Kids' Baseball Injuries Down But Some Still Play "Until It Hurts"

At a recent baseball game, the 12-year-old second baseman on my son's team had a ground ball take a nasty hop, hitting him just next to his right eye. He was down on the field for several minutes and was later diagnosed at the hospital with a concussion.

Thankfully, acute baseball injuries like this are on the decline, according to a new report. However, several leading physicians say overuse injuries of young players caused by too much baseball show no signs of slowing down.

Our unlucky infielder's hospital injury report may become part of a national database called the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), part of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. It monitors 98 hospitals across the country for reports on all types of injuries.

Bradley Lawson, Dawn Comstock and Gary Smith of Ohio State University filtered this data to find just baseball-related injuries to kids under 18 from 1994-2006.

During that period, they found that more than 1.5 million young players were treated in hospital emergency rooms, with the most common injury being, you guessed it, being hit by the ball, and typically in the face.

The good news is that the annual number of baseball injuries has decreased by 24.9 percent over those 13 years. The researchers credit the decline to the increased use of protective equipment.

"Safety equipment such as age-appropriate breakaway bases, helmets with properly-fitted face shields, mouth guards and reduced-impact safety baseballs have all been shown to reduce injuries," Smith said. "As more youth leagues, coaches and parents ensure the use of these types of safety equipment in both practices and games, the number of baseball-related injuries should continue to decrease. Mouth guards, in particular, should be more widely used in youth baseball."

Their research is detailed in the latest edition of the journal Pediatrics.

The bad news is ...
 

While accident-related injuries are down, preventable injuries from overuse still seem to be a problem, according to author Mark Hyman. In his recent book, "Until It Hurts," Hyman admits his own mistakes in pressuring his 14-year-old son to continue pitching with a sore arm, causing further injury.

Surprised by his own unwillingness to listen to reason, Hyman, a long-time journalist, researched the growing trend of high-pressure parents pushing their young athletes too far, too fast.

"Many of the physicians I spoke with told me of a spike in overuse injuries they had witnessed," Hyman told Livescience. "As youth sports become increasingly competitive — climbing a ladder to elite teams, college scholarships, parental prestige and so on — children are engaging in a range of risky behaviors."

One expert he consulted was Dr. Lyle Micheli, founder of one of the country's first pediatric sports medicine clinics at Children's Hospital in Boston. Micheli estimates that 75 percent of the young patients he sees are suffering from some sort of overuse injury, versus 20 percent back in the 1990s.

"As a medical society, we've been pretty ineffective dealing with this," Micheli said. "Nothing seems to be working."

Young surgeries

In severe overuse cases for baseball pitchers, the end result may be ulnar collateral ligament surgery, better known as "Tommy John" surgery. Dr. James Andrews, known for performing this surgery on many professional players, has noticed an alarming trend in his practice. Andrews told The Oregonian last month that more than one-quarter of his 853 patients in the past six years were at the high school level or younger, including one 7-year-old.

Last spring, Andrews and his colleagues conducted a study comparing 95 high-school pitchers who required surgical repair of either their elbow or shoulder with 45 pitchers that did not suffer injury.

They found that those who pitched for more than eight months per year were 500 percent more likely to be injured, while those who pitched more than 80 pitches per game increased their injury risk by 400 percent.  Pitchers who continued pitching despite having arm fatigue were an incredible 3,600 percent more likely to do serious damage to their arm.

Hyman encourages parents to keep youth sports in perspective. "I think that, generally, parents view sports as a healthy and wholesome activity. That's a positive. But, we live in hyper-competitive culture, and parents like to see their kids competing," he said. "It's not only sports. It's ballet and violin and SAT scores and a host of other things.  It's in our DNA."


Please visit my other sports science articles at Livescience.com.

NASCAR Fans Drive Faster

If you plan on watching your favorite NASCAR driver this weekend, you may want to have your designated driver take you home. Not only should he be sober, but he also should have no interest in motor sports.

