Baseball
How Should Cheating Be Defined In Sports?
When Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Chris Capuano reports for spring training in April, he will be anxious to demonstrate the effects of a performance-enhancing off-season.
His brain will benefit from a sharper focus, while his throwing arm will boast an extra boost that has been missing since 2006.
Stimulants? Steroids? Scandal?
No. Capuano just had LASIK surgery for his eyes and "Tommy John" surgery for his injured elbow. And if he chooses, he could have a few cups of coffee before the game. Of course, were he to choose amphetamines to improve his focus or steroids to increase his strength, he would be banned and berated.
Society decides
There is confusion over the means and methods athletes have available to enhance their performance. Certainly, corrective eye surgery to raise your vision level to 20/20 seems fair, but many athletes go into the procedure hoping to come out with enhanced 20/15 or 20/10 eyesight.
Replacing a damaged elbow ligament with a tendon doesn't seem like cheating, but what if it's done on a healthy elbow hoping for a few more miles per hour on a fastball that has faded over the years?
In December of last year, a commentary in the journal Nature recommended a fresh look at cognitive-enhancing drugs and where to draw the line in the sand between natural performance and enhanced performance. The authors, an esteemed group of neuroscientists and ethicists, argued that "enhanced" is only defined by the rules set by society.
Abuse of prescription drugs, such as Ritalin and Adderall, is
illegal because of the potential, harmful side effects. Still, reports
of the rising use of these drugs by college students and professionals
show the demand for options beyond nutrition, exercise and sleep.
These drugs are just the first generation of possible brain boosting supplements, which is why the Nature commentators are calling for an organized, stigma-free approach to evaluating the risks, benefits and ethics of future products.
Even in Major League Baseball, there is mounting evidence that cognitive-enhancing drugs may be on the rise. Since MLB banned amphetamines in 2006, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of therapeutic use exemptions issued to players for attention-deficit disorder diagnoses, for which drugs like Ritalin and Adderall can be legitimately prescribed. In 2006, 28 players applied for the exemption, while a year later there were 103. There is suspicion that many of these ADD diagnoses are just excuses to get the pills.
Legal jolt
So, what if there was a cognitive-enhancing, sports supplement that
increased alertness, concentration, reaction time and focus while also
decreasing the perception of muscle fatigue? Even more encouraging,
this supplement is sold in millions of outlets and is socially accepted
worldwide. It comes in three sizes, tall, grande or venti — coffee.
More specifically, caffeine has been the subject of many recent studies of its effectiveness, both cognitively and physiologically.
Earlier this year, Dr. Carrie Ruxton completed a literature survey to summarize 41 double-blind, placebo-controlled trials published over the past 15 years to establish what range of caffeine consumption would maximize benefits and minimize risk for cognitive function, mood, physical performance and hydration. The studies were divided into two categories, those that looked at the cognitive effects and those that looked at physical performance effects.
The results concluded that there was a significant improvement in
cognitive functions like attention, reaction time and mental processing
as well as physical benefits described as increased "time to
exhaustion" and decreased "perception of fatigue" in cycling and
running tests.
Given these results, how exactly does caffeine perform these wonderful tricks? Dr. Ruxton explains: "Caffeine is believed to impact on mood and performance by inhibiting the binding of both adenosine and benzodiazepine receptor ligands to brain membranes. As these neurotransmitters are known to slow down brain activity, a blockade of their receptors lessens this effect."
Bottom line, the chemicals in your brain that would cause you to feel tired are blocked, giving you a feeling of ongoing alertness. This pharmacological process is very similar to that of the ADD drugs.
Ban coffee?
If caffeine is such a clear-cut performance enhancing supplement, why did the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) first add caffeine to its banned substance list, only to remove it in 2004? At the time that it was placed on the banned list, the threshold for a positive caffeine test was set to a post-exercise urinary caffeine concentration of about three to four cups of strong coffee.
However, more recent research has shown that caffeine has ergogenic effects at levels as low as the equivalent of one to two cups of coffee. So, it was hard for WADA to know where to draw the line between athletes just having a few morning cups of coffee/tea and those that were intentionally consuming caffeine to increase their performance level.
If Chris Capuano has a double espresso before pitching, his brain, eyes and arm should enhance his performance in the game. Is that an unfair advantage? Science will continue to offer new and improved methods for raising an athlete's game above the competition. Players, league officials and fans will have to decide where to draw the line.
