When the flag bearer of the U.S. team at last year's Tokyo Olympics turned out to be an unknown baseball player, rather than the top star players of the U.S. men's basketball team, many viewers were surprised. How can this standard-bearer He De squeeze out many Olympic stars as standard-bearers? But he turned out to be a silver medalist in the men's relay of short track speed skating at the Sochi Winter Olympics!
As the U.S. baseball team won another silver medal at the Olympics, he also became the athlete who won the silver medal in both the winter and summer Olympics. Unlike the kind of amphibious athletes who ski in the winter and skateboard in the summer, baseball and short track speed skating can be regarded as two sports that cannot be beaten by eight rods, but it seems that baseball skills can help improve the level of winter sports. Although the Winter Olympics are in full swing according to the schedule, it is too late to "use summer and winter", but we can still see how baseball can help winter sports.
Source: NCA Baseball
Let's start with short track speed skating! Short track speed skating is different from speed skating, which requires rapid bending at high speed, which requires ten points of high body balance; and athletes need to control the track line when entering the corner, prevent the players behind them from overtaking, or choose the track line to surpass the athlete in front. So in short track speed skating, speed is not even the first need, balance is.
Balance is also one of the most important physical indicators of a baseball player, especially for infielders, from facing the infield to receiving the ball and passing a base, which involves the hand-to-hand hand handover, the right hand out of the ball (most infielders are right-handed), and the footsteps of the ball, turn, jump and other actions. These actions need to be done in one go to ensure that the ball is passed to first base in the shortest possible time. At the same time, third basemen or shortstops will also face another problem, in the face of a double-kill situation, need to judge the first base or through the second base through the second base according to the situation on the court; this instantaneous judgment will help short track speed skating and similar events in high-speed sports to decide.
Source: Ultimate Baseball Training
If you look at it from a similar perspective, baseball can also be inextricably linked to many other sports, such as alpine skiing, freestyle skiing snow skills, ice hockey and so on. Because there are only a few major classifications for the consideration of human athletic ability: strength (such as weightlifting), speed (such as athletics), agility (such as badminton), flexibility (such as gymnastics), detail control ability (such as shooting) and so on. Looking at the winter events, it is not difficult to find that most of them are tests of agility, and baseball, as a team sport, although it tests the comprehensive physical fitness of players, but on the whole, this sport also focuses on agility. Therefore, practicing baseball more will certainly help to improve winter sports.
Source: Coach Lou Colon
The reason why baseball appears to have little to do with winter sports is because none of the explicit skills of baseball can actually be used in winter sports. As we all know, baseball focuses on "throwing, catching, playing, running", and in the winter project, there is almost no test of the "throwing, catching, playing" three ability of the project, the only project involving precise hand control in the winter project is curling, but the slow speed of curling and the high speed of baseball do not seem to be next to each other. So baseball seems to have little to do with winter sports.
Source: NCAA Baseball
But if you dig deeper and measure the basic qualities required by agile sports, you will find that the basic physical qualities required by baseball are the same as some winter sports. Many winter sports need to make judgments in the case of high-speed sports, such as alpine skiing, which needs to determine when to slow down and turn in the state of high-speed skiing; such as steel frame snowmobiles, which need to control the balance of the body through the body in the state of high-speed forward thrust; such as U-shaped field skills, which need to be charged for the next action in the process of diving down after doing an action, and also consider whether the completion of the previous action has an impact on the subsequent action.
Although the baseball game is static, once the ball is hit, all players need to be in a state that is no different from high-speed sports in a moment, they need to have the same reaction ability as the top table tennis badminton players, and then need to make passing moves that seem to be mechanized but actually have to judge the situation on the field. Therefore, the aesthetic defense in baseball seems to be just a common flying body to catch the ball, but the sports requirements contained in it are not simple at all.
Moreover, baseball exercise is a comprehensive physical quality, and the overall improvement of the ability of "throwing, catching, playing, and running" is naturally the improvement of physical agility. Therefore, many fans who have played baseball will feel that after playing baseball, it is not so difficult to devote themselves to other sports, in fact, baseball has played a key role in the cultivation of people's comprehensive athletic ability.
Source: Paul Anthony Baseball
In fact, although the Beijing Winter Olympics have a good heat now, as this boom has passed, winter sports have to look forward to the arrival of the next Winter Olympics, which is a cruel reality that many projects have to face. But baseball is different, it's easier to play than winter sports, and it's better than many sports in terms of improving physical fitness, so if you want to practice a winter sport, consider passing a level at the baseball field!
With your baseball skills, which project do you feel you have a chance to win a medal? Come and talk about the comments section!