Author: Vernon Gambetta

This article from the New York Times Sports page nails it. Even though this is about baseball this also could be about the NBA and the NFL. As a nation we have gotten away from fundamentals and training for the game. It seems we are into style and flashiness rather than fundamentals. It takes focus and concentration to work on the basics. Contrary to what many of you think I do not dislike baseball, I just dislike the way it is taught (or not taught) at the professional level. I actually watch WBC games when Korea or Japan play. They are athletic, they hustle and they are fundamentally sound.  For the whole article go to this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/sports/baseball/19wbc.html?_r=1&ref=sports I selected some quotes from the article that I thought highlighted the differences in the approach to the game. “They’re the Harlem Globetrotters,” said Weidemaier, who is scouting the San Diego bracket of the World Baseball Classic for the Los Angeles Dodgers. “They’re not flashy or showy, I don’t mean that. But the footwork and timing. They’re going full bore, full speed. They go through every play that needs to be made in the game. They’ll get more ground balls than a big-leaguer takes in a week.” “Korea has a B.P. routine they use where it’s more about moving runners over and hitting to the opposite field,” said Orrin Freeman, a longtime scout for the Florida Marlins who has watched international baseball since the 1980s. “You watch a major league team in the United States take B.P., and most of the guys are just playing home run derby.” As Japan and South Korea practiced before Tuesday’s game, Freeman watched from the loge seats behind first base. He saw a distinctly South Korean defensive drill in which any ball that goes beyond outfielder depth draws an infielder deep onto the grass to take a relatively short cutoff throw, in large part because third-base coaches tend to hold runners if cutoff men already have the ball. After South Korea left the field, Japanese infielders took fungoed grounders at almost infield-in depth, pushing their reflexes so the real game would feel easier, not unlike how a hitter might swing three bats in the on-deck circle. “They work their craft a whole lot more than we do,” Ducey said. “They work on their swings instead of being pull, pull, pull.” Asked how a typical major leaguer might respond to pregame practices as intense as those of Asian teams, Ducey said: “They’d feel like it was overkill — ‘I don’t want to get gassed.’ Major league players, not all of them, but they do enough to get by because physically they’re such gifted athletes.” “The Japanese, they are far superior fundamentally,” said Ducey, the Blue Jays’ coordinator of Pacific Rim operations. “They take thousands of ground balls a week, not just the young guys, all of them. The Japanese run hard down the line all the time. Koreans, it’s a little haphazard at times. And Koreans are generally more physical, more aggressive at the plate. They’re more suited for our game.” I remember having a conversation with a former Major League All Star Player turned coach about this after watching the Tokyo Giants work out in 1987 Instructional League. I thought the workout was impressive, he thought it was stupid. He said they were working on things that never happen. I thought that they were being thorough. I guess it is all in the eye of the beholder.  Same thing in the NBA, there are more and more foreign players because they are fundamentally sound. They can shot, have great footwork and know how to play the game. Great piece on the high school player of the year who opted to go to Europe to play on HBO this week. They showed some game footage and he was out of control, very poor movement skills, yet they are still talking about him as a NBA lottery pick.