Thought processor

The Streak is now more than a decade old, but few know about it, and Alex Rodriguez isn't talking about it.

For the last 1,560 or so games, the Yankees star has received help from a mental performance coach before every game.

''I don't talk about Jim, so, if you have any other questions?" says A-Rod earlier this month about Jim Fannin, who calls himself America's ZoneCoach.

But the reigning American League MVP has written glowingly about him.

In 2005, Fannin authored a book, ''S.C.O.R.E. for Life," which proclaims to be ''The Secret Formula for Thinking Like a Champion." The acronym stands for self-discipline, concentration, optimism, relaxation, and enjoyment. Rodriguez penned the foreword.

''Jim has either left me a phone message or spoken to me in person or on the phone for every game of my career [since April 1996]," writes Rodriguez. ''Every game."

The messages are a combination pep talk, thought management, and a detailed scouting report.

''His attitude has never wavered," writes A-Rod. ''I've never heard him talk in a negative way. Ever. He has been an all-night supermarket of encouragement with his 24/7 accessibility . . . For more than 2,000 times he has said to me the following statement: 'I hit solid with an accelerated bat head.' And I've repeated to myself the same mantra at least 10,000 times over the years."

But is it still accurate?

''Very," contends Rodriguez, in perhaps one of the shortest interviews ever held in the visitors' clubhouse at Fenway Park.

So, who is this mustachioed, tall man who plants thoughts in A-Rod's head?

Fannin is a self-made millionaire who has devised a mental visualization system to increase productivity and decrease negativity. It has been used by 22 major league All-Stars, including four Cy Young Award winners -- Jack McDowell, Randy Johnson, Barry Zito, and Orel Hershiser -- and an array of golfers, tennis stars, Olympians, NBA players, coaches, and business leaders.

The promised land Fannin trains them to enter and stay in is ''the Zone."

''The Zone is the moment you perform with complete detachment from the possibility of failure," says Fannin.

Fannin acknowledges he did not invent the term ''the Zone," but he's been teaching it for 30 years.

But if you want to talk to him in person, you're going to be interrupted. He logs up to 6,000 minutes a month on his cellphone talking to clients. His phone is always ringing, except for one place on Earth.

The Masters.

Fannin hates the Masters.

Well, not the actual golf tournament, where he predicted this year his client, Englishman Luke Donald, would win the fabled green jacket. He just hates its cellphone policy. Spectators can't enter these hallowed, azalea-scented grounds with even a cellphone, let alone Fannin's state-of-the-art computer digital assistant, a combination computer/phone.

In fact, when Fannin leaves the Augusta, Ga., shrine after Round 1, the first thing he does is power up his lifeline. There is a text message waiting.

''I will call U in one hour. AROD."

They met in Milwaukee in late April '96, introduced by Rodriguez's Seattle Mariners teammate, Joey Cora. A-Rod was then a third-year part-time player who never hit higher than .232.

''When I met him, I said, 'So what do you want?' " says Fannin. ''He didn't hesitate. He said, 'Hall of Fame.' I said, 'Really? You're hitting .220 something and making more errors than the rest of the team. You've got the guts to tell me that?

'' 'What would you pay?' He thought I was talking about my fee. I said, 'You can pay me out of the front change part of your pocket. Chump change.' I said, 'You're going to miss your daughter's recital.

''He said, 'I don't have any kids.'

''I said, 'You're gonna miss your anniversary with your wife.'

''He said, 'I don't even have a girlfriend.'

''I said, 'The Hall of Fame could be 20-plus years away. What will you sacrifice? When everybody's hanging out, you'll have to be thinking about your craft. Your friends may think you've changed. Family may think you changed. Would you pay that?'

''He said, 'Absolutely.'

''He changed all his routines. I said, 'What do you want this year?' He said, 'Batting title.'

''I said, 'What else do you want?' And he's relaxing and he's got his eyes closed and he says, 'All-Star' and I said, 'What do you think when you're at the All-Star Game? You're walking out on the field, what do you see?'

''He smiled. He said, 'I see Cal Ripken Jr. walking across the diamond sticking out his hand, saying, 'My name's Cal Ripken Jr. I couldn't wait to meet you, I've heard so much about you.'

