Mind and Memory, Part 1.

I was spurred to pose a question last week to the guests and audience of Minnesota Public Radio’s Midmorning program. Gayatri Devi, a neurologist and clinical associate professor at New York University School of Medicine, took the question. Her byline on MPR.org states she also is the Director of the New York Memory and Healthy Aging Services.

Fast forward to 22:15 if you are short on time.

I ask (via online comment): “Some people have what I would call a “referee[s]” mind, able to quickly recall what just happened clearly and accurately versus what [we] call a “coaches” mind?” Limited by a text box at the time, I was not able to add: [“who may see the game with a more future-oriented perspective”] -- the host continues, somewhat on my line of thought. “Why do some people have a much better ability to remember accurate details, names, dates, than others?”

My argument, as a former baseball player and fledgling coach, is that my sense of clarity and accuracy may be conflagrated with more of a Romantic understanding of memory. I fashion, from Dr. Devi, and from my own experience as a player, that my tactical thinking usually puts my mind one or two scenarios ahead of the current play, going from feelings, intuition, and past game experience.

That makes sense to me. My deepening of her point about memory is that I may personally struggle with accurate recollection of exactly what DID just happen (imagine video replay for junior league baseball games …) because the game is constantly evolving, yet at the age level I’m operating under moves slow enough where I actually skipping the step of short term memory in the first place. I’m in future-mode, prognosticating on the future and not required to make decisions from ultra-short term memory. “Short term” memory, during a game at this level, includes things like where an opposing player has hit to or how they’ve done with fastballs and change-ups.

My conditioned memory, as a coach has seen so many baseball games, and played in many of them (baseball from age 6 – 20), but not necessarily coached many (two months after being away from the game for over two years) is certainly a variable. But things remain a constant. Situations unfold with some degree of predictability and unpredictability of thirteen-year olds gaining mastery of the full-size field.

For example, I believe the umpire blew a call in a game two weeks ago. The runner was clearly (to me) out of the batter’s box and headed towards his dugout after a dropped third strike. After the vocal insistence of his coaches, the player drops the bat, turns towards first and runs. Our catcher, meanwhile, makes an errant throw to first (or the first baseman misjudges the ball) and it goes beyond him. It was a split either way as to what would happen: a “routine” out results in a second base appearance by the runner on what should normally be an out.

(That play, by the way, won’t be “routine” until the first or second year of Legion Ball).

I call into question the fact that the batter became a runner and ran the wrong way and into his dugout with Nathan Schultz, the umpire. The opposing coaches argue he was still in the batter’s box.

Indistinguishable chalk long since trampled over by this inning.

“What batter’s box?” I mumble under my breath.

The point of this memory issue, and story, is not the call that the umpire decided that the runner was not out of the box. The point is what I saw, and who was “correct,” per se. Imagine a parent was filming the game and happened to catch the call, either way, on tape (or mini HD-DVR, these days), and quickly played it in front of our teams’ fans (all seven of them).

I saw what I saw … did they see it too? Were they watching the play or their player? I watched this scenario (as I have before, blogless,) unfold as the ball left the pitchers hand, the batter swing, the ball being dropped by the catcher… but then looked away towards first base, expecting a play. After their batter became a runner and called time, standing contentedly on second base, I mildly argued the play, but could not delve into it with the umpire nor opposing coach.

I do not seem to burn those questionable calls into a “cache” somewhere in my brain.

I do not know many coaches who were trained as coaches. Most were players who graduated from competition, were injured, or found an in with an organization at a higher level of play. Officials, on the other hand, are required to be trained, even if they are alumni of their respective sport. They usually have more of a technical, and thus classical, version of the game going on in front of them.

Is a successful coach, and a successful official, inherently built with a different caching system? I’ll discuss player memory from an individual basis in an upcoming post.