Please visit my other articles on LiveScience.com and Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
Was Your Child Born To Be A Sports Superstar?
Of all of the decisions parents face regarding their children's future, choosing between shoulder pads or running shoes for their Christmas present seems trivial. Well, according to Kevin Reilly, president of Atlas Sports Genetics, this is a decision you should not take lightly.
"If you wait until high school or college to find out if you have a good athlete on your hands, by then it will be too late," he said in a recent New York Times interview. "We need to identify these kids from 1 and up, so we can give the parents some guidelines on where to go from there."
In
December, Reilly's company began marketing a $149 saliva swab test for
kids, aged 1 to 8, to determine which variant of the gene ACTN3 is in their DNA. According to a 2003 Australian study,
ACTN3 was shown to be a marker for two different types of athletic
prowess, explosive power or long endurance. While everyone carries the
gene, the combination of variants inherited, one from each parent,
differs.
Science of success
The R
variant of ACTN3 signals the body to produce a protein,
alpha-actinin-3, which is found exclusively in fast-twitch muscles. The
X variant prohibits this production. So, athletes inheriting two R
variants may have a genetic advantage in sports requiring quick,
powerful muscle contractions from their fast-twitch muscle fibers.
In the ACTN3 study, Dr. Kathryn North and her lab at the Institute for Neuromuscular Research of the University of Sydney looked at 429 internationally ranked Australian athletes and found significant correlation between power sport athletes and the presence of the R variant. All of the female sprint athletes had at least one R variant, as did the male power-sport athletes. In fact, 50 percent of the 107 sprinters had two copies of the R variant.
North's team also noted that the elite endurance athletes seemed to be linked to the XX variation, although only significantly in the female sample. In 2007, her team pursued this link by developing a strain of mice that was completely deficient in the alpha-actinin-3 protein similar to an athlete with an XX allele. They found the muscle metabolism of the mice without the protein was more efficient. Amazingly, the mice were able to run 33 percent farther than mice with the normal ACTN3 gene.
Cloudy future
Additional research is showing mixed results, however.
In 2007, South African researchers found no significant correlation between 457 Ironman triathletes, known for their endurance, and the XX combination. This year, Russian researchers at the St. Petersburg Research Institute of Physical Culture also failed to establish the XX-endurance performance link among 456 elite rowers but did find the RR connection among a sample of Russian power sports athletes.
So, can we at least find the next Usain Bolt among our kids?
"Everybody wants to predict future athletic success based on present achievement or physical makeup. But predicting success is much more difficult than most people think," Robert Singer, professor and chair of the department of exercise and sport sciences at the University of Florida warns in the book "Sports Talent" (Human Kinetics Publishers, 2001) by Jim Brown.
"There are too many variables, even if certain athletes have a combination of genes that favors long-range talent," Singer said. "A person's genetic makeup can be expressed in many different ways, depending on environmental and situational opportunities. Variables such as motivation, coachability, and opportunity can't be predicted."
Destiny?
Just
as we assume that kids that are at the 99 percent percentile in height
are destiny-bound for basketball or volleyball, having this peek into
their genome may tempt parents to limit the sports choices for their
son or daughter.
Even Mr. Reilly expressed his concern in the Times article: "I'm nervous about people who get back results that don't match their expectations," he said. "What will they do if their son would not be good at football? How will they mentally and emotionally deal with that?"
For those parents that are just not ready to discover the sports
destiny of their child, or just want to save the $150, there is a much
simpler alternative. Hold your son or daughter's hand, palm up. Measure
the lengths of their index finger and their ring finger. Divide the
former by the latter. According to John Manning, professor of
psychology at the University of Central Lancashire, if the ratio is
closer to .90 than 1.0, you may have a budding superstar.
Manning explains in his aptly named new book, "The Finger Book" (Faber and Faber, 2008),that the amount of a fetus' exposure to testosterone in the womb determines the length of the ring finger, while estrogen levels are expressed in the length of the index finger. According to Manning's theory, more testosterone means more physical and motor skill ability.
The digit ratio theory, as it is known, has been the subject of more than 120 studies to find its effect on athletic, musical and even lovemaking aptitude.
Don't worry if the ratio is closer to 1.0, which is by far the norm. Plus, you will be able to relax, enjoy your kids' sports events and only worry about their genetic disposition to being happy.
Please visit my other articles on LiveScience.com and Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
Sideline Raging Soccer Moms (and Dads!)
From: Sideline Raging Soccer Moms (and Dads!)
