The Fall Classic, again
Blog vol 6.15. The Fall Classic, again.
This blog is about eyes and light. How does baseball fit? Or am I, in my excitement, stretching it? You can decide.
As Foghorn Leghorn (Looney Tunes) so aptly put it, “You got to keep your eye on the ball. Eye, ball. “ And another renowned Foghorn quip, “I keep pitching them and he keeps missing them!".
The co-ordination of eyes, hands, and body in the motion of hitting a 95 mph heater off of a bat and sending it into the left field bleachers is off the charts.
The eyes. Last year I commented on the Yankees and the Dodgers in the World Series. I looked at velocity and reaction times and the need for excellent vision when playing baseball, especially in the act of hitting a home run.
In 1998, Mark McGwire, a player for St. Louis, hit 70 home runs in one season, smashing the old record of 61 held by Roger Maris of the New York Yankees in the 1961 season. McGwire was so prolific, he had the best ratio of homeruns to at bats in all of baseball history — 1:10.61.
McGuire was a long-time contact lens wearer that suffered from myopia and astigmatism. His optometrist, Dr. Stephen Johnson from San Ramon, California, fit him with contrast-increasing, yellow-tinted contact lenses. These tinted lenses allowed him to see the ball better and that is when his career took off with the Oakland A’s. Coincidence?
Closer to home, the Blue Jays had an excellent catcher, Danny Jansen, who changed his career trajectory in 2016 when he began wearing spectacles to correct astigmatism. The next season his hitting improved so much that he went from playing Single A to playing Triple A. The following year he cracked the Blue Jays line up and is now playing for Milwaukee. He went from Hog Flats to Toronto when a doctor put a pair of spectacles on him and so a hard-luck kid made good when he could finally see straight.
This season’s Blue Jays have Davis Schneider, who wears his glasses because he doesn’t want to touch his eyes with contact lenses and he likes the extra protection they give him. Then there is Vladdy, the star of our American League Champs, who definitely wears contacts and removed them real quick from his eyes just after winning the ALCS against Seattle. You can see him pulling them off as the camera was taking a close-up, hard to miss (at least as an optometrist). Watch the clip here.
We always stress hygiene and good habits for contact lens use, but I guess we’ll let Vladdy go this once considering the rather exceptional circumstances — just don’t do this at home.
Finally, Jansen puts it best when he states, “I mean, being able to see clearly is kind of huge.”
No Kidding! Bold prediction (last year got the Dodgers right) but this year Jays at home in 6. Go Jays!
the good doctor
