Baseball is an unforgiving sport. Perseverance is not just a good quality for a hitter — it is essential. There is no other way to deal with the constant failure that goes hand-in-hand with trying to hit a baseball. It is hard enough to just make contact with the ball. When it comes to actually converting an at-bat into a hit, a batter can expect to fail at least 70% of the time throughout a season.
"And that's for the good players," Seibu Lions first baseman David MacKinnon joked before a game at Tokyo Dome earlier in the week.
MacKinnon is in his first season in Japan with the Seibu Lions, and it has been a grind. MacKinnon, though, is thinking positive thoughts and, on the outside at least, keeping his head up and spirits high. The infielder's .237 batting average is far lower than he wants it to be, though he also has seven home runs and 23 RBIs, second-most among Lions players in both categories.