{"id":6904,"date":"2010-08-08T05:46:22","date_gmt":"2010-08-08T12:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=6904"},"modified":"2010-08-08T14:19:41","modified_gmt":"2010-08-08T21:19:41","slug":"touring-the-bases-with-dave-baldwin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/08\/touring-the-bases-with-dave-baldwin\/","title":{"rendered":"Touring the Bases With…Dave Baldwin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The confrontation between batter and hitter defines baseball. \u00c2\u00a0No one understands the scientific dynamic of those opposing forces better than Dave Baldwin, late sixties bullpen stalwart for the Washington Senators, a geneticist and engineer who studies batters and pitchers as mechanical and neurological entities. \u00c2\u00a0His insights are fascinating and offer some important instructive insight into both pitcher and hitter that would benefit them both. Here is his interview. <\/span><\/p>\n

TL. \u00c2\u00a0You wrote an article on Baseball Analysts.com, “Unraveling the Batter’s Brain,” about the mental imaging of the batter from the moment the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand to the point of contact with the bat. \u00c2\u00a0It sounded like the person who wanted to get inside the batter’s brain was a pitcher. \u00c2\u00a0Was this in service of the fraternity of pitchers?<\/span><\/p>\n

DB. \u00c2\u00a0Every pitcher should study the batter’s brain, attempting to answer questions such as, “What does the pitch look like to the batter?” “How does the batter pre-process the decisions he must make?” and “How much time does he have before he must commit to his swing?” Discussions with Ted Williams helped me with the first two of those questions. \u00c2\u00a0The third question required the research of physicists and psychologists. \u00c2\u00a0I hope pitchers (or batters for that matter) find the article you mention helpful, but I doubt if any players will ever become aware of it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

TL.\u00c2\u00a0 In the article you talk about the importance of a pitcher setting up his pitches because batters keep a phantom image of the last pitch in their unconscious mind.\u00c2\u00a0 Should pitchers try to keep the pace brisk on the mound to keep that most recent image of the last pitch fresh?<\/p>\n

DB.\u00c2\u00a0 At one time, pitching coaches such as John Sain suggested that pitchers should work rapidly and vary the speed of the ball with each pitch.\u00c2\u00a0 In 1974, Sain turned Jim Kaat back into a twenty-game winner with this philosophy.\u00c2\u00a0 Recently, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been told by a psychologist that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153phantom image\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can hang around much longer than a few seconds, so the batter can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do much to foil this strategy by stepping out of the box and stalling.\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know whether many pitchers today use Sain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s method, however.<\/em><\/p>\n

TL.\u00c2\u00a0 You use Steve Hamilton’s “folly floater” as an example of a pitch slow enough and with enough height on it to get the batter’s conscious mind actively engaged in the decision making to his detriment.\u00c2\u00a0 Several current pitchers use extremely slow curves–62 mph–with great success.\u00c2\u00a0 Is this an example of the same thing?<\/p>\n

DB. I doubt that the reason a 62 mph pitch is effective is the same reason that the folly floater or Rip Sewell\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eephus worked.\u00c2\u00a0 Hamilton would toss his pitch to over twenty feet in height, so the angle of descent was much steeper than batters were used to seeing.\u00c2\u00a0 This presented a problem \u00e2\u20ac\u201c how should the batter angle his swing?\u00c2\u00a0 A steeply angled swing would be most likely to connect squarely with the ball, but it would merely produce a high pop-up or fly.\u00c2\u00a0 A more nearly level swing will be less likely to make contact.\u00c2\u00a0 The batter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conscious mind has plenty of time to struggle with this question.\u00c2\u00a0 The best strategy is to take the pitch since it will most likely be out of the (skewed) strike zone, but everyone in the ballpark is thinking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My great grandmother could hit <\/em>that<\/em> pitch,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so the batter feels pressured to swing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to prove that he is at least as good as all those great grandmothers.<\/em><\/p>\n

TL.\u00c2\u00a0 The engineering of pitches is something you have analyzed at length.\u00c2\u00a0 In Edward Achorn’s book on Hoss Radbourn he attributes an extremely slow, but hard and late breaking curve as one of Radbourn’s best pitches that embarrassed the best batters of the day.\u00c2\u00a0 What are the dynamics of the slow curve and is it harder to throw a sharp breaking 62 mph curve than a sharp breaking 82 mph curve.<\/p>\n