According to Australian researchers, being a race fan makes you more likely to not only speed in your own car but also to see little wrong with it.

Several factors have been found to influence a driver's attitude towards speeding and aggressive driving, including age, gender and what psychologists call "sensation seeking propensity." This thrill-seeking behavior may also be a result of a driver's environment.

Paul Tranter and James Warn of the University of New South Wales wanted to see if following professional motor sports as a fan added to the need to be fast and furious.

Specifically, they considered whether social cognitive theory, made famous by American psychologist Albert Bandura, explained a fan's need to imitate their favorite drivers by pushing the limits on public roads.

In 2004, with illegal street racing becoming a problem on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, Tranter and Warn focused on young drivers. In a survey of 180 males between the ages of 15 and 24, they measured interest in organized motor sports against attitudes towards safe driving and obeying traffic laws. Each driver's own violation history was also considered.

Results showed an interest in organized racing had a direct effect on not only involvement in illegal racing but also higher violations and riskier attitudes towards traffic laws. Maybe young fans figured that if Danica Patrick can maneuver a 650 horsepower beast around an oval track for a few hours, they should be able push their modified Civic to 100 mph.

Even though the researchers were careful to control for the sensation-seeking personality variable in their survey population, they still wanted to expand their study to older race fans to see if the same relationship held.

In their latest study, published in the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, Tranter and Warn looked only at drivers 25 and older with at least 2 years driving experience. Insurance companies consider this age group a much safer population. A similar survey was distributed to residents of a small NSW town and asked for three things: their level of interest in motor sports; their attitudes toward speeding and traffic laws; and their own self-reported negative driving habits.

The strongest correlation in this group was between an interest in racing and a pro-speeding attitude. So, even among the safer, older group of fans, an intentional lead foot existed.

So, should we put restrictor plates on all cars? No, say Tranter and Warn, but maybe a more visible safety PR campaign to the masses may help.

"There remains a need to get the message out to the driving community that speed is linked to accidents, and that attitudes that condone speeding are a road safety problem," Tranter writes. He adds that another idea would be to shift a young driver's need for risk taking to other sports, (like downhill skiing or mountain biking) that have a more positive "thrill to bad outcome" ratio.

Then again, Tranter comments that the attraction expressed to him by street racers may just be, "'chicks and fast cars,' rather than a desire to engage in illegal activity."

Please visit my other sports science articles at Livescience.com.

For Kids' Health, Just Let Them Play

As usual, your Mom was right. When she told you to get outside and play, she instinctively knew that would be good for you.

Researchers at the University of Exeter have found that kids' natural short bursts of play energy contribute just as much to a healthy lifestyle as longer bouts of organized exercise, such as gym class.
As of 2008, 32 percent of U.S. children were overweight or obese, as measured by their body mass index. While many organized programs have studied this epidemic, the prescription remains the same: less food, more exercise.

In fact, a previous study of 133 children found that the physical activity of the obese children over a three-week period was 35 prcent less during school days and 65 percent less on weekends compared to the children who were within accepted healthy weight norms.

In the new study, Michelle Stone and Roger Eston of Exeter's School of Sport and Health Sciences measured the activity level of 47 boys aged between 8 and 10 over seven days using an accelerometer strapped to each boy's hip (similar to the one inside your iPhone or Wii controller that senses motion).
The key was to find a model that would record the shortest bursts of energy, sometimes less than 2 seconds. As any boy's parents know, those spurts can happen all afternoon, whether it be chasing the dog, throwing rocks in the lake or climbing a tree.

The researchers also measured waist circumference, aerobic fitness and blood pressure of each boy. They found that even though their activity levels came in many short chunks, their health indicators were all in the normal range.

Stone explains their conclusion, "Our study suggests that physical activity is associated with health, irrespective of whether it is accumulated in short bursts or long bouts. Previous research has shown that children are more naturally inclined to engage in short bursts of running, jumping and playing with a ball, and do not tend to sustain bouts of exercise lasting five or more minutes. This is especially true for activities that are more vigorous in nature.

