Olympic Softball (One Last Time)

A set of lenses will help you spot your Dad in the crowd, but the eyes have to do a bit more to hit and field in softball. To further tune up their functional vision, the Olympic team added specific training to its daily routine. The first part of the program used Visual Performance Enhancement software (provided by Olympic sponsor Johnson and Johnson) to improve specific characteristics. Short term memory games of flashing numbers trained the eyes to quickly identify things (think pitch types). Peripheral games required identification of objects in the center and edges of the screen (think base runners). Scanning games flooded the screen with objects and required the identification of singular items (think fly ball near the crowd). Practice with stereo vision helped improve depth perception (seeing the ball off the bat). In all, there were six activities and players were asked to spend 12 minutes five days a week conducting the tests from January straight up till the flight to Beijing.

Off the computer, the team trained with a modified tennis ball machine that shot colored, and numbered balls, anywhere between 60 and 100 mph. Players would start by merely holding a bat and yelling the color and number as the speed increased. Next they would bunt the ball, identify the color and number and try to point to where the ball hit on the bat (they’d often miss by inches). Ultimately they were taught to take a full swing only on only specific combinations of colors and numbers.

So how much did it work?

“That’s where it’s really hard to connect these skills directly to performance,” said Porter. “People realize it plays a part but no one can say that because Barry Bonds had 20-8 vision, he hit so many homeruns. Some data says that the results of these tests do correlate to higher batting average, but mostly it’s anecdotal data. That’s why it’s a stretch to get adoption in the sports industry.”

We’re guessing a gold medal should help with that.

Fully Automated

Earlier in the series we profiled a ping pong ball machine, and next we promise a machine that shoots shuttlecocks, but for this installment we stick with softball. The Chinese team is well aware of the American dominance in softball (see: silver in 1996), but if there’s one thing they don’t mind, it’s practicing.