To Keep Eyes on Ball, Athletes Now Train

May 12, 2008 -- In the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics, Tairia Flowers, starting first baseman for the U.S. women's softball team, has her work cut out for her: Cardio. Sprints. Squats. Weights. Interval training. Strength phases. Explosive phases. Eye conditioning.Eye conditioning?

Mention Ted Williams' hitting, and one of the first things that comes up is his extraordinary eyesight. He could see the seams on a baseball coming toward him at 95 mph and read a record label spinning on a turntable—or so legend has it. The New York Yankees' Jason Giambi has said he recognizes the pitch the moment the ball leaves the pitcher's hand. Most hitters, players estimate, pick up the pitch at a distance of 30 feet (distance from mound to plate is 60 feet, 6 inches).

"A lot of people forget that in sports—tennis, softball, baseball—if you're not seeing the ball, you might have the best swing in the world, but you won't be swinging anywhere close to the ball," Flowers, the powerful hitter and 2004 Olympic gold medalist, told ABC News.

So each day, Flowers sits at her laptop and spends two minutes apiece on three exercises; it's part of an assessment and treatment designed for her team by Johnson & Johnson's AchieveVision program, which works with Olympic athletes. Letters flash, shapes pop up and disappear lickety-split, giving her nanoseconds to remember and match them up with other shapes. It's a crucial part of her training: moving quickly, adjusting to change, split-second decision-making, hand-eye coordination.

Flowers is not alone. "As an Olympic athlete, I'm constantly looking to do whatever I can to gain an edge," Vic Wunderle, who will be representing the U.S. in archery this summer, told ABC News. "I spend hours and hours working on my bow and practicing. My bow's important, my arrow's important, my eyesight is just as important."

In recent years, sports vision therapy has grown in popularity.

It may start with souped-up contacts: tinted amber lenses that filter out scattered background light to allow the eyes to track the ball more clearly—Ken Griffey of the Cincinnati Reds and the Chicago White Sox' A.J. Pierzynski have worn ones from Nike—or prescriptions so precise and powerful athletes wouldn't wear them off the field.