« PREVIOUS ENTRY
Yiiiiiiii

Video technology has transformed the way athletes train for sports, because they can review their performance — and that of their opponents — in nuanced, frame-by-frame detail. But most athletes can only do this after or before a game is over.
The exception is David Ortiz — who studies video in near real-time, while a game is still ongoing. Ortiz is a designated hitter for the Red Sox, and each time he bats, he heads back to the clubhouse, cracks open his laptop, and studies the pitches that were being thrown at him mere minutes earlier. Better yet, according to this piece in the New York Times, he’s apparently got a huge database of every pitch he’s ever faced:
With one click, Ortiz can also watch every at-bat that he has ever had against Sabathia in case he wants to search for a specific pitch. The batter-pitcher history compiled by the team is condensed to only include the pitches, not any tosses to first or visits from the pitching coach. It is all meat, no filler.
As the game progresses into the later innings and Ortiz speculates that he might oppose a left-handed reliever like Rafael Perez, he will study the at-bats that he has had off Perez. To Ortiz, knowledge equals power.
“That’s the real deal,” Ortiz said. “That’s the view of what you want to do differently from what you did before. If you see something good, you want to stick with it. If you do something wrong, you want to fix it.”
Personally, I think it’d be interesting to just blow things open completely and let pro sports athletes don wearable computers with craploads of telemetry: 360-degree radar, infrared vision, instant playback, voice messaging. Just imagine the sick plays they could pull off!
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
Teleportation, the last battle, and the Creator talks: How the world ends inside an online game
My latest Wired magazine column: Troll taming at Whitehouse.gov
Apparently NASA is filled with Joss Whedon fans
Incredibly weird, inch-wide single-celled creatures discovered rolling across the sea floor
In praise of the 3-hour game: My latest Wired News video-game column
» visit the Collision Detection archives
March 25, 2009 » 05:10 PM
I had to ask! I was investigating getting DirecTV for my new office when I saw this pop-up window …
March 22, 2009 » 08:54 PM
““From an acoustical perspective, music is an overstructured language, which the brain invented and which the brain loves to hear.”” - Basics - In One Ear and Out the Other - NYTimes.com
March 20, 2009 » 04:48 PM
“No wonder young people find mainstream journalism uninviting; it would almost be more frightening if they embraced what passes for news today.” - The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers (Page 2)
March 19, 2009 » 01:12 PM
Printing The NYT Costs Twice As Much As Sending Every Subscriber A Free Kindle
March 18, 2009 » 08:44 PM
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” — Edward Abbey” - Via Thor Muller’s twitter stream.
» see all of my photos on Flickr
ECHO
Erik Weissengruber
Vespaboy
Terri Senft
Tom Igoe
El Rey Del Art
Morgan Noel
Maura Johnston
Cori Eckert
Heather Gold
Andrew Hearst
Chris Allbritton
Bret Dawson
Michele Tepper
Sharyn November
Gail Jaitin
Barnaby Marshall
Frankly, I'd Rather Not
The Shifted Librarian
Ryan Bigge
Nick Denton
Howard Sherman's Nuggets
Serial Deviant
Ellen McDermott
Jeff Liu
Marc Kelsey
Chris Shieh
Iron Monkey
Diversions
Rob Toole
Donut Rock City
Ross Judson
Idle Words
J-Walk Blog
The Antic Muse
Tribblescape
Little Things
Jeff Heer
Abstract Dynamics
Snark Market
Plastic Bag
Sensory Impact
Incoming Signals
MemeFirst
MemoryCard
Majikthise
Ludonauts
Boing Boing
Slashdot
Atrios
Smart Mobs
Plastic
Ludology.org
The Feature
Gizmodo
game girl
Mindjack
Techdirt Wireless News
Corante Gaming blog
Corante Social Software blog
ECHO
SciTech Daily
Arts and Letters Daily
Textually.org
BlogPulse
Robots.net
Alan Reiter's Wireless Data Weblog
Brad DeLong
Viral Marketing Blog
Gameblogs
Slashdot Games