Their findings are in the April edition of the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity.

The researchers admit that more research is needed to measure long-term effects on health.  Establishing activity guidelines for parents and schools will help the kids plan time to move each day.

The National Football League has even started a program called NFL Play 60 that encourages kids to move for at least 60 minutes each day.  "Our players know the importance of staying healthy and it’s important that young fans also understand the value of exercise," said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. "Play 60 is an important tool in ensuring children get their necessary daily physical activity as recommended by health and fitness experts."

So, more recess and less physical education in our schools? Maybe, according to Stone, "If future research backs up our findings, we would do better to encourage young children to do what they do naturally, rather than trying to enforce long exercise sessions on them. This could be a useful way of improving enjoyment and sustainability of healthy physical activity levels in childhood."

Please visit my other sports science articles at Livescience.com

Your Heart Can Warn You Of Future Attacks

Many people exercise to improve the health of their hearts. Now, researchers have found a link between your heart rate just before and during exercise and your chances of a future heart attack.
Just the thought of exercise raises your heart rate. The new study shows that how much it goes up is related to the odds of you eventually dying of a heart attack.

More than 300,000 people die each year from sudden cardiac arrest in the U.S., often with no known risk factors. Being able to find early warning signs has been the goal of researchers like Professor Xavier Jouven, of the Hopital Européen Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Jouven's team has been examining data from a study of 7,746 French men employed by the Paris Civil Service and given health examinations between 1967-1972, including exercise tests, electrocardiograms and heart rate measurements. Over an average 23-year follow-up, 83 eventually died of heart attacks, also known as sudden cardiac death (SCD).

In 2005, Jouven's team first showed that how a heart behaves before, during and after exercise could predict future problems. The risk of a future heart attack was about four times higher than normal in men whose resting hearts beat faster than 75 beats per minute (bpm) or did not speed up by more than 89 beats during exercise. Likewise, heart attacks were twice as likely in men whose heart rates didn't slow down more than 25 beats in the first minute after exercise stopped.

Just a thought
In the latest study, published last week in the European Heart Journal, the French researchers found another interesting clue in the same data set. Not only was the resting heart rate of each person taken, but also another reading right before they were to start a strenuous exercise bike test. This rate is affected by what they called "mild mental stress." It measures the body's physiological anticipation of exercise.

Think of this type of stress as the brain's warning to the body that some difficult, sweaty work is about to begin. It is normal for this rate to be slightly higher than the resting rate, but for some it is significantly higher.

The men who had the highest increase in heart rate during this period (increasing by more than 12 beats a minute) had twice the risk of eventual future sudden cardiac death compared to men who had the lowest increase in heart rate (an increase of less than four beats a minute).

So, the high-risk heart overreacts to the anticipation of exercise, and then does not respond to the full extent needed during exercise. Afterwards, it does not regulate itself down fast enough.

What's going on
Jouven hypothesized that the autonomic nervous system (ANS), the body's internal control governor, must be out of whack.

The ANS has two parts, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Joeven suggests we think of the sympathetic system as the accelerator that turns up our response to exercise by increasing our heart rate. Putting the brakes on this acceleration are the vagus nerves, part of the parasympathetic system, preventing our heart from running out of control.

"There is a balance between the accelerator (sympathetic activation) and the brake (vagus nerve activation)," Jouven explains. "During an ischemic episode, when blood flow to the heart is reduced, sympathetic activation occurs to counteract it. However, if there is no protection by the vagal tone (the brake), the activation can become uncontrolled and then it becomes dangerous."

Finding this connection between heart rate and future heart problems is encouraging for future research, according to Jouven.

"These findings may carry significant clinical implications," he said. "Few measurements in medicine are as inexpensive and as easy to obtain in large general populations as to measure the heart rate difference between resting and being ready to perform an exercise test. The results will contribute towards a better understanding of the mechanisms of cardiac death."

