Ryan Church's Unique TrainingMarch 8, 2007 12:35 am
BY TODD JACOBSON
Fredericksburg Freelance Star
LINK:
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/032007/03082007/265683Nationals outfielder Ryan Church holds two cards about 18 inches from his face and stares them down like an opposing pitcher.
He hasn't yet arrived at Space Coast Stadium yet. Hasn't pulled on a jersey or grabbed a bat or a ball.
He's sitting at home, and as he does for a few minutes every morning, he's working to fine-tune one of baseball's most overlooked tools: the eyes.
"You lift weights, and you do stuff with your hands, but when it comes down to your eyes, if you can't see the ball you aren't going to hit it," Church said.
So as Church focuses on the pair of shimmering landscapes, he might as well be standing in the batter's box waiting for a fastball, curveball or a changeup to come hurtling toward him.
At least that's the idea.
"If I am looking out at a pitcher and looking at the rotation right out of his hand, I can pick up the ball earlier and actually it slows the game down," Church said.
Missing Ball's Rotation Church, 28, says he has 20-20 vision. He's never worn glasses. Never needed contacts.
But last year was tough for the once-promising prospect. He didn't make the Nationals' opening day roster and was humbled by stops in Double-A and Triple-A. He hit .276 with 10 homers and 35 RBIs in 71 big league games, but he continued to struggle hitting breaking balls and offspeed pitches.
When he was referred by Nationals officials to optometrist Bill Harrison, one of the pioneers in baseball vision training, he was open to anything.
What Church found was startling. Though he could read an eye chart with ease, he wasn't truly seeing a baseball.
He lifted weights and spent hours in the batting cage, but he took his eyes for granted.
"Everyone talks about seeing the ball, but it's the least worked-on thing in baseball," said Nationals outfielder George Lombard, who also works with Harrison. "Everything else, you go out and hit and try to strengthen everything else, but you don't work on your eyes."
That's where Harrison comes in. He worked with Church and Lombard on a Nationals road trip in Arizona last season, and lists more than 30 major leaguer players as his clients. He evaluated the Nationals before the 2005 season and now works with the Atlanta Braves.
"The game is so physical and mechanical and from the moment these guys are in Little League or high school, it's all about working harder on technique and mechanics. They don't think about the eyes," Harrison said. "But they are a factor and we give them an easy solution."
A new kind of training In addition to the cards Church uses, which actually help relax the tension in the muscles around his eyes so he can be alert at the plate, there are a multitude of exercises players can work on.
When Church worked with Harrison last year, he tossed him tennis balls with numbers written on them. While they rotated, Church had to identify the numbers--kind of like trying to identify the spin on a curveball or slider.
Church also stood in front of a board with dozens of jumbled numbers and had to quickly scan the board, going from one to 50 as fast as possible.
Harrison also works with players on visualization techniques, helping them imagine a perfect swing or perfect catch, and encourages players to focus on a pitcher's release point while in the on-deck circle. That way, they can pick up pitches quicker when they're in the batter's box.
"It's about teaching the athlete how to see things more quickly," Harrison said. "A lot of people see things, but they don't register it quick enough and when they do register it they don't register the details."
Making Converts Harrison has been working with baseball players since 1972, when Royals owner Ewing Kaufmann became intrigued with the idea of vision training.
Jack McKeon, who most recently led the Marlins to the 2003 World Series title, was managing the Royals at the time of Kaufmann's infatuation with the training. So was Braves general manager John Schuerholz and former Pirates and Orioles GM Syd Thrift.
They all became converts, and so, too, did Nationals general manager Jim Bowden. He worked with the Pirates when Thrift was Pittsburgh's general manager, and met Harrison in the mid-1980s.
"I watched the improvement it made on players over the years," Bowden said. "It's a critical part of the game."
But quantifying how much vision training helps is difficult. There are no before-and-after studies, though Harrison said there is no doubt it helps almost every player who works hard to improve his eyesight.
George Brett, Tony Gwynn and Barry Bonds have each worked with Harrison and each is a proponent of vision training. The same goes for Sean Casey, David Dellucci, Jason Larue and Shawn Green.
Former Nationals outfielder Jose Guillen credited the training with turning his career around. He worked with Harrison before the 2003 season on his depth perception and hit a career-high 31 homers while batting .311 with the Reds and Athletics.
Evaluating Vision The results from vision training have been enough to convince Bowden.
"You just watch players' performances," Bowden said. "There's been a lot of guys that you can check their depth perception and have them do different exercises and strengthen the muscles there and all the sudden it improves. Then you see them hitting the breaking ball better. You see them staying on the changeup better. Their walks improve. Their on-base percentage gets a little better. It's definitely tangible."
And it's definitely important. The Nationals don't draft a player without a vision evaluation, and they don't make free agency decisions without it either.
"It's just a part of it though," Bowden said. "There are so many different parts to evaluating different players."
Church won't know until the season starts how much the vision training has helped him, or how much it will help his batting average climb. However, he said he's already able to recognize pitches quicker, especially the offspeed pitches that befuddled him in years past, and he's gained confidence.
That, in itself, is a big help.
"I was really just in awe of the whole thing," Church said. "There are so many different resources out there. They are all just untapped. When you think about it, you need your eyes to hit. That's one of the biggest things. To have someone have something this easy, to be able to train your eyes just like that, I think it's going to be huge."
