Joe Niekro had a great knuckle ball. Almost impossible to hit is what batters used to say during the best years of his career. Several years after his retirement he described how he threw the knuckle ball. He actually ‘pushed’ the ball out of his hand with his fingers. Later on, as technology improved, there was a film of Joe throwing the knuckle ball in slow motion . . hundreds of thousands of frames per second revealed that the ball left his hand and, when the ball was about a foot away from his hand, his fingers ‘pushed’ forward. So, the only ‘pushing with fingers’ that was done was in Joe’s mind.
This doesn’t diminish what he said. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of pitchers benefited from this mental thought even though it didn’t reflect reality. Now we know that such is the case with a lot of mental cues . . I would point to my mental thought every time I step up to the golf ball: I am going to hit it straight. We all know that sometimes the mental thought doesn’t reflect reality.
But, the reason I bring this up is this. Do we blame Joe for telling us something that turned out not to be true? Do we brand him a liar? Is he reprehensible? Should he have known better? Was he trying to mislead us? No, he was just sharing what he thought was true. And, I and many others were better off for it.
So, if I think about the President, do I have the same feelings? Someone that is clearly not intelligent and competent enough to understand what he is is doing would normally evoke some sympathy. But, his mean, selfish and vindictive nature turns the sympathy into disgust.
Joe Niekro he is not.