Anxiety in Baseball Batting Orders

Scott M. Clare
Garces Memorial High School
Bakersfield, CA 93305
December 2004

Abstract
A Batting Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was created to reflect the unique characteristics of batting and test for anxiety in Little League, high school, and professional baseball players. Players from the last half of Little League and high school batting orders reported more anxiety than players from the first half. Significant correlations were found between places in the batting order and BAI scores for Little League (r = .38) and high school players (r = .38). There was not a significant correlation between BAI scores and batting averages of professional players. Data did not support the hypothesis that anxiety would decrease between groups of more and more advanced levels of baseball. There was a significant correlation between cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety for all participants (r = .68). There are implications for coaching and anecdotes about how hypnotherapy helped to improve batting performance for a Little League and a professional player.
Key words: cognitive interference, cognitive/somatic anxiety, hypnotherapy

Anxiety in Baseball Batting Orders
Theories related to sports anxiety reflect a variety of ideas regarding the effect that anxiety has on athletic performance (Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990; Hardy & Parfitt, 1991; Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). Additionally, Gould, Tuffey, Hardy, & Lochbaum (1993) suggest that there may be an optimal level of anxiety for each athlete (distance runner) while Burton's (1988) findings suggest that optimal anxiety levels may be unique for each athletic (swimming) event.

While the effects that anxiety have on various athletic skills may yet be unclear, some studies have reported a relationship between anxiety and diminished athletic or visual-motor skill, including for swimming (Burton, 1988), pistol shooting (Gould, Petlichkoff, Simons, & Vevera, 1987), table tennis drills (Williams, Vichers, Rodrigues, & Hillis, 2000), softball (Bird & Horn, 1990), and simulated auto racing (Janelle, Singer, & Williams, 1999).

It is difficult to imagine a more anxiety-producing situation in sport than that witnessed while observing batters in a Little League baseball game. When a 9 to 12 year-old boy steps into the batter's box, it is one boy trying to succeed versus 9 (or 10) defenders, often facing a pitcher who is the opposing team's biggest, hardest-throwing player. With all of the peripheral distractions, including coaches and fans shouting instructions, in order to succeed, this boy batter must make a visual-motor response with pinpoint accuracy in less than one half second. That is the same amount of time that a professional player must react to a 90-mph fastball.

Three observations of batting anxiety that can be witnessed at any Little League baseball game are: (a) The Statue. As if the anxiety has frozen him, this child stands still and does not swing. The results of such at bats are strikeouts or walks. Drawing the walk then becomes an incentive to prolong the statuesque behavior. (b) Blind swing. The batter swings wildly without an appropriate fixation on the ball's trajectory. The batter often turns his gaze away from the ball (toward third base for a right-handed batter) with his chin on the shoulder closest to the pitcher. (With an appropriate gaze, the chin would end up on the other shoulder.) (c) Bailing out. With the foot closest to the pitcher, the batter steps away from home plate as the pitch approaches. Gola and Monteleone (2001) call this behavior "stepping in the bucket" and suggest that the behavior is due to fear of being hit by the pitch (p. 165). Sometimes the bailing out behavior is combined with a weak and late swing at the passing ball. Additionally, it is not unusual to see a combination of the statue, blind swing, and bailing out behaviors. For instance, a player may be a statue for two strikes before employing the blind swing to end his at-bat.

It is not intended here to suggest that the above behavioral displays of anxiousness while batting are all inclusive. Rather, the three behaviors are mentioned because they are blatantly obvious and are as dramatically maladaptive as they are common. As a Little League coach, I knew that players who exhibited such behaviors are observed more often in the last half of Little League batting orders and that these players would be less skilled at hitting. That is, those players had been judged by their coaches to be inferior at hitting, compared to those batters in the first half of the order.

Eleven present and former Little League coaches were asked to respond to a survey that asked if they had witnessed the statue, blind swing, and bailing out behaviors and whether it was more likely that these behaviors would be seen in the first half or the last half of the batting order. Ten of 11 coaches returned the survey. All 10 coaches indicated that they had witnessed the statue, blind swing, and bailing out behaviors and all 10 indicated that the statue is most often seen in the last half of the batting order. For the blind swing, 9 coaches indicated that it occurred most often in the last half of the batting order and 1 coach indicated the first half of the order. For the bailing out behavior, 6 coaches indicated that it occurred most often in the last half of the batting order, 1 indicated the first part of the order, and 3 indicated that it occurred throughout the order.

