discuss.

what exactly is the steve sax syndrome?

Macky Sasser

There's a lot of unsolved murders in New York, you know....

saxy led off the 1988 season with a homer on the first pitch from SF's dave dravecky (before his arm fell off) to cristen a magical year of dodger baseball....and sadly the last time my dodger blue won the WS

anyone ever read the books by Jay Johnstone? He used to terrorize Sax by putting caution signs behind first base and giving the fans in the front row behind 1B protectors from errant throws

not being able to throw the ball accurately from the second base position to first base, and often chunking it all the way to the stands.

Thats who i thought of first. But i played with a kid in high school who i swear to god had it. He also played second base, he wasnt the best fielder to begin with, but probably 40% of his throws to first base were wild, thats alot consider how short the distance is, and you never knew when it was going to happen. We called him "Knoblauch", because at the time he was going through that.

I don't understand how some second basemen have a hard time making a hard, accurate throw over that distance. Oh well.

Its all mental

i don't understand why people who can't make that throw are second basemen.

Well i know Knoblauch got moved to the outfield because of it, and Sasser at catcher never really played again as far as i know.

yep, and sax just kept plunking unsuspecting fans.

I'll give that one a big drunken boooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooooo

Eugene, I believe we've discussed this before.

It is totally mental. Throwing a ball 50 feet should involve zero thinking, you just do it. You do it over and over again. Brainless. When you start thinking about it, your brain is bound to get in the way. When you're stupid on top of that, like Chuck Knaubloch for example, it gets even worse.

It happens in other sports too. Ian Baker-Finch was a top golfer, he won the British Open and many other tournaments around the world. Then he just lost it. He couldn't hit the ball straight anymore. His game went from top of the world to bottom of the shitter within a year, and he has never been able to regain his form. He retired and now does commentary on TV.

It's crazy, but this shit happens. Why do you think Shaq shoots 50% from the line? I could shoot 10 of 20 cold having not picked up a ball in years, but this professional basketball player can barely make that many, and he shoots 20 free throws per game.

You can't think and be "in the zone" at the same time. They don't say that aa guy shooting the lights out was "unconscious" for nothing. He was literally unconscious of what he was doing. He was just doing it. Swish.

i knew you would call me out on that.


My brother had it as a catcher during the second half of his third year in little league. Now he's thirty 33 and will still admit it. Though, it only lasted for a few games. He describe it as very weird. I remember one game he pumped fake a throw to second. He later said he mentally could not throw it. He was screwed up for a few games afterwards.

I've never had it go on for a long time, but I know that it's hard after one mistake. You know that people are thinking "How did he screw that up?" so you get worried about screwing up again. I find it's best to get a hard ground ball with a slow runner to make an easy play and get some confidence back. It's just frustrating when you rush for a ball up the middle then spin, jump and launch a strike to first, then you get a hit right at you with time to spare and throw it over the first baseman's head.

Uh oh where's Davo to claim that being "in the zone" does not exist?

do you think its similiar to pitchers throwing to first?