Free Twelfth Angel by Og Mandino

minutes of practice were devoted to reviewing the playing rules. We realized that there was no possible way we could cover every rule and subclause in the entire sixty-four pages of
Little League Baseball Official Regulations and Playing Rules
, but we concentrated on as many as possible, covering situations that we believed might arise again and again, such as why one should guard against getting hit by a ground ball as he is running the bases, when he can and cannot leave a base once he has reached it safely, and especially what hisdemeanor should be toward spectators, opposing players and umpires, and the penalty for acting otherwise.
    Of course I now had an additional activity to help occupy my mind and a little more of my time: the practice sessions, one on one, with Timothy Noble after our regular team practice. On the afternoon following our third practice session, when he had both surprised and touched me by quickly accepting my offer of some additional coaching, the two of us first sat alone in the quiet dugout and had a long chat.
    “So tell me, Timothy, have you been playing baseball most of your life?”
    Sitting on the bench, quite close to me, his short legs didn’t reach the ground. He stared down at his dangling feet for several minutes before shaking his head slowly and replying, “No. My dad was in the army and we lived near Berlin in Germany for a long time, and the kids there all played soccer. I liked soccer, but I wasn’t very good. Couldn’t run fast enough. Then we came back to the United States last year, to live here in Boland, but pretty soon Dad went away from us and he never came back and my mother was sad. Then she got a divorce.”
    Again, as on the telephone, Timothy was speaking in a flat, emotionless monotone, sounding almost like a toy robot.
My father is gone. There, I’ve told you. Now let’s not talk about that anymore
.
    “So you’ve only been playing baseball for a year or so?”
    He nodded vigorously, brushed back loose strands ofblond hair that had escaped his old baseball cap and smiled. Then he threw out his tiny chest, kicked forward with his two legs, clenched both fists, raised them above his head and shouted loudly, “But day by day, in every way, I’m getting better and better!”
    “What did you say?” I gasped.
    “Day by day in every way I’m getting better and better!”
    I couldn’t believe my ears. Impossible! I inhaled several times, trying to calm myself, unable to grasp how the little guy had just managed to repeat the very same powerful words that had once played such a vital role in
my
life. One of the greatest and most positive influences during my early years of corporate-ladder climbing had been a tiny book written by a turn-of-the-century French healer, Emil Coué, titled
Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion
. Coué believed that he could help others rid themselves of nearly every affliction, from serious physical problems to negative mental attitudes, if they learned to make positive and healthy suggestions to themselves again and again. Coué eventually became a great cult figure, and his lectures attracted thousands, both in England and in the United States back in the early days of this century. Vast audiences listened and believed that it was possible to rid themselves of scores of life’s illnesses and wounds by merely repeating their positive goals and desires again and again. The Frenchman’s work was best exemplified by his most famous self-affirmation, “Day by day in every way I am gettingbetter and better!” Millions repeated those words, aloud and to themselves, time after time, day after day, and so did I after I discovered them in a thin black-leather volume in a secondhand bookstore. That powerful self-affirmation worked for me. Primarily because I
believed
the words. They kept me optimistic and hopeful. My mental attitude, despite any temporary setbacks, always remained positive. I
knew
things would be better tomorrow.