DB. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what makes a sharply breaking curve \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sharp.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 The deflection of the pitch caused by the ball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spin is a smooth arc, but the deflection from the original direction increases approximately quadratically throughout the flight of the pitch (see R. K. Adair, The Physics of Baseball, 3<\/em>rd<\/em><\/sup> edition, page 50), so in a sense it also breaks (but not suddenly).\u00c2\u00a0 The longer the ball is in the air (the slower the curveball), the greater this break.\u00c2\u00a0 So perhaps the question is, why do some curves <\/em>appear<\/em> to break <\/em>sharply<\/em>?\u00c2\u00a0 One possibility is that batters swing harder on slower pitches, and in doing so, they \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pull their head\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and move their eyes a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 A curve will be exaggerated suddenly if the image of the ball suddenly shifts from foveal to peripheral viewing (see a demonstration of this at this website:<\/em><\/p>\n

http:\/\/illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com\/2009\/the-break-of-the-curveball\/<\/em><\/a> ).<\/em><\/p>\n

TL. \u00c2\u00a0You pitched for the best set of eyes to lock onto a baseball, Ted Williams. \u00c2\u00a0Was he any good with the pitchers?\u00c2\u00a0 Dick Bosman thought he was, though he gave most of the credit to Sid Hudson.<\/span><\/p>\n

DB. \u00c2\u00a0Ted helped me a lot by telling me how batters were thinking.\u00c2\u00a0 He would talk to anyone about hitting – didn’t matter whether you were a pitcher or a position player.\u00c2\u00a0 He gave me a better idea about pitch selection, for example.\u00c2\u00a0 Sid Hudson was an excellent pitching coach, by the way.<\/em><\/p>\n

TL.\u00c2\u00a0 In your book, Snake Jazz<\/em>, you talk about tormenting Ted Williams, could you share your favorite Ted Williams torment?<\/p>\n

DB.\u00c2\u00a0 I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153favorite\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trying to create problems for him, after all.\u00c2\u00a0 We just had some difficulty understanding one another.\u00c2\u00a0 I would be effective for several games and about the time he thought he could trust me with the game on the line, I turned into a batting practice pitcher, or worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Once, in Seattle against the pathetic Pilots, he brought me into a wild game, probably expecting me to bring some stability with me.\u00c2\u00a0 I surprised him by walking the bases loaded and giving up a grand slam homer to Rich Rollins.\u00c2\u00a0 We lost 16 to 13.\u00c2\u00a0 The Senators traded me to the Pilots at the end of the season, probably as retribution for both me and the Pilots.<\/em><\/p>\n

TL. \u00c2\u00a0After the mound was lowered and the strike zone reduced in 1969, the game took off on a slow but steady offensive climb from 1969 until the muscled version of today.\u00c2\u00a0 I would love to hear your opinions about how the game was played in the sixties and seventies in contrast to today?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

DB. \u00c2\u00a0You know by just looking at today’s rosters that the current players are bigger and stronger than at any time in the past.\u00c2\u00a0 As you say, a slow but steady climb in size and strength.\u00c2\u00a0 Athletes in general are faster and quicker today — just better athletes in all sports.\u00c2\u00a0 We played the game with greater skill and sharper thinking.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s game must involve much more power than most of us had.\u00c2\u00a0 The radar gun is greatly responsible for that.\u00c2\u00a0 We had no quantitative measures of pitchers’ speeds.\u00c2\u00a0 Scouts judged pitchers more on whether they were able to get batters out.<\/em><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

TL. \u00c2\u00a0You have an interest in women playing professional baseball? \u00c2\u00a0What do you see happening there these days?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

DB.\u00c2\u00a0 I think pitchers like Eri Yoshida and Chelsea Baker could give baseball a big boost.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone assumes that a woman has little chance for success in baseball, but I think a knuckleballer might be able to make it to the majors.\u00c2\u00a0 Women aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to throw a 95 mph fastball, but then, not many men can, either.\u00c2\u00a0 A knuckleball doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to go faster than 65 or 70 mph \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in fact, it has more movement at slower speeds.\u00c2\u00a0 Since MLB is always most concerned about making money — can you imagine the crowds a woman pitching in the majors would draw?\u00c2\u00a0 As it is, baseball isn’t very popular with women — American football, soccer and basketball are more popular.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a great opportunity for baseball to gain many new fans.
\n<\/em>
\nTL \u00c2\u00a0As a genetic engineer, do you believe women have any physical advantage in throwing a knuckle-ball?<\/p>\n