Please visit my other sports science articles at Livescience.com.

Thoroughbred Horse Injuries Rise But Race Times Stay Flat

Imagine trying to walk on all fours using just your big toes and your middle fingers. That is similar to what modern thoroughbred racehorses endure when racing around a track at up to 30 mph.

This weekend's Belmont Stakes will be missing one of this year's stars, Rachel Alexandra, on the precaution that she needs to rest.  Just before last month's Kentucky Derby, three top contenders, Quality Road, I Want Revenge and Square Eddie were forced out of the race due to hoof and shin injuries.

Critics claim selective breeding may be producing an unstable horse anatomy that is prone to injury. Yet, a recent study claims that it all may be for naught, as thoroughbreds may have already reached their theoretical upper limits of speed.

Running on their toes
One of out ten thoroughbreds will suffer from some orthopedic problem, including fractures, which often lead to decisions to destroy them. In the United States, for every 1,000 horses starting a race, there will be 1.5 career-ending injuries, which is almost two per day.

By breeding for speed and power, the bulk of the horse increases while the ankles and lower legs do not,according to some veterinarians.

"Anatomically speaking, they run on their toes," said Lawrence R. Soma, professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. "That makes them very fragile."

The pounds per square inch load that is put on their hoofs would be similar to humans walking on their middle fingers, experts say. One misstep on a soft patch of the turf can cause a break.

So they're faster, right?
Given the large sums of money spent on breeding champion racehorses and the potential health side effects, is it worth it? Are the race times getting faster thanks to these selective genetic performance filters?  The answer is no, according to Mark Denny, Professor of Biology at Stanford University.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, Denny analyzed the race time records for the three U.S. Triple Crown races; the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes. The plateau for similar times for the Kentucky Derby began in 1949, while the Preakness and the Belmont set their plateaus in 1971 and 1973, respectively, Denny found.

"Evidence from the Triple Crown races suggests that the process of selective breeding of thoroughbreds (as practiced in the US) is incapable of producing a substantially faster horse," Denny writes. "Despite the efforts of the breeders, speeds are not increasing, and current attempts to breed faster horses may instead be producing horses that are more fragile."

The solution
Denny also tried to predict the fastest possible time for these horses. Using statistical modeling, he found that the maximum speed of a thoroughbred would be only 0.5 to 1 percent faster than seen today.

"These results suggest that definite speed limits do indeed exist for horses and that their current speeds are very close to these predicted limits," Denny said.

One reason for the limit may be the gene pool. Today's thoroughbreds descend from a lineage of only 12-29 ancestors, with 95 percent of today's thoroughbreds tracing their paternal roots to a single stallion, The Darley Arabian.

Denny suggests that breeding from outside this line might produce the potential for improvement.


Please visit my other sports science articles at Livescience.com.

NFL Scouting Combine Not A Good Predictor of Draft Pick Success

Every April, general managers and head coaches fear that their NFL Draft selection of "can't miss" college players may end up being added to the long list of past multi-million dollar draft mistakes.
So, for last month's NFL Draft, they hope they found the right matrix of information that will reveal those players with true NFL potential. One set of criteria that seems to get more media attention every year is the scouting combine, a collection of physical and mental tests given to about 300 invited prospects.

However, university researchers have now shown the tests are not good predictors of success in the NFL.

According to ESPN, of the top 10 player selections in the last five drafts (50 players total), eight have been released or traded at least once and five are completely out of the league.

Teams are becoming less willing to gamble millions of dollars on a player who has not played a single snap in the league.

The combine event, held in Indianapolis each February, was meant to provide some common denominators to compare players. Physical tests such as the 40-yard dash, shuttle and agility runs, bench press, and the vertical jump are combined with the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT), a 50-question general intelligence test, to paint a profile of a player beyond his on-field resume.