''I said, 'What else do you want?' He said, 'I don't know if I can have this.' I said, 'It's your movie, not my movie.'

''He said, 'I want to be introduced as a new superstar on a late night talk show,' and he starts laughing.

''Next day he became the batting champion in his mind. He began taking pitches he was swinging at. He became more disciplined. He changed his routine on the on-deck circle. Started using visualization. His batting average started to climb, .240, .260, .280, .360. He makes the All-Star team, goes to Philadelphia, and walks out on the diamond. Cal Ripken walks across the field and says verbatim, 'My name is Cal Ripken Jr. I've heard so much about you, I couldn't wait to meet you.' Alex freaks out. He gets on his cell and says, 'You ain't going to believe this! And I said, 'Ripken.'

''August 1996 -- he's on his way to the Letterman show introduced as the new superstar and in '96 he wins the batting title. So the key is having a vision, but you need to illuminate a pathway from the vision to where you are. You must see it as so."

Fannin says Yankee fans unfairly booed A-Rod in 2004. ''He spent an inordinate amount of time honing his third base skills, and he was vilified."

Now Rodriguez continues to make adjustments to playing and living in the Big Apple.

''He has to shred his garbage," says Fannin.

Fannin, 56, grew up in the Appalachian town of Ashland, Ky., the son of a government worker and a nurse. He remembers walking on a plank of wood to get to his bed because termites had eaten the rest of the floor.

He got a full tennis scholarship at East Tennessee State University and earned degrees in marketing and psychology. He played tennis professionally in Europe.

''I lost in every country but Belgium in Europe," he says. He pauses for effect. ''I didn't go to Belgium," he adds with a laugh. But he wound up coaching seven of the world's top 10 players.

He launched a Tennis for Tots program that quickly grew. At one parent seminar, Dr. David Orth, who's currently an ophthalmologist for the Chicago White Sox, said, ''Can you do this for baseball?" He realized he could. Orth referred Fannin to Ron Karkovice, Carlton Fisk's backup catcher in Chicago. Fannin's been working in baseball ever since.

The players are always calling. Zito calls, Fannin listens. A-Rod took the Oakland A's lefthander deep for a grand slam in the shortest outing of his career -- 1 1/3 innings on Opening Day.

Fannin starts chatting about Michael Jordan, telling Zito he was in the locker room talking golf with His Airness after Jordan had just scored 42 points. The subject turned to the Zone. ''I know the Zone," says Jordan. ''I can put it on like an overcoat."

Zito is not in the zone. Not yet. He's having control problems, he tells Fannin.

''You miss the target, forget it," says Fannin. ''Remember, the odds are in your favor. It's hard to hit a round ball with a round bat."

Sometimes Fannin's clients really are zoned in. Carlos Delgado and Mike Cameron are two of only six major league players to hit four home runs in one game. In 2002, Delgado, then playing for the Toronto Blue Jays, did it after taking ''a little nap" before game time. In 2003, Cameron, then a member of the Seattle Mariners, accomplished the same feat and then told reporters he wasn't thinking about anything.

That's good. Fannin says the average person has 2,000-3,000 thoughts per day. But true champions only have 1,100 to 1,300 thoughts. ''Fewer thoughts produce more results," he says.

Athletes pay him $30,000-$75,000 a year. ''We never have a contract," Fannin says. ''Eventually they should leave me. We talk about it up front."

He says only one player -- former Red Sox first baseman Mo Vaughn, then of the Mets -- has not paid him. ''I delivered the goods and paid my own expenses, but he still owes me $14,000," he said. Efforts to reach Vaughn were unsuccessful.

At this year's Masters, Donald calls after his disappointing 2-over-par 74 in the first round.

Fannin, who earlier walked the course studying Donald, arranges to go over some imagery at around 10 p.m. at the golfer's rented house. The late meeting is an advantage for Donald. ''What you think before you go to sleep and as you awake are the key to programming your subconscious for success," Fannin says.

He noticed Donald was a little tense. ''His jaw should be unhinged. A loose jaw relaxes the whole body," says Fannin.

