•  
  •  
 

Document Type

Research Paper

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to determine if a baseball pitcher's first pitch thrown to a batter is a strike, is significantly more likely to result in an outcome of that batter getting out, than if the first pitch thrown is a ball. Studies have shown that cognitive anxiety will have a debilitative effect on an athlete's performance under a high degree of physical arousal. It has also been shown that an increased level of confidence can protect against this cognitive anxiety. When a baseball pitcher becomes "down in the count," (i.e. there are more balls accumulated than strikes) he may have the tendency to become more anxious and less self-confident. Over 1,000 pitches of 7 varsity baseball players from Morningside College were recorded over the 2001 spring baseball season. These 7 pitchers varied from starting, to relief, to bullpen pitchers. This research demonstrated that the pitchers in this study were significantly (Q < .05) more likely to get their batter out if the first pitch in the series thrown was a strike.

Publication Date

2002

Journal Title

Conference Proceedings: Undergraduate Social Science Research Conference

Volume

6

Issue

1

First Page

35

Last Page

38

Copyright

©2002 by the University of Northern Iowa

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Publisher

University of Northern Iowa

City

Cedar Falls, IA

Download

Comments?

Share

COinS