ground ball rolled toward Bill Buckner at first base and it slipped under his glove, allowing the winning run to score. The Mets went on to win Game 6 and then Game 7.

Unfortunately for Buckner, this World Series moment is frequently featured amongst notable errors and famous failures in America’s pastime. The striking part of this story is the foreshadowing that occurred 12 days before the World Series during a pre-series media interview. Buckner stated to a reporter, “The dreams are that you’re going to have a great Series and win. The nightmares are that you’re going to let the winning run score on a ground ball through your legs.”

Bill Buckner’s worst fear, spoken into existence, had come true. His notorious moment offers a sobering reminder: Our mind is always listening so we better make sure it hears the right message.

Words Predict and Promote Performance

Our self-talk functions like a GPS system for our brain, but it doesn’t care if you’re driving towards greatness or a full-blown disaster. The average person is known to have around 60,000-80,000 thoughts per day, and some studies estimate that 80% of these thoughts are negative or unhelpful.

That means your brain is basically running a full-time news channel dedicated to doubts, worries, and worst-case scenarios. But here’s the kicker: Thinking something is one thing, but saying it out loud? That’s like putting it on a billboard, whereby suddenly the words feel bigger, louder, and more concrete.

Bill Buckner didn’t just imagine his worst fear; he announced it for the world to hear. His story highlights an important concept in psychology known as linguistic relativity, which suggests that the words we speak influence the outcomes in our life and how we experience the world. Unfortunately, most of us go our entire lives not realizing the mental constraints we subconsciously place on ourselves.

In sports, athletes may say things like, “I always struggle in clutch moments” or “I’m terrible under pressure.” In these instances, they’re not just expressing doubt, but also constructing a mental reality that increases the chances of those fears becoming reality. Speaking negative thoughts out loud acts like a mental trap, solidifying limiting beliefs and making it harder to perform with confidence and freedom.

Science backs this up. A meta-analysis by David Tod and colleagues (2011) determined that the way we talk to ourselves directly impacts performance. Positive, instructional, and motivational self-talk can be a free performance-enhancer. Below is a perfect example from 3-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl champion, Aaron Donald.

Negative and unhelpful self-talk, on the other hand, can lead to a spiral of doom and make failure feel permanent and personal.

Catch, Challenge, Change System

Below is a simple system a coach can use to flip the script on an athlete’s negative self-talk. I call it the 3 C’s method:

1. Catch It – It’s difficult to change something you’re not aware of. Coaches not only help athletes develop habits that lead to success, but also help them spot behaviors that make it unattainable. Athletes won’t outperform their self-talk so an essential first step for coaches is being a “second set of eyes/ears” and acknowledge when players are verbalizing their inner critic.

2. Challenge It – Encourage players to ask, “Is this 100% true?” or “What evidence do I have that contradicts this?” It’s a massive waste of time and energy to defend beliefs that contain invalid evidence. Coaches are integral in helping athletes poke holes in their beliefs by helping them separate what’s actually “true” in their words. For example, pay attention when athletes use pervasive and extreme language (e.g. always, never) to describe their experiences.

3. Change It – The final step is challenging players to reframe their negative self-talk into something empowering. Instead of “I always choke under pressure,” it could become “I’ve prepared for this moment and I trust my training.”

Final Thought:

As leaders, we can’t control every thought that enters our athletes’ minds, but we can help them in identifying which ones to listen to. In the most crucial moments, the stories athletes tell themselves matter just as much as the skills they’ve trained.

Inspiration for This Piece:

• Moawad, T., & Staples, A. (2020). It takes what it takes: How to think neutrally and gain control of your life. New York: HarperOne.

• Tod, D., Hardy, J., & Oliver, E. (2011). Effects of self-talk: A systematic review. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 33(5), 666-687.