Sports Are 80 Percent MentalVisit any youth soccer field, baseball diamond, basketball court or football field and you will likely see them: parents behaving badly. Take a look at this Good Morning America report:
These
are the extremes, but at most games, you can find at least one adult
making comments at the referee, shouting at their child, or having a
verbal exchange with another parent. Thankfully, these parents
represent only a small percentage of those attending the game. Does
that mean the others don't become upset at something during the game?
Usually not, as there are lots of opportunities to dispute a bad call
or observe rough play or react to one of these loud parents. The
difference is in our basic personality psyche, according to Jay Goldstein, a kinesiology doctoral student at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. His thesis, recently published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology
(see reference below), hypothesized that a parent with
"control-oriented" personality would react to events at a game more
than a parent with an "autonomy-oriented" personality.
According to Goldstein, defending our ego
is what usually gets us in trouble when we feel insulted or take
something personally. At youth sports games, we transfer this pride to
our kids, so if someone threatens their success on the field, we often
take it personally. The control-oriented parent is more likely to
react with a verbal or sometimes physical response, while an
autonomy-oriented parent is better able to internalize and maintain
their emotions. This "control" vs. "autonomy" comparison has also been
seen in research on "road rage", when drivers react violently to
another driver's actions.
Goldstein and his team focused their
research on suburban Washington soccer parents back in 2004. They
designed a survey for parents to fill out prior to watching a youth
soccer game that would help categorize them as control or
autonomy-oriented. Immediately after the game ended, another survey
was given to the parents that asked about any incidents during the game
that made them angry on a scale of 1, slightly angry, to 7, furious.
They were also asked what action they took when they were angry.
Choices included "did nothing" to more aggressive acts like walking
towards the field and/or yelling or confronting either the referee,
their own child, or another player/parent. 53% of the 340 parents
surveyed reported getting angry at something during the game, while
about 40% reported doing something about their anger.
There was a direct and significant
correlation between control-oriented parents, as identified in the
pre-game survey, and the level of angry actions they took during the
game. Autonomy-oriented parents still got mad, but reported less
aggressive reactions. As Goldstein notes, “Regardless of their
personality type, all parents were susceptible to becoming more
aggressive as a result of viewing actions on the field as affronts to
them or their kids. However, that being said, it took
autonomy-oriented parents longer to get there as compared to the
control-oriented parents.”
So, now that we know the rather obvious
conclusion that parents who yell at other motorists are also likely to
yell at referees, what can we do about it? Goldstein sees this study
as a first step. He hopes to study a wider cross-section of sports and
socio-economic populations. Many youth sports organizations require
parents to sign a pre-season "reminder" code of conduct, but those are
often forgotten in the heat of the battle on the field. Maybe by
offering the same type of personality survey prior to the season, the
"control-oriented" parents can be offered resources to help them manage
their tempers and reactions during a game. Since referees were the
number one source of frustration reported by parents, two solutions are
being explored by many organizations; more thorough referee training
and quality control while also better training of parents on the rules
of the game which often cause the confusion.
Sports contests will always be emotional, from kids' games all the way up to professionals. Keeping the games in perspective and our reactions positive are tough things to do but when it comes to our kids, it is required.
Goldstein, J.D., Iso-Ahola, S.E. (2008). Determinants of Parents' Sideline-Rage Emotions and Behaviors at Youth Soccer Games. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(6), 1442-1462. DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00355.x
Stats Vs. Hunches - The Moneyball Era In Sports
From: Stats Vs. Hunches - The Moneyball Era In Sports
Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
Most baseball general managers live in obscurity most of their careers. Its
their first hire, the manager, that usually gets the red hot spotlight,
after every win and loss, second-guessed by reporters with recorders
and then later by fans. The GM puts the players on the field and lets
the manager and his coaches take it from there. Billy Beane
, Oakland A's general manager, could have also been an unknown, albeit
interesting, name to the baseball audience if it were not for author
Michael Lewis' 2003 book, Moneyball
. Moneyball was a runaway hit (even today, 5 years later, it is #19 on
Amazon's list of baseball books). It has morphed into a full-fledged
catchphrase philosophy used by everyone from Wall Street (where Beane
borrowed the concept) to business consulting. The general theme is to
find undervalued assets (ballplayers) by focusing on statistics that
your competition is ignoring. Of course, you have to believe in your
metrics and their predictive value for success (why has everyone else
ignored these stats?) The source of most of Beane's buried treasure of
stats was Bill James and his Sabrmetrics. Like picking undervalued
stocks of soon to explode companies, Beane looked for the diamond in
the dust (pun intended) and sign the player while no one was looking.
