Growing up in California, he enjoyed the competition of all major sports and went on to coach college basketball. Eventually, though, this transplanted Memphian discovered another calling — one that combines medical science with a desire to help athletes perform at their best.

Today Rolando Toyos is a world-renowned ophthalmologist educated at the University of Illinois Medical School. He landed in West Tennessee and ultimately Memphis when he was recruited by a professional head hunter. "I really liked it in this area," he says. "And I opened the Toyos Clinic in 1998."

Since then Toyos has performed thousands of Lasik surgeries and other kinds of eye procedures, authored several books, and lectured internationally on surgical techniques and new technologies. He is also team ophthalmologist for the Memphis Grizzlies and Memphis Redbirds and founder and president of the Sports Ophthalmology Society of America. He started the latter in 2004 (with input from a few other team doctors from around the country) to help set standard vision-screening programs, establish guidelines for handling eye conditions, injuries, and liability issues, and help educate players about the importance of vision.

It was at one of these lectures that Toyos met and became friends with major league baseball player and coach Jason Phillips. Over a year's time, that friendship led to a DVD — Vision and Baseball — designed to give everyone from pros to little leaguers a better understanding of vision and its role in athletic performance.

"Every year I'd explain [to groups] how vision helps build an advantage for the player and the team," recalls Toyos. "Jason would tell me afterwards, 'I wish I'd known all this when I was younger.' So it grew from a lecture to an idea for a DVD."

On the DVD, Phillips — who played catcher for the Mets, Dodgers, and Blue Jays and is now a coach with the Seattle Mariners — describes himself as "not the most talented" player but adds that he would listen to advice and try to practice it. Extremely nearsighted, he considered having Lasik surgery, adding that he was skeptical at first about anything that could affect his eyes. "I'd had trouble with contact [lenses] and depended on glasses," he says. After deciding to let Toyos perform the surgery and — literally — seeing the difference afterwards, the two collaborated on the DVD.

Among the questions it answers is "What is dynamic visual acuity?" In short, it's how well a player can see the ball and determine its speed, angle, and trajectory — and decide if and how to swing at the pitch. Despite the old saying, "Keep your eye on the ball," Toyos and Phillips explain that you can only do that for the first 40 feet or so of the 60.5-foot distance from the pitcher's mound to the batter's box. "Beyond that point, it's guessing at where the ball will wind up," says Toyos, "but a player can determine a lot in those first 40 feet to help him decide what to do." The DVD offers a series of drills that help both batters and pitchers. One drill involves flipping images — a square, a star, a circle — faster and faster so the eye can be trained to see and identify it.

Toyos has little use for time-wasting drills — like putting a ball on a tee and swinging at it. "The ball is never sitting on a tee; it's going to be coming at you and that's how you need to practice." He also questions the importance of muscle memory over vision. "In basketball," he says, "we took some college players and had them try to make free throws with their eyes closed. Their averages were nothing to brag about."

Certainly Lasik surgery has drastically improved baseball players' vision. "We over-correct theirs for sharper vision," he says. And because of the 4-second rule — which represents the amount of time a player can go without blinking — he recommends eye drops that can increase the time by 30 percent that a patient can keep his eyes open.

"Instead of illegal means, like steroids," says Toyos, "we have ways of helping players through surgery, [eye drops], and knowledge of vision and how it can help you." And he emphasizes that the DVD — available online, at sporting goods stores, and various outlets — can be helpful to those pursuing other sports. "Like girls' softball," he says, "or a guy who wants to improve his tennis game."

Asked how he feels about his work, this former athlete says, "It's great fun — putting two things I love a lot together and seeing it make a difference. And being with the guys in spring training? That's very cool." M