Baseball

[mairving]

So anyway in this world of terrorism and economic downtic, baseball has kind of been forgotten. Quite a few unusual things happening like Bonds breaking the HR record, the Mariners with the best record in baseball, a SS hitting 50hrs, the Yankees having two pitchers with over 200 strikeouts.

Anyway care?

[figarowa]

All i wanna say is Go Tribe!

[cobra]

Go Braves!

[whr2206]

hmmm I hope barry bonds breaks it....8 games left..... 2 homers away.....also...I hope the Phillies can pull it off...they havent had a playoff run in a while, seeing as braves and mets are always in it. I think the braves are up 1.5 games, but I'd like to see someone different get the National League East title...than the Braves, ro Mets, but who-ever comes in seond wont get the wildcard....first time in a good while... Braves havent made play offs...

[audiyoda]

I just know this: God won't take me off this earth without letting me see my Cubbies win the World Series.

-Craig

[LawyerRon]

I can also tell you the DODGERS SUCK!!!!!!!

[mairving]

Originally posted by audiyoda I just know this: God won't take me off this earth without letting me see my Cubbies win the World Series. -Craig

I hope that you plan on a long life. Just kidding but good grief when are them guys going to do something.

[Werewolfdaddy]

I'm not a big baseball fan, but I can appreciate the effort involved. Competition is a wonderful endeavor and I don't mind watching when someone makes such a monumental accomplishment like Bonds is about to do; I watched McGwire's 70th. With any luck, I'll see Bonds'.

[troysvihl]

Just got back from a weekend of Brave's baseball. I'm not a Met's fan, but I despise the Braves. (and will hate them as long as that jackass Ted Turner owns them) I'm a Dodger's fan at heart. (so lay off Ron!) But my girlfriend is a big Braves fan.

Scored some pretty sweet seats right beside the Brave's dugout for the Sat game and right next to the Met's dugout for the Sun game. (they were painfully expensive) I got to tell Chipper Jones and Brian Jordan how much I thought they sucked every time they were on deck. They didn't care for my comments. Brian Jordan told me to go **** myself right before he hit a homer to win the game Saturday. lol. Guess he showed me.



As far as Barry Bond breaking the homerun record, it is a bit of a hollow accomplishment IMHO. (so was McGuire's record) Not many people know this, but the teams raise and lower the height of the pitching mounds by quite a bit in order to facilitate more home runs. So when the viewer rating are down, all the teams raise the mound and then more home runs are generated. People become interested again, ratings go up, and pitching mounds get lowerded the next season. The year that McGuire broke the record was a year where the mounds were raised quite a bit more than usual. (interest was way down thanks to the player's strike) Ratings were really down last year too. So the height of the mounds went up again this year. So that's why I'm not as impressed by the breaking of this record. (but I have both McGuire's and Bond's rookie cards, so I'm covered either way)


audiyoda - you may live to be a very old man.

[mairving]

Originally posted by troysvihl They didn't care for my comments. Brian Jordan told me to go **** myself right before he hit a homer to win the game Saturday. lol. Guess he showed me.

Troy, you seem to have that effect on people.

Anyway, your theory is not correct since anyone can tell you that raising the pitching mound would make for less offense than more offense. Lowering the mound would increase offense. Here is some info from the American Sports Institute.

[LawyerRon]

Troy,
I think you're on to something about the officials tinkering with the game to produce more homeruns. They deny that they "juice up" the balls to make them travel farther but I wonder. Mairving is correct, raising the mound gives the pitcher the advantage so I don't think that's it.

When I was a kid, hitting FIFTY homeruns was almost unheard of. Now it's a common occurrance. Now it's common.

RE the Dodgers, I used to be a big Dodger fan too when the O"Malley family owned the team. After Fox bought 'em, I lost interest. Not the same team at all.

[troysvihl]

mairving - where's the study? I see a paragraph, but no link to the study.

ron - yeah, i've heard about the juiced balls too, but MLB swears the perform the same as always. (Do you know of any studies on the balls Mairving?)

[Statica]

Here's the link Mairving alluded to: http://www.asmi.org/sportsmed/biomec...nd_height.html

[Mairving, do u need to use styles for links? ]

---

Re: Bonds .. wish the guy was more affable .. society really needs a release, and this couldve been it, even if it is to debate the comparisons between the players & performances, then and now.

His own shunning of the whole (possible) achievement has come back to haunt him, as he gets such limited coverage, and I find myself rooting against him. In my perfect end to the season, I'd like him to choke up and remain on 69, and then continue his "streak" in the post season .. I want them and the pompous ass in the post season just to see him choke again.

My favorite team the Mets look that they are going to fall short. But the season had its positives for me.. the Blue Jays continue their torrid pace on the way to nowhere .

Think the Mariners can beat the 1908 Cubbies to the books?

[mairving]

Originally posted by Statica [Mairving, do u need to use styles for links? ]

I can't seem to help it. I don't much care for those underlines. Anyway having a higher mound can increase the speed and change the angle of the ball giving a pitcher an advantage. I don't know about juicing the ball. It seems that most studies have kind of ruled this out. Some would also suggest that the pitching is watered down due to expansion. Well it has been awhile since the leagues expanded. Who knows what the answer is. I am sure that baseball would much rather have 9-7 games than 2-1 games.

