Everyone's reporting on a couple of close calls (the narrow escape kind, there aren't any umpires involved) down in Florida. I'm glad nobody's seriously hurt, but more than fluky accident reports and haunted sprinkler systems, this caught my attention:
Frank Catalanotto recently underwent successful Lasix eye surgery to improve his sight.
One of the reasons I could hit a little, back in the day, was the gift of 20-15 eyesight; I was able to pick up the spin on the ball as soon as it left the pitcher's hand. (Now I peer over the top of my reading glasses, and my distance vision is beginning to deteriorate; we'll find out if I can still hit high-schoolers when practice begins next week). Unless you're Alfonso Soriano or Vladimir Guerrero, there's a lot of physics calculatations in 0.4 seconds, including location ("is that in my ear?") and speed, so if you get a clue whether it's fastball, curve or slider a few milliseconds earlier, that's a big advantage.
Recently, I was talking to someone about Jays farmhand Jim Deschaine, who had always been a contact hitter before his terrible 2002 at AA Tennessee, and suggested the team should take him to an optometrist. Your eyes change over time, rarely for the better. If Cat, who can already hit -- .331/.390/.499 vs. RH in 2001 -- sees the ball a bit better, that's great news, especially if he can avoid being killed by fly balls.
Frank Catalanotto recently underwent successful Lasix eye surgery to improve his sight.
One of the reasons I could hit a little, back in the day, was the gift of 20-15 eyesight; I was able to pick up the spin on the ball as soon as it left the pitcher's hand. (Now I peer over the top of my reading glasses, and my distance vision is beginning to deteriorate; we'll find out if I can still hit high-schoolers when practice begins next week). Unless you're Alfonso Soriano or Vladimir Guerrero, there's a lot of physics calculatations in 0.4 seconds, including location ("is that in my ear?") and speed, so if you get a clue whether it's fastball, curve or slider a few milliseconds earlier, that's a big advantage.
Recently, I was talking to someone about Jays farmhand Jim Deschaine, who had always been a contact hitter before his terrible 2002 at AA Tennessee, and suggested the team should take him to an optometrist. Your eyes change over time, rarely for the better. If Cat, who can already hit -- .331/.390/.499 vs. RH in 2001 -- sees the ball a bit better, that's great news, especially if he can avoid being killed by fly balls.