Generally, when a baseball coach makes out his batting order, his best hitters will be placed in the first half of the order and his less effective hitters in the last half of the order. (I write "Generally" because a batter may also be placed in the front of the order according to his speed, on-base average, or bunting ability, as well.) That a baseball coach has judged his players and placed those players in order according to skill presents a unique situation to study the association of anxiety and sport performance. If anxiety is related to batting skill, then it is reasonable to expect that it would be related to batting order and those who experience more anxiety would be placed in the last half of the order by their coach. On the other hand, individual differences may disguise the expression of anxiety and batters in the first half of the order may experience equal anxiety without the display behavior. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to seek empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that players in the last half of the batting order experience more anxiety than those in the first half. Additionally, it seemed likely that baseball players who did not do well at lower levels would be less likely to play at higher levels. If anxiety is a factor that inhibits one's ability to hit a baseball, it seems reasonable to expect to find less and less anxiety at more and more advanced levels.

Method
Participants
The participants were 30 male Little League players from five 11-12 year-old teams, 33 male high school players from three varsity high school teams, and 8 professional (single A) players from two teams. Appropriate informed consent forms were distributed and collected prior to testing. For minors, appropriate informed consent forms were distributed to parents.

Materials
To measure self-reported anxiety of baseball players while batting, an instrument that would reflect the unique characteristics of batting had to be created. Using Spielberger's (1980) Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) as a model, a Batting Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was created. The TAI (Spielberger, 1980) measures self-reported "worry" and "emotion." Questions to reflect worry address the cognitive aspects of anxiety, whereas questions to reflect emotion address the physical feelings of (somatic) anxiety. When constructing the BAI, for each of the 20 questions in the TAI, a parallel question was made for the BAI. Similar to Spielberger's (1980) TAI, each item of the BAI has "Almost never," "Sometimes," "A lot," and "Almost always" as possible responses.

Two examples of items targeting somatic anxiety in the BAI are:
10. I start feeling uneasy when I am waiting to bat in the on-deck circle.
13. If I was batting with two outs and the winning run at third base, I would be so tense that my stomach gets upset.

Two examples of items targeting cognitive anxiety in the BAI are:
5. When I am in the batter's box I find myself thinking about whether or not I will strike out.
17. When I am in the batter's box, I worry about what will happen if I don't hit the ball.

An example of a general anxiety item is:
12. I wish that I felt better while batting.

The BAI is scored the same as the TAI. Answers to questions were scored 1 for reporting that the situation would almost never create anxiety up to a score of 4 for reporting that anxiety would almost always occur for the situation. Like the TAI, question number one in the BAI was formulated so that the scoring would go in reverse order (almost never would be scored 4).

Design and Procedure
Prior to data collection it was assumed that scorekeeping for high school and Little League was inconsistent, so for these two groups, batting order (the coach's assessment of skill) was used as an indicator of batting proficiency. Numbers 1-6 were chosen as the "first half" of the batting order because rules for the local Little League provided that each team bat all of its (11 or 12) players. High school coaches were asked to make a batting order as if they were batting all players (except for non-batting pitchers).

Results
The data for both Little League players and high school players supported the hypothesis that the last half of the batting order would report more anxiety than the first half of the batting order. For Little League players, boys from the last half of their respective batting orders reported significantly more anxiety (M = 37.64) than boys from the first half (M = 30.16) of their respective batting orders, t (28) = 2.53, p = .01. See Table 1. For Little League players, boys from the last half (M = 16.00) of their respective batting orders also reported significantly more somatic anxiety than the boys from the first half (M = 12.42) of their respective batting orders, t (28) = 2.21, p = .02 and boys from the last half (M = 13.55) of their respective batting orders reported significantly more cognitive anxiety than the first half (M = 11.52) of their respective batting orders, t (28) = 1.96, p = .03. For Little League players, there was a significant correlation between batting order and overall score on the BAI, r (28) = .38, p = .02.

For high school players, boys from the last half (M = 37.90) of their respective batting orders reported significantly more anxiety than boys from the first half (M = 32.06) of their respective batting orders, t (31) = 2.46, p = .009. See Table 1. Also for high school players, boys from the last half (M = 14.88) of their respective batting orders reported significantly more somatic anxiety than boys from the first half (M = 12.19) of their respective batting orders, t (31) = 2.33, p = .01 and boys from the last half (M = 14.65) of their respective batting orders reported significantly more cognitive anxiety than boys from the first half of their respective batting orders (M = 12.88), t (31) = 1.64, p = .05. For high school players, there was a significant correlation between batting order and score on the BAI, r (31) = .38, p = .02.