Constrained by his "small-market" team revenues, or maybe by his
owners' crowbar-proof wallets, he needed to make the most from every
dollar.
The combination of a GM's shrewd
player selection and a manager who can develop that talent should
reward the owner with the best of both worlds: an inexpensive team that
wins. This salary vs. performance metric is captured perfectly in this
"real-time" graphic at BenFry.com
. It connects the updated win-loss record for each MLB team with its
payroll to show the "bang for the buck" that the GMs/managers are
getting from their players. Compare the steep negative relationship
for the Mets, Yankees, Tigers and Mariners with the amazing results of
the Rays, Twins and Beane's own A's. While the critics of Moneyball
tactics would rightly point to the A's lack of a World Series win or
even appearance, the "wins to wages" ratio has not only kept Beane in a
job but given him part ownership in the A's and now the newly
resurrected San Jose Earthquakes of soccer's MLS. Beane believes the
same search for meaningful and undiscovered metrics in soccer can give
the Quakes the same arbitrage advantage. In fact, there are rumours
that he will focus full-time on conquering soccer as he knows there are
much bigger opportunities worldwide if he can prove his methods within
MLS.
In baseball, Beane relied on the
uber-stat guru, Bill James, for creative and more relevant statistical
slices of the game. In soccer, he is working with some top clubs
including his new favorite, Tottenham-Hotspur,
of the English Premier League. While he respects the history and
tradition of the game, he is confident that his search for a
competitive advantage will uncover hidden talents. Analytical tools
from companies such as Opta in Europe and Match Analysis
in the U.S. have combined video with detailed stat breakdowns of every
touch of the ball for every player in each game. Finding the right
pattern and determinant of success has become the key, according to
Match Analysis president Mark Brunkhart as quoted earlier this year,
"You
don't need statistics to spot the real great players or the really bad
ones. The trick is to take the players between those two extremes and
identify which are the best ones. If all you do is buy the players
that everyone else wants to buy then you will end up paying top dollar.
But if you take Beane's approach - to use a disciplined statistical
process to influence the selection of players who will bring the most
value - then you are giving yourself the best chance of success. Who
would not want to do that?"
Not to feel left out (or safe from scrutiny), the NBA now has its own sport-specific zealots. The Association for Professional Basketball Research (APBR)
devotes its members time and research to finding the same type of
meaningful stats that have been ignored by players, coaches and fans.
They, too, have their own Moneyball-bible, "The Wages of Wins " by David Berri, Martin Schmidt, and Stacey Brook. David Berri's WoW journal/blog
regularly posts updates and stories related to the current NBA season
and some very intriguing analysis of its players and the value of their
contributions. None other than Malcolm Gladwell, of Tipping Point and
Blink fame, provided the review of Wages of Wins for the New Yorker.
One of the main stats used is something called a player's "Win Score"
which attempts to measure the complete player, not just points,
rebounds and assists.
Win Score (WS) = PTS + REB + STL + ½*BLK + ½*AST – FGA – ½*FTA – TO – ½*PF. (Points, Rebounds, Steals, Blocked Shots, Assists, Field Goal Attempts, Free Throw Attempts, Turnovers, Personal Fouls)
WS is then adjusted for minutes played with the stat, WS48. Of course,
different player positions will have different responsibilities, so to
compare players of different positions the Position Adjusted Win Score
per 48 minutes or PAWS48 is calculated as: WS48 – Average WS48 at
primary position played. This allows an apples to apples comparison
between players at a position, and a reasonable comparison of players
value across positions. Berri's latest article looks at the fascination with Michael Beasley and some early comparisons in the Orlando Summer League.
Will
these statistics-based approaches to player evaluation be accepted by
the "establishment"? Judging by the growing number of young,
MBA-educated GMs in sports, there is a movement towards more efficient
and objective selection criteria. Just as we saw in previous evidence-based coaching articles , the evidence-based general manager is here to stay.
Play Better Golf By Playing Bigger Holes
From: Play Better Golf By Playing Bigger Holes
Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
Here are some quotes we have all heard (or said ourselves) on the golf course or at the ball diamond.
