Linda Robertson

MIAMI -- The U.S. softball team has a vision -- a third straight Olympic gold medal -- which is coming into focus as the players concentrate on improving their eyesight.

Athletes talk about "seeing the ball" exceptionally well when they're in the groove. The softball players are taking some of the mystery out of it by learning how to track the ball when they are in the batter's box. Not everyone is born with the eyesight of Ted Williams, but you can strengthen the eight muscles located behind the eye.

Olympic softball players Lisa Fernandez and Crystl Bustos raved about their recent introduction to Conditioned Ocular Enhancement Vision Training.

"The more drills you do, the slower the ball appears," Bustos said. The program was invented by Dr. Mike Bonaventura, a Chicago gynecologist. During Bonaventura's ophthalmology rotation he became fascinated with the concept of enhancing hand-eye coordination. After years of research, he created vision drills and applied them to the skill of hitting a baseball. He visited the Milwaukee Brewers and tested his machine, which fires painted and numbered tennis balls at speeds ranging from 60 to 200 mph.

"Most major-league baseball batters lose track of the ball five to eight feet in front of home plate," said Dave Neal, vice president of the company. "By training the eye to see the colors and numbers, the player can track the ball all the way into the bat or the glove. It's like what you'd do in the weight room with any other part of your body."

Tracking a fast-pitch softball at the elite level is more difficult than tracking a major-league baseball pitch, said Mark Neal, a vision trainer and Neal's brother.

"There's less reaction time," he said. "The pitcher is 60 feet, 6 inches away in baseball but only 43 feet away in softball."

Which makes the 65-70 mph pitches of Fernandez and Jennie Finch roughly equivalent to the 100-103 mph pitch of a major-leaguer.

Mark Neal joined the U.S. team on its "Aiming for Athens" tour stop in Italy last week, and the players got immediate benefits.

"Definitely the hardest-working team I've ever been around -- and no egos," said Neal, who has worked with half a dozen major-league teams (not the Marlins). "One morning before they had a day off in Rome, they wanted to take extra swings. They were on the field before dawn using car headlights to set up."

Said Fernandez: "Eventually we'd like to upgrade our vision to the point that we can see the spin on the ball, which is more challenging in softball than baseball because the ball can spin so many different ways that it's harder to read the seams."

Players such as Edgar Martinez, Ichiro Suzuki and Carlos Beltran swear by the vision training techniques.