Of course, teams should evaluate the whole package of game film, interviews and position-specific drills, but the combine data seems to be growing in influence. A player's stock seems to rise and fall with their performance at Indianapolis.

In fact, a 2003 Arizona State University study showed that performance at the combine was directly related to draft order, which might indicate that teams rely on these tests more than they admit.

Specific combine tests also seem to make a difference in getting drafted. Last year, University of North Carolina researchers found that there were significant performance differences between drafted and non-drafted skill players in the 40-yeard dash, the shuttle runs and the vertical jump, while drafted linemen performed better in the 40-yard dash and bench press.

But in a new study, Frank Kuzmits and Arthur Adams, professors at the University of Louisville, evaluated more than 300 quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers drafted over six seasons from 1999-2004.

They compared the players' combine performance on seven physical tests and the WPT with measures of success in the NFL. These three skill positions were chosen as they have distinct performance statistics that can be tracked (as opposed to linemen or defensive players.)

Each position used the success metrics of draft order, salaries for years 1-3 and games played for years 1-3. In addition, QB rating, yards per carry and yards per reception were measured for quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers, respectively.

No significant link was found between combine performance and NFL success, except between 40-yard dash times and running backs. Interestingly, even the Wonderlic aptitude test did not predict NFL achievement, even though a skill position like quarterback requires a decent amount of cognitive talent. That's not to say other psychological tests would be worthless. Kuzmits and Adams cite other studies that show a player's level of self-confidence and anxiety management to be strong clues to their future accomplishments.

Of course, not all draft picks are surrounded by great teammates and some don't even get out on the field during those first few seasons. But this research showed that good or bad performance in the combine is not related to good or bad performance on the field. So, the researchers question the value of these combine tests as a draft decision support tool.

They do see a similarity between NFL teams choosing players and companies choosing employees.
"Contemporary human resource techniques could be applied to any hiring decision, including the NFL hiring process," Kuzmits told LiveScience. "Basically, teams could develop a regression equation with various success predictors weighted (college success, combine tests and interviews, awards, psychological profile, etc.). It could be done but in the end 'art' would probably trump 'science.'"

Please visit my other sports science articles on Livescience.com

NBA Teams Win With Ethnic Diversity

When the National Basketball Association Conference Finals tip off later this week, four teams will test their level of cooperation, unselfishness and teamwork. One issue that apparently will not get in their way is diversity.

Two new studies have shown that an NBA team's level of racial or ethnic diversity does not have any significant impact on its winning percentage or its players' split-second decision making on the court. These reassuring findings on player unity contrast with a 2007 report showing same-race bias among NBA referees when making foul calls.

The demographics of the NBA have changed dramatically over the last 40 years. African-Americans make up about 76 percent of the league's players, while Latinos and Asians account for three and one percent, respectively. According to the NBA, 77 international players from 32 countries contributed just over 17 percent to team rosters. There are not only potential ethnic and cultural barriers, but also language differences that may impact a team's chemistry.

For any organization, results matter. However, few groups of co-workers have their teamwork watched, measured and analyzed to the extent of an NBA team.

Diversity measured 
Paul Sommers and Jessica Weiss of Middlebury College wanted to see if the level of an NBA team's diversity affected its ability to win. For the last three complete NBA seasons (through 2007-08), players who had at least 800 minutes of court time were divided into one of five racial or demographic groups; African-Americans, Caucasians, East Europeans, Asians, and other foreign-born players who did not play either high school or college basketball in the United States. Using the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) to measure diversity, a number was assigned to each team for each season. An index of 1.0 would indicate a completely homogeneous team, while more diverse teams would score lower (between 0 and 1).

When the HHI was regressed against each team's regular season winning percentage, no significant correlation was found. In other words, a team's diversity did not help or hurt their success on the court. As supporting evidence, the last three NBA champions, the Boston Celtics (2007-08), the San Antonio Spurs (2006-07), and the Miami Heat (2005-06), had dramatically different HHIs of 1.0, .360, and .781, respectively.

