Drs. Kirschen and Laby at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, FL

Since 1991, Dr. Kirschen has been interested in the visual function of professional athletes. Dr. Kirschen has evaluated the Los Angeles Kings professional hockey team (1993) as well as the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team (1992-2008). Drs. Kirschen and Laby are currently working with the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals.  In addition to screening each player for ocular disease, Dr. Kirschen and his associate Dr. Daniel Laby have explored the visual functions needed to excel in professional athletics.

    Drs. Kirschen and Laby have published their work in peer reviewed journals, have presented their work to national ocular meetings, and have shared their knowledge with professional sports teams in an effort to help players who may benefit from their knowledge. Additionally, they are currently working on tests which may help establish what levels of vision are needed in professional sport.

    For a complete list of publications by Drs Kirschen and Laby, please see the "Dr. Kirschen" section of the web site. On the right are several photographs which we hope you will enjoy.

An article from the American Academy of Ophthalmology website ...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 2, 1998 -- As the excitement over McGwire and Sosa's home run derby still rings in our ears, coaches, parents, players, and fans of America's beloved baseball take note: a study in Ophthalmology, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, finds no correlation between hand-eye dominance and baseball performance.

For years, students of baseball believed hand-eye dominance was an important factor in determining a baseball player's batting performance. The thinking was crossed-dominance (left eye, right hand) was better because the batter's dominant eye naturally faces the pitcher and oncoming ball. Others felt same-dominance (right eye, right hand) was better because as the batter steps up to bat, he must turn his head to face the pitcher, bringing his dominant eye forward, insuring maximum depth perception.

In an effort to answer the question of dominance patterns, Drs. Laby, Kirschen, Rosenbaum, and Mellman of the Jules Eye Institute at UCLA studied 410 members of the Los Angeles Dodgers professional baseball team during the 1992-1995 baseball seasons. According to Daniel M. Laby, M.D., "Our data shows no statistically significant difference between dominance patterns and ERA (earned runs average) and batting average." Major League players with same-dominance had an average batting average of .271, while players with crossed-dominance averaged .251. Major League pitchers with same-dominance had an ERA average of 3.34, while the ERA average of pitchers with crossed-dominance was 3.56. Dr. Laby states, "While the 'standard' methods for testing ocular dominance need to be reexamined, I can say with certainty that today there is no proven relationship between ocular dominance and baseball performance. While the data does show players with same-dominance have better batting averages and ERAs than those with crossed-dominance, the difference is not statistically significant. I would not suggest anyone change their eye or hand dominance, or the way they hit, in an attempt to improve their batting average."

The authors of this study hope their results will finally put an end to the question of crossed versus same dominance, and allow coaches, parent, players, and fans to simply "Play Ball!"

CONTACT: broadcast, Kimberly Bowes Westhoff, or newspapers, Michelle Stephens, or magazines, Arthur Stone of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, 415-561-8500, or media@aao.org

Another excerpt from the research ...

Do professional baseball players have better than average vision?

The answer appears to be "yes", professional baseball players do have much better than average visual acuity

A long running study (The Visual Function of Professional Baseball Players Laby DM, Rosenbaum AL, et al: AM J OPHTHALMOL 1996; 122 (October): 476-485) studied the vision of 387 major and minor league players from the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball organization between 1992 to 1995. Visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and depth perception (as distance) were tested. 77% of eyes were found to see 20/15 or better, with 1.7% being 20/9.2. Normal vision is 20/20. A person with vision of 20/9 is able to see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision would have to come up to 9 feet to see. This is close to the theoretical limit of human vision. Depth perception and contrast sensitivity were also found to be significantly better than the general population.

Whether this superior vision translates to better performance on the field has yet to be determined.

Dr. Kirschen and Woman's Softball Olympic Gold Metalist Tairia Flowers on the Smart System II 20/20 

  Dr. Kirschen and Woman's Softball Olympic Gold Metalist Jennie Finch on the Bassin Anticipation Timer 

Dr. Kirschen and Eric Gagne

Dr. Kirschen and Paul Lo Duca

Dr. Kirschen and Hideo Nomo

Dr. Kirschen and Eric Karros

Dr. Kirschen, Matthew Kirschen, Tommy Lasorda, Dr. Laby