Table 1
Little League and High School Mean BAI Scores for Players From the First Half of the Batting Order Versus the Last Half of the Batting Order
LITTLE LEAGUE	Somatic (M)	Cognitive (M)	BAI Total (M)
First Half of the Order (1st to 6th)	12.42	11.52	30.16
Last Half of the Order (7th to bench)	16.00	13.55	37.64
HIGH SCHOOL	Somatic (M)	Cognitive (M)	BAI Total (M)
First Half of the Order (1st to 6th)	12.19	12.88	32.06
Last Half of the Order (7th to bench)	14.88	14.65	37.90
Note. BAI somatic and cognitive raw scores: Min 8 and max 32. BAI total raw scores: Min 20 and max 80.

Table 2 compares mean BAI scores for Little League and High School players versus professional players. The data did not support the hypothesis that baseball players at more advanced levels would report less anxiety while than at succeeding lower levels (Little League M = 32.90; high school M = 35.09; professional M = 29.5), F(2, 67) = 1.96, p = .15.

However, this study was inspired by my own observations of anxious behavior among boys who do not bat well but seem to have the same athletic skill as boys who do bat well. Those same observations also led me to believe that hypnotherapy might be an effective tool for dealing with the success-inhibiting by-products of batting anxiety. The following anecdotes about Justin and Tim lend support to the effect that anxiety has on batting ability.

Justin was an 11-year-old on the 11-12 Little League team that I was coaching. During practices, with adults pitching live batting practice, Justin was one of the better hitters. During games, Justin often displayed many of the characteristics that I have described above as the statue. As playoffs approached, I asked Justin's parents if I could try hypnotherapy with him. The parents agreed. I suspected that Justin was cognitively worried while batting but when interviewed, Justin was unable to articulate the problems he experienced while hitting. During hypnotherapy, I emphasized that the sounds of the ballpark (fans, players, announcers, and neighboring game) that may have been distractions to Justin would, instead, energize him and that he would hit as effectively as he did at practice. Additionally, I gave Justin the suggestion that he would pick up the release point of the ball early followed by "you know that the ball is coming fast but because you are so relaxed, so quick and energized, to you it will seem that it is coming slow."

In the 20+ games before hypnotherapy, Justin had 3 doubles and 5 RBI. In the two games following hypnotherapy, Justin hit 2 doubles and had 6 RBI. Justin's coaches and parents unanimously agreed that, following hypnotherapy, there had been an improvement in how Justin looked and performed while batting.

Tim (a pseudonym) was a 23-year-old who had been drafted out of one of the nation's most respected college baseball programs. In his first year of A professional baseball, about midway through the season, Tim was batting just .210. He complained of feeling "uncomfortable when standing at the plate." When asked what cognitive distractions may be interfering with his hitting, Tim wrote, "I would think about my hands or my legs or staying back. I would tell myself to "see the ball, see the ball," or "stay back, stay back." There were even times when my mind would wander off thinking abstract thoughts about people in the stands or my last at bat." Tim also complained that his coaches interfered with his mind-set while he was batting and concluded, "I would rather that (the coaches) say nothing and just let me bat... then wait until after I'm done if they have anything to say."

Tim was describing cognitive interference. Yogi Berra unwittingly addressed the issue of cognitive interference while expressing his frustration that his coach wanted him to think about what he was doing while batting. Yogi countered, "You can't think and hit at the same time" (Berra, 1998, p. 13). Janelle (2002) supports Yogi's insight by describing optimal athletic efficiency as resulting from an automatic processing that is absent of distracting or purposeful cognition. Janelle (2002) specifically points out that it is athletically inefficient to consciously try to control motor actions in a rule-based manner as Tim was doing by cognitively instructing himself about hitting and trying to listen to his coaches while batting.

