For some reason — maybe because it’s the dog days of summer and not much is happening in academia — I’ll be blogging for the next couple of days on sports-related topics. No, “The Monkey Cage” isn’t turning into SI.com, but some interesting sports items have caught my eye recently. Here’s one of them.
Hitting a baseball is supposed to be one of the most challenging feats in sports. I didn’t used to think so, but a few years ago, when I stepped into a batting cage, dialed the pitching machine down to maximum slow, and still couldn’t come close to making contact, I was forced to concur. Fortunately, I could rationalize it: I’m old. My reflexes have slowed, my hand-eye coordination has suffered, and my eyesight has dimmed.
Imagine the challenge, then, if you can’t see at all. Which is precisely the situation for players of beep ball. Here is the story, from the Wall Street Journal, and here is a brief video so you can see for yourself how it works. Looks like a great day for a ballgame. Let’s play two.