DB. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know whether women have a physical advantage in throwing this pitch.\u00c2\u00a0 They might have a psychological advantage, though.\u00c2\u00a0 I think women are less likely to try to throw the pitch too hard (which makes it tumble rather than corkscrew, wiggle, or any of those other squiggly twists it can take).\u00c2\u00a0 Women also tend to be more diligent in learning new skills \u00e2\u20ac\u201c more patience in getting the feel of the knuckleball.\u00c2\u00a0 This is a pitch that takes a great deal of patience, and many male pitchers have given up on it quickly<\/em><\/p>\n

TL.\u00c2\u00a0 Did your interest in the mental dynamics of the game between pitcher and hitter influence your decision to return to school for advanced degrees?<\/p>\n

DB. Not a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 I developed an interest in ecology when I was a kid, so I earned a B.S. in zoology.\u00c2\u00a0 When I began my graduate work my interests expanded to include genetics.\u00c2\u00a0 My adviser was an ecological geneticist studying natural populations of Drosophila (fruit flies), and that determined the direction of my research.\u00c2\u00a0 The mental dynamics stuff has been strictly a baseball pastime for me.<\/em><\/p>\n

TL. \u00c2\u00a0There has been discussion from some–Nolan Ryan prominently–that there is too much emphasis on pitch count monitoring for young pitchers. \u00c2\u00a0As a pitcher and scientist, what are you thoughts on how the game conditions young pitchers?<\/p>\n

DB. \u00c2\u00a0I wouldn’t want pitch counts if I were a young pitcher today, but then I threw nearly every day (except when it rained) from the time I was about 12 until I retired from pro ball at the age of 36.\u00c2\u00a0 I had my best season when I was 35 (but it was in the minors so it didn’t count) so I didn’t get burned out. \u00c2\u00a0 I was a sidearmer, however, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much easier on the arm than throwing overhand or three-quarters<\/em><\/p>\n

On Dave Baldwin’s website (http:\/\/www.snakejazz.com\/<\/a> ) there is the gentlemanly disclaimer, “Baseball was never meant to be taken seriously.\u00c2\u00a0 If it were, we would play it with a javelin instead of a ball.” The quote is from one of his mentors, Max Surkont.\u00c2\u00a0 His book, Snake Jazz<\/em>, is a memoir about his time in the game and the people he met from Ted Williams to the Seri Indians in Mexico.
\n <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The confrontation between batter and hitter defines baseball. \u00c2\u00a0No one understands the scientific dynamic of those opposing forces better than Dave Baldwin, late sixties bullpen stalwart for the Washington Senators, a geneticist and engineer who studies batters and pitchers as mechanical and neurological entities. \u00c2\u00a0His insights are fascinating and offer some important instructive insight into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,81,9],"tags":[9188,47,9211,146,9183,9190,4813,1207,9181,9209,9193,9184,9186,2473,9192,1272,9185,9187,9672,9676,4830,4832,9210,827,9212,9182,9677,9673,9668,5142,432,2083,9674,9213,816,9191,9669,4773,9214,4009,9216,9215,3779,630,9675,835,9189],"class_list":["post-6904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-view-from-the-capital","category-features","category-general","tag-american-football","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-analysts","tag-batters","tag-biomedical-engineer","tag-chelsea","tag-confrontation","tag-crowds","tag-dave-baldwin","tag-dick-bosman","tag-engineer","tag-entities","tag-football-soccer","tag-game-winner","tag-geneticist","tag-insight","tag-insights","tag-issue-one","tag-jim-kaat","tag-john-sain","tag-knuckleballer","tag-last-pitch","tag-layman","tag-majors","tag-mental-imaging","tag-opposing-forces","tag-phanto","tag-phantom-image","tag-physicists","tag-pitch-selection","tag-pitchers","tag-pitching-coach","tag-pitching-coaches","tag-point-of-contact","tag-position-player","tag-pro-debut","tag-psychologists","tag-senators","tag-seventies","tag-sixties","tag-steady-climb","tag-strength-athletes","tag-strike-zone","tag-ted-williams","tag-unconscious-mind","tag-washington-senators","tag-yoshida"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}