An article appeared recently in the sports pages of a well-known newspaper telling about the difficulties a baseball coach was having in his efforts to get a rookie to improve his batting. The coach in this news item was Pete Reiser, the former star of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the rookie was Frank Howard, regarded as one of the finest prospects to come up to the major leagues in years. As the article went, Howard would follow his coach's advice in batting practice, but during a game would perform just as he had prior to instruction. When repeated attempts failed to produce a change in the rookie's batting in a game, Reiser finally resorted to taking motion pictures of his pupil's performance to show up his poor form. This new approach also failed, however, for when Howard was confronted with the pictorial evidence of his batting deficiencies his reaction was simply one of excuse-making and rationalization. Surprisingly enough, despite his inept style, the rookie was highly successful as a hitter, having a batting average of .379 at the time of the article. Far from being satisfied with such a record, Reiser continued to be troubled by his inability to get his pupil to accept instruction, for he was convinced that Howard could become an even better hitter than he was.