Harvey Dorfman

Harvey A. Dorfman

• School Brockport College

• Born May 21, 1935 in Bronx, NY USA
• Died February 28, 2011 in Brevard, NC USA

Biographical Information

Harvey Dorfman was one of the pioneers in introducing sports psychology into baseball and is the co-author of the most influential book on the topic.

Born in Bronx, NY, he studied education at Brockport College, where he was the goaltender of the soccer team which won a national championship. He then became a high school football and basketball coach in Vermont. He then earned a graduate degree in educational psychology from Brockport. At that time, he became a freelance journalist local publications, including the Rutland Herald and the Berkshire Sampler, for which he wrote a baseball column. He covered the Pittsfield Rangers of the Eastern League and in this capacity struck a lifelong friendship with Roy Smalley, who was a top Rangers prospect at the time. The two discussed Dorfman's favorite topic, the mental aspects of the game of baseball.

He kept up the friendship with Smalley after he was traded to the Minnesota Twins, where Smalley introduced him to coach Karl Kuehl, who shared his interest in sports psychology. Kuehl wanted to write a book on the mental aspects of baseball, and in Dorfman found a perfect partner for the enterprise, as he had the academic background in psychology that he lacked. The seminal book The Mental Game of Baseball came out in 1989 and has been reprinted twice since. When Kuehl moved on to the Oakland Athletics organization in 1983, eventually becoming farm director, he hired Dorfman as a "performance enhancement consultant", working with young players on skills such as improving their focus, blocking out distractions, and generally improving their mental approach as a means of improving performance. he once described his specialty as "anything above the neck, including breathing."

In 1993, Dorfman joined the expansion Florida Marlins first as a consultant and later as a mental skills instructor. He was on the team's bench when they won the 1997 World Series and was awarded a ring by the team. In 1998, he followed Marlins pitching coach Larry Rothschild to another expansion team, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He worked with them for one season, but decided to set himself up as a consultant after that, tired of the incessant travel. He was hired by Scott Boras to work with many of his clients, and continued in this capacity until he passed away in 2011. Among the clients who paid him tribute for their success are pitchers Roy Halladay and Jamie Moyer. He authored a number of other books in those years.

Further Reading

• Harvey Dorfman: The Mental Keys to Hitting: A Handbook of Strategies for Performance Enhancement, Taylor Trade Publishing, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2001. ISBN 978-1888698381
• Harvey Dorfman: The Mental ABC's of Pitching: A Handbook for Performance Enhancement, Taylor Trade Publishing, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2001. ISBN 978-1888698299
• Harvey Dorfman; "Coaching the Mental Game: Leadership Philosophies and Strategies for Peak Performance in Sports and Everyday Life, Taylor Trade Publishing, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2003. ISBN 978-1589790117
• Harvey Dorfman: Copying It Down: An Anecdotal Memoir, Hamilton Books, Lanham, MD, 2009. ISBN 978-0761847557
• Andrew D. Knapp and Alan S. Kornspan: "The Work of Harvey Dorfman: A Professional Baseball Mental Training Consultant", The Baseball Research Journal, SABR, Vol. 44, Number 1 (Spring 2015), pp. 27-35.
• Karl Kuehl and Harvey Dorfman: The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance, Diamond Communications, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Lanham, MD, 2002. ISBN 978-1888698541. (Originally published in 1989)

Related Sites

• Obituary from the Washington Post