Here is some data besides the above mentioned link:

from Sports Illustrated Following a 1968 season in which Bob Gibson's ERA was a microscopic 1.12, Carl yastrzemski won the American League batting title with a .301 average. And the All-Star game finished 1-0. Major League Baseball tried to even the playing field by lowering the mound from 15 to 10 inches. Now maybe it's time to give pitchers the opportunity to stand tall again.

from ESPN Jere: There has been a lot of talk about raising the mound. How soon could this change occur? Rob Neyer: Two problems with raising the mound. One, I believe the Players Association would have to agree, and since there are more hitters than pitchers, that probably wouldn't happen. And two, I'm not sure if I want to see even more strikeouts. I think changing the baseball is a better option, because I like to see guys catch and throw.

Other studies have questioned the aspect of giving the pitcher a scientific advantage. But there would be a psychological advantage to have the pitcher a little higher on the mound. Clemens or Randy Johnson are scary enough. Give them another fee inches up and batters will be crying.

[troysvihl]

yeah i got to that page, but it doesn't have the study on it. Just a conclusionary paragraph that seems to suggest that the study only looked at the effects on the risk of injury to the pitcher rather than the effects on the hitter's ability. I'd like to see the whole study to find out whether they looked at that aspect.

[troysvihl]

missed your post mairving. (we both posted at the same time)

yeah by the looks of those last two links, it sounds as if you're right mairving.

it just seems to run counter-intuitively to me. it's kind of hard to explain how i'm thinking about in a written message, but i would think that if the ball comes in at a higher angle, it would be easier to connect straight on with it using an "upper-cut" swing (for lack of a better term) that are normally used to get distance. Think of the difference between a softball pitch and a baseball pitch. Since softball pitches come in at a steeper angle, I've always found it easier to go for distance with a deeper pop-fly-producing swing rather than a more level line-drive producing swing. (is this making sense?) So I would think that the higher mound would produce a steeper angle pitch and result in more pop-flys and homers, whereas, a flatter mound would result in more line-drives.

I know i'm not the only person to think this because i didn't even think about the height of the pitching mound until my physics TA told me about it during McGuire's record season.

[StunGunz]

Its quite simple guys. Bigger, faster, and stronger boys, with state of the art bats that are head heavy and a strike zone half the size of the early days, and you have Domer Ball!!! Actually make it from the letters to the knees, and you would be hard pressed to see more than a handful of guys break the 30 HR barrier. Wouldn't make things easy on the highlight reels, but it would save us from the Incaviglia like behemouths running around in the outfield making blooper highlights.

Also Troy, Batspeed is more important. If you have the strength to muscle it out thats fine. But the difference between the 25-30 guys, and the guys like McGuire, Sosa, and Bonds is their super fast compact swings.

[mbossman2]

Originally posted by StunGunz Its quite simple guys. Bigger, faster, and stronger boys, with state of the art bats that are head heavy and a strike zone half the size of the early days, and you have Domer Ball!!!

Stun is right on both counts....the new bats are incredibly head heavy...I was swinging a bat of I guy I know in AAA ball and compared it to my bats from college ball (pre-metal bat) days and could hardly beleive the difference. Once that bat starts coming around it just snaps right around with a ton of force (with the right mechanics of course) and couple that with some of the incredible upper body strength of long ball hitters...hasta la vista baby!

Also with the strike zone the way it is, the pitchers are forced to throw a strike below the hitters hands and any time you put a hit-able pitch in that area you are asking for trouble (the unmistakable gunshot crack of a well hit ball)

[mairving]

Are you trying to tell me that Barry Bonds is in better shape than Babe Ruth? LOL

Imagine what the Babe could have done with today's bats and today's food supplements.

[mbossman2]

Originally posted by mairving Imagine what the Babe could have done with today's bats and today's food supplements.

a few things would be different:

1) more singles (astroturf gets the ball out of the infield faster and Ruth always hit the ball HARD)

2) Fewer extra-base hits, Ruth for all his skills with the bat, had below average speed for the time, so a decent percentage of doubles and triples would have been singles and doubles as the fielders of today have the fielders of yester-year beat by a mile when it comes to foot speed.

3) While no stats were kept on intentional walks, that number today would be higher today then in his era.

4) I think that he may have hit more HR's as he would have been better rested, as the traveling now is easier than taking the bus and trains of that time.

5) He more than likely would have played for substantially more teams than he did with free agency.

AND I would give my eye teeth to see him up against some of this era's best pitcher (Glavine, Smoltz, Johnson and Clemens).


As for an earlier post re: pitcher's mounds. The groundskeepers will shave or build up the mound (within the variances allowed by the rules) to affect a visiting teams offense or defense. A 1/2" variance on the mound can really disrupt a pitcher as the mound just does not "feel" right and can upset his rhthym and corner accuracy (especially at the top and bottom of the strike zone). The catcher comes heavily into play when this happens to set a good target during warm ups to bring the pitcher up to speed. You can really get messed with if the bullpen mounds are substantially different from the field mound.

[southrk]

Troy,
My uncle is a pitcher for a AAA team, and has pitched several major league games, he said there is no truth to your statement that the MLB raises the Mound to get more homeruns. He told me that by picting on a higher mound actually raises his MPH by 2 or 3.

[troysvihl]

i stand corrected then.

[hd580]

What's the record for the most number of wins in a season? Cy Youngs 50 something?? Safe to say that record will never be broken.

[StunGunz]

So Bonds hits 2 tonight... You can't love the guy, but you sure can put him in the top ten best of all time.


Now if we could only work on the umps strike zone. We might get our past time back.

[troysvihl]

Safe to say that record will never be broken.

That's what they said about Ruth's record. Never say never.