On a good day:
"It was like putting into the Grand Canyon"
"The baseball looked like a beach ball up there today"
On a bad day:
"The hole was as small as a thimble"
"I don't know, it looked like he was throwing marbles"
The baseball and the golf hole are the same size every day, so are these comments meaningless or do we really perceive these objects differently depending on the day's performance? And, does our performance influence our perception or does our perception help our performance?
Jessica Witt, an assistant professor of psychological science at the University of Virginia has made two attempts at the answer. First, in a 2005 study, "See the Ball, Hit the Ball", her team studied softball players by designing an experiment that tried to correlate perceived softball size to performance. She interviewed players immediately after a game and asked them to estimate the size of the softball by picking a circle off of a board that contained several different sizes. She then found out how that player had done at the plate that day. As expected, the players that were hitting well chose the larger sized circles to represent the ball size, while the underperforming hitters chose the smaller circles. The team was not able to answer the question of causality, so they expanded the research to other sports.
Fast forward to July, 2008 and Witt and her team have just released a very similar study focused on golf, "Putting to a bigger hole: Golf performance relates to perceived size". Using the same experiment format, players who had just finished a round of golf were asked to pick out the perceived size of the hole from a collection of holes that varied in diameter by a few centimeters. Once again, the players who had scored well that day picked the larger holes and vice versa for that day's hackers. So, the team came to the same conclusion that there is some relationship between perception and performance, but could not figure out the direction of the effect. Ideally, a player could "imagine" a larger hole and then play better because of that visual cue.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University may have the answer. In a study, "The Functional Impact of Mental Imagery on Conscious Perception", the team led by Joel Pearson, wanted to see what influence our "Mind's Eye" has on our actual perception. In their experiment, they asked volunteers to imagine simple patterns of vertical or horizontal stripes. Then, they showed each person a pattern of green horizontal stripes in one eye and red vertical stripes in the other eye. This would induce what is known as the "binocular rivalry" condition where each image would fight for control of perception and would appear to alternate from one to the other. In this experiment, however, the subjects reported seeing the image they had first imagined more often. So, if they had imagined vertical stripes originally, they would report seeing the red vertical stripes predominantly.
The team concluded that mental imagery does have an influence over what is later seen. They also believe that the brain actually processes imagined mental images the same way it handles actual scenes. "More recently, with advances in human brain imaging, we now know that when you imagine something parts of the visual brain do light up and you see activity there," Pearson says. "So there's more and more evidence suggesting that there is a huge overlap between mental imagery and seeing the same thing. Our work shows that not only are imagery and vision related, but imagery directly influences what we see."
So, back to our sports example, if we were able to imagine a large golf hole or a huge baseball, this might affect our actual perception of the real thing and increase our performance. This link has not been tested, but its a step in the right direction. Another open question is the effect that our emotions and confidence have on our perceived task. That hole may look like the Grand Canyon, but the sand trap might look like the Sahara Desert!
Witt, J.K. (2008). Putting to a bigger hole: golf performance relates to perceived size. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15(3), 581-585.
Baseball and the Brain - Fielding
From: Baseball and the Brain - Fielding
Sports Are 80 Percent MentalWith the crack of the bat, the ball sails deep into the outfield. The left-fielder starts his run back and to the right, keeping his eyes on the ball through its flight path. His pace quickens initially, then slows down as the ball approaches. He arrives just in time to make the catch. What just happened? How did this fielder know where to run and at what speed so that he and the ball intersected at the same exact spot on the field. Why didn't he sprint to the landing spot and then wait for the ball to drop, instead of his controlled speed to arrive just when the ball did? What visual cues did he use to track the ball's flight (just the ball? the ball's movement against its background? other fielder's reaction to the ball?)
Just like we learned in pitching and hitting, fielding requires extensive mental abilities involving eyes, brain, and body movements to accomplish the task. Some physical skills, such as speed, do play a part in catching, but its the calculations and estimating that our brain has to compute that we often take for granted. The fact that fielders are not perfect in this skill, (there are dropped fly balls, or bad judgments of ball flight), begs the question of how to improve? As we saw with pitching and hitting (and most sports skills), practice does improve performance. But, if we understand what our brains are trying to accomplish, we can hopefully design more productive training routines to use in practice.
(Mike Stadler, associate professor of psychology at University of Missouri, provides a great overview of current research in his book, "The Psychology of Baseball". I highly recommend it for the complete look at this topic. I'll summarize the major points here.)
