Baseball is a game in which split seconds can decide the outcome of a specific competitive. Speed of baseball sliding is one of most important factors to arrival the base [1,2]. Which sports performance items to measurement the sports ability and anthropometrics variables of players is the works of coaching. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the relationship among anthropometrics, sports performance, and speed of baseball sliding.

Methods

This study had 15 male collegiate players to participated in the measurement(age: 20.4±1.1 years; body height: 174.8±4.3cm; body weight: 76.9±10.3kg). Measurement of anthropometrics includes height, height of middle finger to foot, and sit-and-reach [3]. Measurement of sports performance includes 60-meter sprint and standing jump [3]. In sliding techniques, we tested time of the feet-first sliding and head-first sliding [4,5]. Timing started as the player leaves the first base and stop when the leading part of body reached second base [6]. Pearson product moment correlation was used to measure the relationship among those variables, which mentioned previously, by using SPSS version 8.0(SPSS, Chicago, IL).

Results

The results had showed negative correlation between height and time of the feet-first sliding (r=-0.558,p<0.05), height of middle finger to foot and time of the feet-first sliding (r=-0.553,p<0.05), height of middle finger to foot and time of the head-first sliding (r=-0.528,p<0.05). There was no significantly difference between sit-and-reach and sliding time. In sports performance, the results had presented no significantly difference among 60-meter sprint, standing jump and sliding time.

Discussion/Conclusions

The results were showed that time of both sliding techniques had negative correlation with height and height of middle finger to foot. The possible reason is taller players could reach the base early. The sprint speed and lower extremities strength are not the major factors to influencing the speed of sliding. The results could provide some evidences about base-running speed to coach for training.

 

References

[1] Delmonico R (1992). Hit and Run Baseball. Champaign, IL, Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

[2] Johnson M, et al. (2001). Baseball- Skills & Drills. Champaign, IL, Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

[3] Morrow JR. (2000). Measurement and Evaluation in Human Performance. Champaign, IL, Human Kinetics Publishers, Inc.

[4] Hosey RG, et al. (2003). Clin J Sport Med, 13,242-244.

[5] Corzatt RD. (1984). Am J Sports Med, 12, 229-232.

[6] Kane SM, et al. (2002). Am J Sports Med, 30, 834-836