''That's why Ali got his jaw broke by Norton, that's what Pete Sampras did on his serve, and why A-Rod looks so relaxed at-bat. Michael Jordan did it, that's why his tongue was always flapping around."

Fannin returns to his hotel room and he excuses himself. He's got homework to do, calls to make.

In the morning, he's at the Waffle House in Augusta for breakfast, sitting tall, well groomed as always, but tired.

''I talked to Frank Thomas after his game on the West Coast," he reports. ''I also talked to Mike Cameron, and my first call this morning was to a Toyota dealer.

''I talked to Zito again a little bit about 1 a.m. West Coast time. Zito apologized for the late call."

Fannin says he told him, ''I'm like Denny's. I don't close."

The waitress comes by and Fannin smiles when she knows his name.

''I need some drugs in a cup, coffee, please, two eggs easy. Grits, no potatoes, whole wheat, bacon very crisp, and just be nice to me."

Zito told Fannin he bought his book and read A-Rod's foreword, which ends, ''And if there are any pitchers reading this . . . I hit solid."

So what happens when a Fannin-coached player encounters a Fannin-coached batter?

''I root for the pitcher to win and the hitter to get a couple of hits," he says.

After breakfast, he jumps into his rental car, blasts the air conditioning, and pulls out a yellow legal pad, the pages scribbled with names and numbers.

He launches his beloved Samsung PDA.

''I love this," he says. ''It has everything. The Internet. Everything. I can send Scud missiles with it, I think."

After several calls, it's time to head back to Augusta for Round 2.

Fannin has Donald visualizing hitting his tee shots through an imaginary hula-hoop in the middle of the fairway. That way, he doesn't even see the sand traps, the rough, or the trees.

''I'm a mental optometrist," he explains. ''I get people to look at what they do in a more simplistic way that gives them balance in their lives. Luke Donald puts a white ball into 18 cups with the least amount of swings. Period. Nothing more, nothing less."

Not this day.

After a solid fairway drive, Donald misses a putt and settles for bogey on the first hole.

But he follows Fannin's ''five-second rule" -- after a mistake, act like it didn't happen and move on. ''Chin up, look like you're going somewhere. We've got no time to process it," Fannin says.

On the second hole, Fannin likes what he sees.

''He's going to make this. Good vibes. You can feel it when a guy's clear and so can the fans," he whispers as Donald nails the birdie putt. ''That's a score maker. To bounce from a bogey to a birdie."

But Donald balances five birdies with five bogeys and shoots an even-par 72. It would be his best round.

That evening, Fannin meets Donald again, then abruptly leaves in the morning before Round 3. A soaking rain hampers play. Donald falters as his coach flies back to Chicago.

Forget the green jacket. After finishing tied for third last year, Donald winds up tied for 47th.

''He was sick," Fannin says later, softly.

Two weeks later, Fannin is in Boston to meet A-Rod.

Red Sox pitcher Mike Timlin, a former Fannin client, says he understands why Rodriguez doesn't want to talk about Fannin.

''Some guys don't want to say that they had mental help," says Timlin, who acknowledges Fannin helped him when the reliever played with Baltimore. ''He's not a psychologist; he just found a way to convince people of their potential.

''It's almost like out in the Wild West, where they had guys selling snake oil, basically whiskey in a bottle. You feel better and if you can convince your mind to do it, your body will follow. That's exactly what it is."

Timlin still keeps a copy of Fannin's book in his locker. He says he healed himself using Fannin's visualization methods when he was with Baltimore in 2000.

''I was playing catch one day and I felt a twinge. I had a 2- or 3-centimeter tear in my abdomen. He said this is what you've got to do. Every day before I got up, I would take mental energy and push it to that area. I would lay one hand over the other on it. Picture it in my head in my own mental way, sewing it up. The negative energy to me would be red and I would sew it up and it would all be blue, and I did that every day and it healed."

The following year while playing for St. Louis, Timlin had surgery on his left knee for a torn meniscus. ''I only missed three weeks," he said. ''I said, 'I'll get all the swelling out of there and be back in a month.' They didn't believe me, and when it happened, [Cardinals trainer] Barry Weinberg was completely astonished.

''Fannin's the real deal."