One organization that does not take this skill for granted is NASA. The interception of a ballistic object in mid-flight can describe a left fielder's job or an anti-missile defense system or how a pilot maneuvers a spacecraft through a three dimensional space. In fact, a postdoctoral fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center, Michael McBeath , has been studying fly ball catching since 1995. His team has developed a rocket-science like theory named Linear Optical Trajectory to describe the process that a fielder uses to follow the path of a batted ball. LOT says the fielder will adjust his movement towards the ball so that its trajectory follows a straight line through his field of vision. Rather than compute the landing point of the ball, racing to that spot and waiting, the fielder uses the information provided by the path of the ball to constantly adjust his path so that they intersect at the right time and place. The LOT theory is an evolution from an earlier theory called Optical Acceleration Cancellation (OAC) that had the same idea but only explained the fielder's tracking behavior in the vertical dimension. In other words, as the ball leaves the bat the fielder watches the ball rise in his field of vision. If he were to stand still and the ball was hit hard enough to land behind him, his eyes would track the ball up and over his head, or at a 90 degree angle. If the ball landed in front of him, he would see the ball rise and fall but his viewing angle may not rise above 45 degrees. LOT and OAC argue that the fielder repositions himself throughout the flight of the ball to keep this viewing angle between 0 and 90 degrees. If its rising too fast, he needs to turn and run backwards. If the viewing angle is low, then the fielder needs to move forward so that the ball doesn't land in front of him. He can't always make to the landing spot in time, but keeping the ball at about a 45 degree angle by moving will help ensure that he gets there in time. While OAC explained balls hit directly at a fielder, LOT helps add the side-to-side dimension, as in our example of above of a ball hit to the right of the fielder.
The OAC and LOT theories do agree on a fundamental cognitive science debate. There are two theories of how we perceive the world and then react to it. First, the Information Processing (IP) theory likens our brain to a computer in that we have inputs, our senses that gather information about the world, a memory system that stores all of our past experiences and lessons learned, and a "CPU" or main processor that combines our input with our memory and computes the best answer for the given problem. So,IP would say that the fielder sees the fly ball and offers it to the brain as input, the brain then pulls from memory all of the hundreds or thousands of fly ball flight paths that have been experienced, and then computes the best path to the ball's landing point based on what it has "learned" through practice. McBeath's research and observations of fielders has shown that the processing time to accomplish this task would be too great for the player to react. OAC and LOT subscribe to the alternate theory of human perception, Ecological Psychology (EP). EP eliminates the call to memory from the processing and argues that the fielder observes the flight path of the ball and can react using the angle monitoring system. This is still up for debate as the IPers would argue "learned facts" like what pitch was thrown, how a certain batter hits those pitches, how the prevailing wind will affect the ball, etc. And, with EP, how can the skill differences between a young ballplayer and an experienced major leaguer be accounted for? What is the point of practice, if the trials and errors are not stored/accessed in memory?
Of course, we haven't mentioned ground balls and their behavior, due to the lack of research out there. The reaction time for a third baseman to snare a hot one-hopper down the line is much shorter. This would also argue in favor of EP, but what other systems are involved?
Game Highlights
Again, I have just touched on this subject, see Prof. Stadler's book for a much better discussion. Arguing about which theory explains a fielder's actions is only productive if we can apply the research to create better drills and practices for our players. My own layman's view is that the LOT theory is getting there as an explanation, but I'm still undecided about EP vs. IP . So many sport skills rely on some of these foundations, hence my "search for the truth" continues! As with pitching and hitting, fielding seems to improve with practice. As we move forward, we'll look at the theories behind practice and what structure they should take.
Baseball and the Brain - Hitting
From: Baseball and the Brain - Hitting
Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
Ted Williams,
arguably the greatest baseball hitter of all-time, once said, "I think
without question the hardest single thing to do in sport is to hit a
baseball". Certainly, at the major league level, where pitches can
reach 100 miles per hour, this is believable, but even at Little
League, High School
and College/Minor leagues, the odds are against the hitter. Looking at
batting averages, 3 hits out of 10 at-bats will earn a player millions
of dollars in the bigs, while averaging 4 or 5 hits
out of 10 at the lower leagues will earn you some attention at the next
level. As most of you know, Williams was the last major league player
to hit .400 for an entire season and that was back in 1941, almost 67
years ago! In my second of three posts of the Baseball and the Brain
series, we'll take a quick look at some of the theory behind this
complicated skill. 
Again, my main reference for these ideas is "The Psychology of Baseball" by Mike Stadler.