Tim was referred to me by my son who had played on the same team as Justin. After the first hypnotherapy session, Tim requested another. An interview revealed that Tim was trying to avoid failure (trying not to swing at bad pitches, trying not to strike out) and, while batting, trying to apply advice given him to fix his problems (cognitive interference). Hypnotherapy for Tim consisted of rerouting his attention from cognitive distractions and avoiding failure to a more relaxed, focused, and assertive approach. In the month following hypnotherapy, Tim's batting average rose above .280 and he was named player of the month for the organization. After his successful month, Tim responded to my questions about how two sessions of hypnotherapy helped him: "(After hypnotherapy) I was completely relaxed and focused. I saw the ball clearly and it seemed as if everything was in slow motion. I wanted to feel like this all the time so I thought a second session would keep me in this state of mind."

Appropriate cognitive processing needed for batting is very demanding (Gray, 2002) and success while batting is undoubtedly inhibited by cognitive distractions. However, the data in this study do not provide evidence to support or refute theories regarding the specific impact of cognitive anxiety on athletic performance (Hardy & Parfitt, 1991; Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). Inspection of the means from Tables 1 and 2 suggested a correlation between somatic anxiety scores and cognitive anxiety scores. Post hoc analysis revealed a significant correlation for somatic anxiety and cognitive anxiety scores for all participants (r (69) = .68, p < .001). The high correlation between all participants' self-reported cognitive anxiety and somatic anxiety suggests that, at least for batting situations described in the BAI, the two types of anxiety occur simultaneously. Other authors have found a positive relationship between cognitive and somatic anxiety during competition (Karteroliotis & Gill, 1987; Caruso, Dzewaltowski, Gill, & McElroy,1990).

While some authors (Hardy & Parfitt, 1991; Eysenck & Calvo, 1992) hold that cognitive anxiety is a principle factor that inhibits athletic performance, this may be because somatic anxiety dissipates once the performance event begins, as it does with academic testing (Morris, Davis, & Hutchings, 1981) and golf (Martens, et al., 1990). I would be cautious in singling out cognitive anxiety as the principle inhibiting factor of batting performance. The bailing out and blind swing behaviors may be examples that reflect the effect that anxiety has on the visual-motor response. Other authors have found that anxiety affects visual search and attention behaviors (Janelle, et al., 1999; Fox, Russo, Bowles, & Button, 2001; Derryberry & Reed, 2002; Janelle, 2002; Moran, Byrne, & McGlade, 2002) and the visual-motor response (Janelle, et al., 1999; Fox, et al, 2001). According to Seiderman and Schneider (1983) "a player's ability to concentrate visually is adversely affected under stressful conditions" (p.148). If anxiety does affect visual processing, it seems reasonable to suspect somatic anxiety to be the culprit. Gould, et al. (1987) suggested that somatic anxiety affected the fine muscular control needed for accurate pistol shooting. On the other hand, my success with using hypnotherapy as a tool for improving hitting performance does suggest that a player's batting cognition is an important factor in batting performance. Perhaps the more important difference between cognitive and somatic anxiety is that cognitive anxiety is more pliable to change.

The data did not support the hypothesis that players at more elevated levels of baseball would report less anxiety than players at lower levels. While professional players reported the least anxiety while batting (M = 29.5), high school players (M = 35.09), and not Little Leaguers (M = 32.9), reported the most anxiety. Post-hoc t-tests were calculated between groups and high school players reported significantly more anxiety than professionals (t (39) = 2.86, p = .005) but significant differences were not found between Little League and professionals (t (36) = 1.61, p = .06) or between Little League players and high school players (t (61) = 1.10, p = .27). Perhaps, the highest mean BAI for high school players reflects that these adolescents start with an already higher trait anxiety.

It was not surprising to find no correlation between BAI scores and batting averages for professionals. Though Tim's dramatic improvement lends support to the relationship of anxiety and batting performance for one professional player, the speed and accuracy of the visual-motor response may be a more prevalent factor for batting successfully against professional pitchers. The rather low standard deviation of BAI scores for professionals (SD = 4.17) compared to Little League players (SD = 8.30) or high school players (SD = 7.37) suggests that there is not much variability in batting anxiety among professional players.