What about that language barrier? If communications suffered, then there should be passing mixups and team turnovers should rise. To find out, Sommers and Weiss divided the teams into two groups, more diverse and less diverse at the median HHI for the league. Over the three seasons, there was no significant difference in total turnovers between the two groups.

The findings were detailed in last month's Atlantic Economic Journal.

Carrying that on-court cooperation theme even further, Brigham Young researchers searched for same-race bias in NBA players when passing to their teammates. To put it bluntly, would a white player subconsciously prefer to pass to another white player if given a choice and, conversely, a black player to a black player? In an exhaustive study, Joseph Price, Lars John Lefgren and Henry Tappen dug into six seasons of NBA data to look at every assisted basket and recorded the race (noted simply as "black" or "not black") of the passer and the scorer. They also noted the other three players on the floor when the basket was made. Of course, there were numerous decision variables that the researchers had to eliminate to isolate just racial preference.

The conclusion: No same-race bias was found in the passing patterns of NBA players.  Study details are available from the Social Science Research Network as part of their working paper series.

Referees don't play fair
Joseph Price is known for his controversial paper in 2007 that concluded there is significant same-race bias shown by NBA referees. In that study, more than 600,000 officiating calls over 13 seasons were analyzed to see if white referees would call fewer fouls on white players than black players and vice versa (black referees whistling black players).

They concluded that the difference was "large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.”

In fact, their data showed that players earned up to 4 percent fewer fouls and scored up to 2.5 percent more points on nights in which their race matches that of the refereeing crew. From a team perspective, the bias factor may change the outcome of two games out of an 82 game season. For some teams, that may be the difference that keeps them out of the playoffs.

Please visit my other sports science articles at Livescience.com

Tiger's Brain Is Bigger Than Ours

As Tiger Woods heads to Sawgrass for The Players Championship this weekend, mortal golfers wonder what's inside his head that keeps him winning. Well, chances are his brain actually has more gray matter than the average weekend duffer.

Researchers at the University of Zurich have found that expert golfers have a higher volume of the gray-colored, closely packed neuron cell bodies that are known to be involved with muscle control. The good news is that, like Tiger, golfers who start young and commit to years of practice can also grow their brains while their handicaps shrink.

Executing a good golf swing consistently is one of the hardest sport skills to master. Coordinating all of the moving body parts with the right timing requires a brain that has learned from many trial and error repetitions.

In fact, past studies have shown that the number of hours spent practicing is directly related to a golfer's handicap (a calculated number that represents recent playing ability).

Magic number
K. Anders Ericsson, a Florida State professor and the "expert on experts," has spent more than 25 years studying what it takes to become elite in any field, including sports.

The magic number that keeps recurring in Ericsson's studies is 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. If someone is willing to dedicate this amount of structured time on any skill, he has the potential to rise to the top.

Some critics argue that practice is good, but we all start with different levels of innate abilities that put some at an early advantage (i.e. the boy who is six feet tall in fourth grade) While that may be true, Ericsson does not want the rest of us to use that as an excuse. "The traditional assumption is that people come into a professional domain, have similar experiences, and the only thing that's different is their innate abilities," he said in an interview with Fast Company. "There's little evidence to support this. With the exception of some sports, no characteristic of the brain or body constrains an individual from reaching an expert level."

So, what happens to the brain after all of that practice?

In the new study, a team led by neuropsychologist Lutz Jäncke compared the brain images of 40 men divided into four groups based on their experience as golfers. They recruited ten professional golfers (with handicaps of 0), ten advanced golfers (handicaps between 1 and 14), ten average golfers (handicaps between 15 and 36) and ten volunteers who had never played golf (not even mini-golf!).

Interviews revealed the "practice makes perfect" correlation between hours of practice and lower handicaps.

Brain scans (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) showed that, indeed, there were structural differences, but not in the linear pattern they imagined. While significant differences existed in total volume of gray matter between the pros and the non-players, there was little difference between the pro and the advanced groups or between the average and non-players groups.

