Monday, June 27, 2011

Julian is Going to Have a Low Daytime Batting Average

Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton was asked the explain the wide disparity between his performance during the day (399 OPS) and at night (1070 OPS). Basically he is Mickey Mantle at night, and Mickey Mouse when the sun is out.
And that may be the reason. Hamilton says because he has blue eyes, he has a harder time seeing during the day.



Of course a few other ballplayers with blue eyes backed him up, including Jason Bay who is actually doing better during the day (695 vs. 590 at night). But ESPN actually found an optometrist to back him up:

Dr. Richard L. Ison says, "Because of the lack of pigment in lighter color eyes -- like blue or green eyes as opposed to brown -- you get a lot more unwanted light and that can create glare problems".
Ison said the phenomenon is called intraocular light scatter, meaning the light scatters as it enters, producing a focal point that isn't as good.


For his career, Hamilton has a 723 OPS during the day and 977 at night. Now I suppose there are other reasons that could explain this though we don't think he is out at night boozing and chasing skirts like he used to be. So if it's not lack of sleep, it could be randomness, some guys just do better during the day, others do better at night. Or maybe there really is something to this eye thing.

If so we're going to have to get Julian to wear eye black at an early age.

1 comment:

master bates said...

finally a reason I was so bad at little league (other than the fact I have no hand eye coordination). It was because of my blue eyes.