It may seem surprising to some readers that previous studies have failed to couple empirical data to the relationship between anxiety and batting performance. After all, for coaches it seems obvious that batters who experience excessive anxiety will perform below expectations. I believe that there are two reasons why previous authors have failed to find a relationship between anxiety and batting performance: 1) College and professional players have been targeted as participants. Those players reached that level partly because they experience less anxiety while batting and/or have learned to appropriately cope with their anxiety. Success leads to more confidence and less anxiety. In the present study, there was much less variability in BAI scores for professionals than for Little League or high school players. 2) The CSAI-2 (Martens, et al., 1990) has been the predominant testing instrument used to measure the effects of anxiety on athletic performance and the community of sports psychologists (some who evaluate publications submitted to professional or scientific journals) is resistant to new instruments. The CSAI-2 could not have been used in the present study. To study the effect of anxiety on batting, the testing instrument had to ask each player to reflect on how he generally felt about batting after experiencing many at-bats, while he is waiting to bat, and when batting in different game situations. The CSAI-2 is not appropriate for reflecting on past at-bats because it is designed to draw the subject's attention to an upcoming performance. Craft, Magyar, Becker, and Feltz, (2003) point out that the CSAI-2 has been most effective when administered 31-59 minutes prior to competition. Additionally, some items of the CSAI-2 are just too vague to apply to batting. For example, item #1 of the CSAI-2: "I am concerned about this competition" (Martens et al., 1990, p. 177). Indeed, if a baseball player were to take the CSAI-2 and read such an item prior to the game, rather than think about hitting, he may think about pitching or fielding. The BAI was designed to measure anxiety associated with batting, not with other elements of the game of baseball.

Craft, et al. (2003) question the reliability of the CSAI by stating that "...the use of the CSAI-2 has not led to consistent results or the ability to consistently predict performance..." (p. 47). To test for reliability of the BAI, questions were blocked as cognitive, somatic, or general and then randomly assigned to split halves of the test. The results indicate significant split-half reliability (r(69) = .72, p < .001).

With respect to researchers who wish the psychology of sport to have comparable data and consistency among psychometric instruments, considering the variety of sports and sport situations, it seems unreasonable to expect one psychometric instrument to effectively measure important cognitive and emotional factors of sport performance for all sports. In his overview of competitive anxiety research, Jones (1995) suggests that measures of anxiety in sport must be sensitive to the unique characteristics of a given sport. Craft, et al. (2003) suggest that the CSAI-2 may not be a valid psychometric for all sports and that sports (or sport-specific tasks, like batting) may vary considerably as to their susceptibility to the effects of anxiety and self-confidence.

Each of the 20 questions of the BAI addresses the reflective state anxiety of players, specifically for batting. Participants reflected on worry and emotions that they felt while batting in different game situations (14 BAI questions), while waiting to bat (BAI questions 10, 16), or how batting performance continues to bother them when not batting or waiting to bat (BAI questions 3, 6, 14, 19). That this study used the BAI to successfully predict more anxiety in the last half of batting orders and that this finding was consistent with what was observed by Little League coaches, suggests that the BAI has predictive validity.

If books on coaching baseball include information about how to bat, they tend to focus on mechanical techniques of hitting. If the emotional aspects of hitting are mentioned, it tends to be cursory (Mize & Kaufman, 1953; Baker, Mercer, & Bittinger, 1993; Burroughs, 1994; McCarthy, 1996). Gola and Monteleone (2001), who title their book The Complete Book of Hitting Faults and Fixes, devote a chapter to the "mental approach" of batting and address the importance of positive thinking, confidence, being relaxed, and visualization but most of the chapter deals with the strategies of batting. This "complete" book lightly touches on fear of being struck by a pitch and fear of failure but it has very little about how to deal with cognitive or somatic anxiety.

In sharp contrast to most books about hitting, Dorfman (2001) presents an approach to hitting where, unlike hypnosis, the athlete takes an active, cognitive approach. Dorfman (2001), who has coached professional players, professes self-coaching techniques that emphasize positive self-talks, appropriate goal setting, and effective strategies throughout each at-bat, all with undertones of preventing over-anxiousness or how to cope with anxiety. Given the findings in this study and the general nature of amateur batters, Little League and high school coaches should (and easily could) teach cognitive strategies and techniques to enhance batting performance in their players.

Ted Williams (Williams & Underwood, 1970) said that "Hitting a baseball is the single most difficult thing to do in sport" (p. 7). Despite having knowledgeable and dedicated coaches, many boys do not succeed at hitting. Batting is a skill that requires one to make a coordinated visual-motor response with split-second accuracy but many boys with adequate physical abilities fail to bat effectively. The effect of anxiety on batting and the visual-motor responses needed to succeed at batting present a wealth of possibilities for further research.

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Author Note
I thank Blake Clare, Chris Guerra, Diandra Medina, Suzanne Smith, and Jessica Zaben for their help with experimental design and data collection. I also thank Caitlin Chapman for her help with data analysis.