When the researchers combined the pros and the advanced golfers into one group called "expert," and the average and non-players into a second group called "novice," a clear dividing line emerged, showing that practice produces a noticeable step up in the brain's gray matter. This jump comes somewhere between 800-3,000 practice hours.

The results were detailed last month in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Step 1: Grow the brain
Another interesting twist is that the pros reported practicing five to eight times more than the advanced group, while the advanced group practiced only twice as much as the average group.

Yet the big jump in gray matter came after golfers achieved a skill level below a 15 handicap, moving from average to advanced. This is consistent with another study in 2008 that measured gray matter volume in students learning to juggle three balls. After learning to juggle for the first time, their gray matter increased. However, once that initial concept was learned, more advanced juggling tricks did not grow more brain cells.

It's been a long time since Tiger's handicap was 15, so clearly the additional years of practice were necessary to reach the top.  And, all of that gray has produced a lot of green.

Please visit my other sports science stories at LiveScience.com

Catching Fly Balls Is A Lot Like Rocket Science

Every Little League outfielder knows the feeling.

With the crack of the bat, you see the ball jump into the air. You take a few quick steps forward. Then, as you watch the ball continue to rise faster, you feel your stomach sink knowing that this one is going over your head. What went wrong?

How our eyes, brains, arms and legs combine to track and catch a fly ball has stumped scientists for more than 40 years.

A new study supports the original theory of it all while offering some practical tips.

By watching fielders shag pop flies, researchers have noticed a few interesting quirks. First, great ballplayers will not sprint to the exact spot on the field where they think the ball will land and then wait for it. Rather, they usually adjust their speed to arrive at the landing spot just as the ball arrives.

In fact, a previous study asked fielders to stand still in the outfield and predict where a fly ball will land. While they did poorly on that test, they then demonstrated that, when allowed to move, they were able to go catch similar fly balls. So, the tracking and prediction mechanism seemed to require movement of the player.

Years ago, physicist Seville Chapman proposed a model to explain how players manage the path of a fly ball so that they arrive to intercept it at just the right time. His theory, called Optical Acceleration Cancellation (OAC), used the acceleration of the ball through the vision field as a guide for player movement.

As a fielder watches the ball rise, he moves either forward or backwards so that the ball moves at a constant speed through his field of vision. If he moves too far forward, the ball will rise faster and may eventually fly over his head. If he takes too many steps back, the ball will appear to rise slower and will drop in front of him.

By managing the ball's position with his movement, a fielder will end up at the right spot at the right time. This explains why the stationary fielders could not predict where the ball would land, as they did not have the benefit of OAC.

If we ask real fielders how they knew where to run to catch a ball, they may not respond with, "Well, I simply adjusted my relative field position to keep the tangent of the vertical optical angle to the ball increasing at a constant rate." So, to test the OAC geometric equations against real life, researchers led by Dinant Kistemaker of the University of Western Ontario, compared the predicted running paths from their mathematical simulation with the real running paths of fielders observed in a previous study.

"We have found that running paths are largely consistent with those observed experimentally," Kistemaker told LiveScience. "Largely, and not completely, because the start of fielders is somewhat strange: They tend to step forward first, irrespective of the fact that they have run either forward or backwards to catch that fly ball."

The research is detailed this month in the journal Human Movement Science.

Will those first few steps forward doom the Little Leaguer to years of fly ball nightmares? Actually, it might be our brain's method of improving its viewpoint.

"For a fielder, making a step is a way of changing the magnitude of the optical acceleration, while preserving its informative value," Kistemaker clarified. "A faster rise of the optical acceleration above the detection threshold may outweigh a possible initial step in the wrong direction. Making an initial step forwards is not only easier than making an initial step backwards, but might also be a better choice."

So, if you're now coaching Little Leaguers, be patient. Their brains may still be learning the math.


Please visit my other sports science articles at LiveScience.com