This isn’t limited to baseball, but even when you play in games, things don’t always go as you hope.

In those moments, many players feel the urge to practice more—spending long hours in extra batting sessions or extended training.

But what if the results still don’t improve?

What should you do then?

According to legendary player and manager Katsuya Nomura, there are two types of effort:

“correct effort” and “incorrect effort.”

No matter how much time you invest, if it’s the latter, it will never lead to good results.

That’s why it’s crucial to distinguish between the two.

Only then does the common phrase “effort never betrays you” truly hold meaning.

Shohei Ohtani dedicates an enormous amount of time to training.

And while more practice does refine performance, he emphasizes that what matters most is not simply the quantity.

By increasing repetitions, players naturally accumulate more instances of success and failure—

and through that process, their skills become more refined.

However, Ohtani does not believe that blindly increasing volume will automatically lead to improvement or results.

Training, like effort, has both a right and a wrong form.

And only by consistently choosing the right kind

does it eventually lead to success.

Source

This quote comes from a Japanese book published in Japan and is not currently available in English.

Number 980, p.14