ABSTRACT
By the physiological limits of visual tracking, nerve conduction, and neuromuscular activation it should be physically impossible for a batter to make contact with a delivered fastball from a major league pitcher. Still, this feat is accomplished, not with consistency, but with at least some regularity. By what superior physiological means do baseball players accomplish this is not altogether clear. Some evidence indicates that players’ abilities of visual tracking and use of eye saccades (jumps in vision) provide an advantage. Others would point to a superior capacity for coincident timing (making the swing of the bat strike the oncoming ball). Too, experienced baseball players may use anticipatory cues from a pitcher’s delivery or habitually delivered pitches. While one awaits a clear-cut explanation for how batters defy the laws of physics in hitting a pitched ball, the players themselves are more critically interested in whether such mechanisms can be learned from specific training methods. This, too, remains an unanswered question.
