Interesting article on aging and performance in baseball

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2391 ... ert-pujols

A very interesting read,thanks for sharing it!

Thanks for posting that very interesting article. Another crucial factor not mentioned is vision tracking -- the ability of the eye to stay focused on an object moving directly at it -- a performance factor more critical to baseball performance than probably any other sport. The great hitters score off the charts in this area. As a Cardinals fan, I watched Albert Pujols rip pitchers mercilessly for years. When tested, his scores in all areas of vision performance were super-human. There was no part of the strike zone where a pitcher could best him. But during his last season with the Cardinals I noticed that pitchers were starting to get him out by locating the ball in the lower inside corner of the strike zone (and sometimes in the upper inside corner). It was obvious that at age 31 (at least) his vision tracking had gone from great to merely good. He hit .299 that year -- his first season under .300 -- and has never approached .300 since. It's part of the aging process. And once you lose it, there is no way to get it back. I suspect the Cardinals front office noticed the same phenomenon and it was one of the reasons they decided during their contract negotiations not to bet the franchise on a hitter for whom the aging of his eyes had diminished him into a hitter worth far less than what he was demanding.