Some questions that come to mind regarding hitting a pitched baseball:
-
What makes this task so hard? Why can't players, who practice for years
and have every training technique, coach and accumulated knowledge at
their disposal, perform at a consistenly higher level?
-
What can be improved? Hand-eye reaction time? Knowledge of situational
tendencies (what pitch is likely to be thrown in a given game
situation)?
A key concept of pitching and hitting in baseball was summed up long ago by Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn, when he said, “Hitting
is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.” To sync up the swing of the
bat with the exact time and location of the ball's arrival is the
challenge that each hitter faces. If the intersection is off by even tenths of a second, the ball will be missed. As was discussed in the Pitching post,
the hitter must master the same two dimensions, horizontal and
vertical. The aim of the pitch will affect the horizontal dimension
while the speed of the pitch will affect the vertical dimension. The
hitter's job is to time the arrival of the pitch
based on the estimated speed of the ball while determining where,
horizontally, it will cross the plate. The shape of the bat helps the
batter in the horizontal space as its length compensates for more
error, right to left. However, the narrow 3-4" barrel does not cover
alot of vertical ground. So, a hitter must be more accurate judging the
vertical height of a pitch than the horizontal location. So, if a
pitcher can vary the speed of his pitches, the hitter will have a
harder time judging the vertical distance that the ball will drop as it arrives, and swing either over the top or under the ball.
A
common coach's tip to hitters is to "keep your eye on the ball" or
"watch the ball hit the bat". As Stadler points out in his book, doing
both of these things is impossible due to the concept known as "angular
velocity". Imagine you are standing on the side of freeway with cars
coming towards you. Off in the distance, you are able to watch the cars
approaching your position with relative
ease, as they seem to be moving at a slower speed. As the cars come
closer and pass about a 45 degree angle and then zoom past your
position, they seem to "speed up" and you have to turn your eyes/head
quickly to watch them. This perception is known
as angular velocity. The car is going a constant speed, but appears to
be "speeding up" as it passes you, because your eyes need to move more
quickly to keep up. This same concept applies to the hitter. The first
few feet that a baseball travels when it leaves a pitcher's hand is the
most important to the hitter, as the ball can be tracked by the
hitter's eyes. As the ball approaches past a 45 degree angle, it is
more difficult to "keep your eye on the ball" as your eyes
need to shift through many more degrees of movement. Research reported
by Stadler shows that hitters cannot watch the entire flight of the
ball, so they employ two tactics. First, they might follow the path of
the ball for 70-80% of its flight, but then their eyes can't keep up
and they estimate or extrapolate the remaining path and make a guess as
to where they need to swing to have the bat meet the ball. In this
case, they don't actually "see" the bat hit the ball. Second, they
might follow the initial flight of
the ball, estimate its path, then shift their eyes to the anticipated
point where the ball crosses the plate to, hopefully, see their bat hit
the ball. This inability to see the entire flight of the ball to
contact point is what gives the pitcher the opportunity to fool the
batter with the speed of the pitch. If a hitter is thinking "fast
ball", their brain will be biased towards completing the estimated path
across the plate at a higher elevation and they will aim their swing
there. If the pitcher
actually throws a curve or change-up, the speed will be slower and the
path of the ball will result in a lower elevation when it crosses the
plate, thus fooling the hitter.
Game Summary
As
in pitching, our eyes and brain determine much of the success we have
as hitters. We took a quick look as it relates to hitting a baseball,
but the same concepts apply to hitting any moving object; tennis, hockey,
soccer, etc. In future posts, we'll look at practical ways to improve
this tracking skill and the hand/eye/brain connection. As usual,
practice will improve performance, but we want to identify the unique
practice techniques which will be most effective. Tracking a moving
object also applies to catching, which we'll look at next.
Baseball and the Brain - Pitching
From: Baseball and the Brain - Pitching
Sports Are 80 Percent Mental
As promised, we begin our look at the three most important technical skills of baseball: Pitching, Hitting and Catching. Each of these skills apply to other sports as well, but I thought we'd stick with the current season of baseball as the sport du jour. Again, my focus for "80 Percent Mental" is to look at sports cognition in a generic sense across all sports, occasionally digging deeper into individual sport specialties. The practical side of this is to understand how our brains and nervous system perform these skills that we often take for granted, so that we can brainstorm (yuk-yuk) on new ways to teach, practice and perfect these skills.
