The Incredible Shrinking Baseball Player
______________________________________________________________
By GEORGE VECSEY
THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 27, 2009
Baseball clubhouses seem to be getting bigger this spring, with more room to move around. Or maybe the players are becoming smaller.
Out of the roughly 1,000 major leaguers in spring training camps, a couple of dozen appear to have lost significant weight in the off-season, all in the name of health and agility.
Some of them did it by eating grilled fish. Others played active video games with their children. Some went on diet programs or took up yoga. Others cut back on alcohol. Whatever they did, clubhouse attendants are coming up with smaller uniforms all over Florida and Arizona.
Among the biggest losers are Brett Myers and Ryan Howard of the championship Phillies, who lost 30 and 20 pounds. Yankees relief pitcher Brian Bruney, Mr. Avant-Garde himself, shed 25 pounds before last season by giving up beer and eating healthy food. He has slimmed down another 10 this year, and essentially does not look like the same person.
The Mets’ Marlon Anderson, a 35-year-old trying to come back from a leg injury, lost 22 pounds in 25 days, through a cleansing program of nutrients and drinks and moderate lunches. Concerned he was losing muscle mass, Anderson backed off the diet and regained five pounds.
We have seen some sluggers and power pitchers lose bulk in recent years, in the wake of increased testing and penalties for steroid use. In his humiliating appearance in front of Congress in 2005, Mark McGwire was noticeably slimmer than when he was passing the season records of Babe Ruth and Roger Maris in 1998.
“You have to be a little skeptical, given the context of watching bodies change,” Dr. Gary Wadler, an internist and member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said Thursday. “The explanation then was that they were eating more and working out more. Now if you hear players say, ‘We changed our ways,’ all you can do is be suspicious.”
When asked about the behemoths who swatted more home runs and threw harder in athletic old age, Anderson laughed. He has hit exactly 63 home runs in 11 seasons in the major leagues. “The less weight you have, the better your legs are,” he said.
The model for clean living and technique over brute size is Derek Jeter of the Yankees, whose physique and hitting style have never fluctuated since he came up in 1995. Jeter seemed to be quietly seething last week when having to discuss revelations of steroid use by Alex Rodriguez. Not all of us did it, Jeter veritably hissed. That is an important fact to remember as players assert their inner athlete.
Baseball players did not necessarily need all the bulk they were sporting in the last generation, said Dr. Michael Joyner, deputy director and vice dean for research at the Mayo Clinic, an expert in exercise physiology.
“I think it’s better to say people were going in the easier direction,” Dr. Joyner said, referring to past weight gain. “Athletes are supercompetitive. Many of them are almost sociopaths in almost a friendly way,” he added, saying that players would compete in anything, including body mass.
Dr. Joyner recalled the power of a small hitter like Jim Wynn and a slender pitcher like Ron Guidry, of the 1960s and 1970s. He also praised the immortal lefty Sandy Koufax and the four-time Olympic discus champion, Al Oerter, who combined athletic ability and technique.
“A lot of baseball is about something called weight transfer,” Dr. Joyner added. “In this context, there have been many superb javelin throwers who are pretty small and at least some shot-putters and discus throwers have been relatively small.
“Think about the rotation in Tiger Woods’s hips, or the classic shot of Koufax with his arm essentially being used like a sling shot and trailing his body.”
Dr. Joyner added: “Baseball players are not the most sculpted group of people. There are a lot of pudgy baseball players. If somebody lost their pudge and kept their muscle mass, there’s no way that would hurt them.”
“Remember Mickey Lolich?” he said, referring to the chubby lefty who helped Detroit win the 1968 World Series. “The more weight he gained, the better he pitched. He said, ‘I don’t run the ball across the plate.’ ”Anderson will have to run to maintain his career — playing a few positions, pinch-hitting, slapping a grounder to move a runner 90 feet, stealing a key base. Diet was not the sole focus of his winter. Now he has reported to camp, feeling more limber than he has in years. The real problem, Anderson said, is that players fall out of shape during the season because of the destructive hours and travel and restaurant meals.
Still, thin just may be in. This minitrend has been labeled the Pedroia Effect by Greg Lalas, retired soccer player and writer for Goal.com. He was referring to the 5-foot-9-inch, 180-pound second baseman with the Red Sox who hit .326 with 17 home runs last year and was named most valuable player in his league.
Of course, players have always been trying to lose weight. I can remember Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard and Johnny Blanchard running laps — well, maybe one lap — early in spring training, all of them wearing rubber shirts and calling one another Whale Belly as they staggered from foul pole to foul pole.
Nowadays, players can afford trainers and nutritionists, and they do not have to supplement their income as bartenders or by selling cars. But it’s hard to forget the first vague impressions of the mid- to-late ’90s, when some players showed up for spring training with enlarged teeth, larger cap sizes, acne on their backs and shoulders rising to meet their ears.
The implications of weight loss are many. The baseball networks may even get over their home run fixation — endless baseballs flying over endless fences — and introduce their slack-jawed viewers to the discreet charm of the hit-and-run. Little ball may be coming back. At the least, there will be more room in the clubhouse.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company |
