Specialization and the distortion of sport

I don’t know what I believe on this, by the way.  Some of this, I guess, is observation, some opinion, maybe some fact.

“Does specialization actually help a sport or does it distort it?”

Since I love baseball and it should be discussed year-round like volleyball, I’ll use it as my starting point…

BASEBALL: In baseball, teams used to put a lineup out there and play.  There’d be a starting rotation and then another 4-5 other pitchers to throw when the first pitcher stunk or there was an injury.  But then things changed, especially in the last half of the 20th century.  Some of the changes:

1. IF and OF would shift depending on who the hitter was, leading to the extreme Ted Williams shift created by Lou Boudreau–that’s the one you see now with only one guy covering half the field.

2. Great defensive players who are poor batters would come in at the end of a game when that slot wouldn’t be hitting again if the hitter was a poor defender.

3. Fast guys would pinch-run for basecloggers in situations just like #2.

4. Batters began platooning–facing only starting pitchers of the opposite hand.

5. Pitchers started coming in to relieve more often–matching the hand of the person at-bat.

6. They decided pitch counts prevented injuries, so pitchers throw less, so they can throw harder, making poor hitters worse, etc.

You even have situations with ‘designated catchers’–guys who only catch specific pitchers, you had the creation of the DH in 1973 for guys who couldn’t field at all, and you’ve had roster expansion to bring more men on to the roster in these specialized roles.  Long ago, for relievers you had: long, short.   Then it became: fireman, middle, short.  Then it became stopper, fireman, middle, LOOGY, long.  After that, closer, short, middle, LOOGY, long, and ‘one-inning only’.  LOOGY=Lefty One Out GuY.

Has any of this made the game better?  Or has it distorted it?  There are few high average hitters, almost no contact hitters, and burners like a Rickey Henderson or Tim Raines–not a single one in the majors right now.  Heck,  I think Rickey had more steals in his best season than any American League team had last year. [Check:  Incorrect.  The highest team was Cleveland with 135.  Henderson’s best was 130.  …I thought it was 140.]  Baseball has become about ‘three true outcomes’–walk, strikeout, homerun.  But is that better?

It has certainly limited the major leagues to a certain type of athlete–if you are not massive, you’re not reaching the big time. Are there exceptions? Sure–but the first name you’ll give is Jose Altuve and the fact we’ll all name the same exception shows how rare this has become because at the end of the last century, you can run off successful short players like Puckett, Morgan, Patek, and Rollins…even throw in Eckstein if you feel like it. On the ‘stocky’ side of things, you’re limited to Pablo Sandoval and Bartolo Colon now. It’s unlikely someone shaped like a Boog Powell could get to the majors now. Anyways, just a couple examples of the point.

So—what about volleyball?  Obviously you can’t see me writing–but there’s a big delay in here.  There’s an existential/existence ‘crisis’ within U.S. volleyball right now–is the sport becoming too specialized? Not just by position, but by sport variations…I mean, you have: beach, beach doubles, beach fours, sitting, and indoor.  With beach doubles/fours, you’ve got men’s/women’s/co-ed stuff going on.  Indoor–you have the gender breakdowns, but then you also have the metric rules used by the entire world and the imperial rules used by US high school teams.

The rules for each are different, meaning that the emphasized skills are also different.  Someone who plays baseball can certainly play softball…but there are multiple versions of each of those sports out there (Chicago has an infatuation for 16″ softball and out east there’s a baseball league playing with 19th century rules–other than throwing at a runner and nailing him equaling an out).

Back to regular specialization…US volleyball permits so many substitutions, there’s no incentive for teaching all skills to all players. The emphasis becomes taking the best passers and making them better passers and the best hitters and making them better hitters. In girls volleyball, when is the last time you saw a middle hitter remain in the game to play back row? How often do you see an OPP remain in to play back row when they are a big, tall hitter? At the college level, this doesn’t really change. A MH who can pass is removed from the MH to play left or right side. Outside hitters who are not 6’4 are shifted to play defensive specialist or libero. (If I recall, there was a club program…KIVA??…that had 5 of its 7 regulars a few years ago become college liberos because none of the were taller than 5’10).

If the objective of youth sports is to increase participation and promote physical fitness–does specialization promote this or make those goals more difficult?

I think within club volleyball and college volleyball (other than perhaps NCAA D3), the solution is to switch to the rules the rest of the world uses with limited substitutions. This would promote skill balance. It would also mean smaller teams–which leads to resistance because smaller teams means le$$ $upport and other con$ideration$. It also requires more coaches–which would mean a better infrastructure for coach education and a conscious effort of club administrators to rein in the behavior of parents who drive young coaches (and referees) away from the sport.

High school VB (and possiblly D3) is different. The objective is participation and a positive experience. The solution to balanced skills noted above doesn’t work as well with high schools where teams already have 15 people per roster on their varsity, JV, and fresh-soph teams. While it’s feasible and easily done to create additional travel teams–there’s no easy way of adding additional HS teams. Is it better at the HS level to have 15 on a team with liberal substitutions or with international rules? How many of those 15 quit if there becomes NO chance of getting in a match? –and that’s *important*. Some coaches will say ‘you shouldn’t play for playing time anyways’ but the reality is that’s a component…the chance to play and there are already coaches gung-ho to cut HS ‘deadweight’ to maximize competitive potential…no way those kids will stick around with reduced subs.

This is all a bit rambly, but I think it’s an important thing to consider. There are broader implications for specialization beyond the realm of sports. Specialized History Classes are one example. So it comes back to certain things:

1. Why do you coach?

2. What is the objective of the sport at the level you coach at?

3. What promotes long-term interest in volleyball?

and the most important one: 4. Are the decisions we reach as adults, are we doing what is in thebest interests of the kids?