Pitching/Throwing
Pitching a 3" diameter baseball 46 feet (for Little League) or 60 feet, 6 inches over a target that is 8 inches wide requires an accuracy of 1/2 to 1 degree. Throwing it fast, with the pressure of a game situation makes this task one of the hardest in sports. In addition, a fielder throwing to another fielder from 40, 60 or 150 feet away, sometimes off balance or on the run, tests the brain-body connection for accuracy. So, how do we do it? And how can we learn to do it more consistently?
Questions that come to my mind regarding pitching/throwing skills and baseball include:
- Why can't a pitcher control ALL of his/her pitches? Why do some not only miss the strike zone, but are wild?
- Is the breakdown physical in the muscle sequence of the throw or is it in the connection between eyes, brain and body?
Again, one the best references I have found on this is "The Psychology of Baseball" by Mike Stadler, published by Gotham
Books. Prof. Stadler digs into many of these topics and I will
paraphrase from his findings. I won't do it justice here, so please put
it on your reading list.There are two dimensions to think about when throwing an object at a target: vertical and horizontal. The vertical dimension is a function of the distance of the throw and the effect of gravity on the object. So the thrower's estimate of distance between himself and the target will determine the accuracy of the throw vertically. Basically, if the distance is underestimated, the required strength of the throw will be underestimated and will lose the battle with gravity, resulting in a throw that will be either too low or will bounce before reaching the target. An example of this is a fast ball which is thrown with more velocity, so will reach its target before gravity has a path-changing effect on it. On the other hand, a curve ball or change-up may seem to curve downward, partly because of the spin put on the ball affecting its aerodynamics, but also because these pitches are thrown with less force, allowing gravity to pull the ball down. In the horizontal dimension, the "right-left" accuracy is related to more to the "aim" of the throw and the ability of the thrower to adjust hand-eye coordination along with finger, arm, shoulder angles and the release of the ball to send the ball in the intended direction.
So, looking at our first question, how do we improve accuracy in both dimensions? Prof. Stadler points out that research shows that skill in the vertical/distance estimating dimension is more genetically determined, while skill horizontally can be better improved with practice. Remember those spatial organization tests that we took that show a set of connected blocks in a certain shape and then show you four more sets of conected blocks? The question is which of the four sets could result from rotating the first set of blocks. Research has shown that athletes that are good at these spatial relations tests are also accurate throwers in the vertical dimension. Why? The thought is that those athletes are better able to judge the movement of objects through space and can better estimate distance in 3D space. Pitchers are able to improve this to an extent as the distance to the target is fixed. A fielder, however, starts his throw from many different positions on the field and has more targets (bases and cut-off men) to choose from, making his learning curve a bit longer.
If a throw or pitch is off-target, then what went wrong? Prof. Stadler collects many different studies that review the possible physiological/mechanical reasons for "bad throws". Despite all of the combinations of fingers, hand, arm, shoulder and body movements, it seems to all boil down to the timing of the finger release of the ball. In other words, when the pitcher's hand comes forward and the fingers start opening to allow the ball to leave. The timing of this release can vary by hundredths of a second but has significant impact on the accuracy of the throw. But, its also been shown that the throwing action happens so fast, that the brain could not consciously adjust or control that release in real-time. This points to the throwing action being controlled by what psychologists call an automated "motor program" that is created through many repeated practice throws. But, if a "release point" is incorrect, how does a pitcher correct that if they can't do so in real-time? It seems they need to change the embedded program by more practice.
Another component of "off-target" pitching or throwing is the psychological side of a player's mental state/attitude. Stadler identifies research that these motor programs can be called up by the brain by current thoughts. There seems to be "good" programs and "bad" programs, meaning the brain has learned how to throw a strike and learned many programs that will not throw a strike. By "seeding" the recall with positive or negative thoughts, the "strike" program may be run, but so to can the "ball" program. So, if a pitcher thinks to himself, "don't walk this guy", he may be subconsciously calling up the "ball" program and it will result in a pitch called as a ball. So, this is why sports pscyhologists stress the need to "think positively", not just for warm and fuzzy feelings, but the brain may be listening and will instruct your body what to do.
Game Summary
I've only touched the surface for this topic. We'll see some of these themes in the hitting and catching posts that are coming up. One useful takeaway here for youth coaches is that some players will have a genetic advantage in throwing and may be your "natural" pitchers. As we dig deeper into these topics, we will be able pull out more practical tips for players and coaches.
