听力课堂英语四级频道为各位备考四级的同学们，整理了大学英语四级听力美文第59篇:Encouragement Can...，希望对大家有所帮助，一起来看一下吧！
英语四级听力美文第59篇:Encouragement Can Work Miracles
Someone said that encouragement is simply reminding a person of the "shoulders" he'sstanding on, the heritage he's been given. That's what happened when a young man, the son ofa star baseball player, was drafted by one of the minor-league teams. Hard as he tried, hisfirst season was disappointing, and by midseason he expected to be released any day.
The coaches were bewildered by his failure because he possessed all the characteristics of asuperb athlete, but he couldn't seem to incorporate those advantages into a coordinatedeffort. He seemed to have become disconnected from his potential.
His future seemed darkest one day when he had already struck out his first time at bat. Thenhe stepped up to the batter's box again and quickly ran up two strikes. The catcher called atime-out and ran to the pitcher's mound for a conference. While they were busy, the umpire, standing behind the plate, spoke casually to the boy.
Then play resumed, the next pitch was thrown — and the young man knocked it out of thepark. That was the turning point. From then on, he played the game with a new confidenceand power that quickly drew the attention of the parent team, and he was called up to themajors.
On the day he was leaving for the city, one of his coaches asked him what had caused such aturnaround. The young man replied that it was the encouraging remark the umpire had madethat day when his baseball career had seemed doomed.
"He told me I reminded him of all the times he had stood behind my dad in the batter's box,''the boy explained. "He said I was holding the bat just the way Dad had held it. And he told me, 'I can see his genes in you; you have your father's arms.' After that, whenever I swung the bat, I just imagined I was using Dad's arms instead of my own."
