Jury Idiocy Comes to Montana

[Tumblebug]

Gosh, Skarpy,

Do you make this guy take his pants off before you kiss his a$$?

lol...I'm not kissing anyone's ass. Just making my normal, useless, smartass contributions.

But, truth be told, you're getting your teeth kicked in on this one. Just calling it like I see it.

That's the great thing about perception, Skarpy, it is our own reality. See....I think I'm winning. I don't think TB is an evil bat manufacturer....I just wanted everyone to be able to identify the dog he had in the fight so they could accurately weigh his opinion. Hell, tobacco companies made some pretty funny claims. He apparently thought I was blaming him....I'm not...but his company has a huge stake in keeping the status quo. They could give a rat's a$$ about pitcher safety.

I do think that it is intellectually dishonest for the bat companies to claim that they don't push the envelope to produce bats that cause the ball to travel faster and farther while complying with the bat standards. A bat that causes the ball to travel faster and farther is inherently more dangerous than a bat that doesn't....herego....they know that they are making bats more dangerous to the one fielder who must remain 35' directly in front of the batter....they have no choice....its where they have to end up. They can't play back or play up....they can't cheat towards the hole....they can't release and retreat.

Maybe ASA will think about making some changes to protect the pitchers. If I can at least get people to think about it, I have done what my little voice can do.

You don't even read my posts and make assumptions based on your own agenda. You don't want an honest answer, you want a soapbox. You want to say softball is more dangerous than baseball because it is inconvenient that I am a father that has have boys pitching in baseball and I disagree with you You don't like the baseball facts because it doesn't support your crusade. Here's a newsflash, this thread was about a baseball player and my participation was about a baseball player until you decided differently and challenged my ethics, morals and manners.

I don't think there is a safety issue. That's where we disagree. Even if we didn't disagree in that, I don't have any responsibility for the measure of safety installed in the game. The organizing bodies dictate that by virtue of the rules. My job as a businessman is to build the most competitive product possible. If the market dictated a dead bat, I would build dead bats. But every ball player that steps in the box is looking for the best equipment they can get to assure their ability to compete. If I build a dead bat I eventually cease to exist as a company. I don't need a status quo, I just need a guideline to be able to compete. That guideline is in place and I think it is a good one.

[Sam]

TB,

Thanks for confirming my post regarding your agenda.

I did read your posts, you just don't like it because I challenged your data.

Baseball is not softball. You like the baseball facts because it supports the status quo....for baseball.

Where did I challenge your ethics, morals, and manners? I understand your dog in the fight and I have no problem with it....just don't act like you don't have a stake in this....a very high stake. Nobody is claiming that your company needs to unilaterally disarm in the bat market, but it sure wouldn't hurt to have the bat companies support de-juicing the bat standard in order to at least have the appearance that they care about the safety of their customers.

[absdad]

But, truth be told, you're getting your teeth kicked in on this one. Just calling it like I see it.

I think the last molar left the building about 10 pages ago

[Sam]

But, truth be told, you're getting your teeth kicked in on this one. Just calling it like I see it.

I think the last molar left the building about 10 pages ago

Now I can match that lovely set of tooth you've been sportin....

[Crabby_Bob]

...The argument that softball is in some way more dangerous than baseball ...[snip]... I believe that if we wandered through the safety (or danger) parameters you would find that the differences cancel each other and we are talking about nearly identical difficulty and risk....

Getting hit by a softball does more damage than gettiing hit by a baseball.

Remember the Sports Science comparison where Jenny Finch's pitch smashed the machine?

Assuming none of the energy is lost in the ball, getting hit by a softball deposits more energy in tissue than getting hit by a baseball traveling at the same speed. FIFY. Batted ball speeds (and pitch speeds) can be significantly higher in baseball than softball. Energy is proportional to mass times the square of velocity. (Playing big boy baseball on 60' bases would be insane )

IMO, softball is more dangerous than baseball.

Follow the cheerleading injuries link earlier in this thread to get here http://www.livescience.com/health/060614_sport_injuries.html In terms of absolute numbers, baseball results in more injuries. (I'm surprised to see horseback riding lower; plenty of kids have been killed or paralyzed by being thrown from a horse.) It's too bad the data isn't normed by number of participants.

Here's a back of the envelope calculation. Assume two pitchers, one baseball, the other softball, are hit by a batted ball, just at the limit of the pitcher's ability to react. This sets the ratio of distance to speed, the reaction time. Now calculate the energy deposition. I used 5.0 oz / 55 ft for baseball and 6.5 oz / 35ft for softball. If I did this correctly, I get about twice the energy delivered to our baseball pitcher than our softball pitcher.

[absdad]

Now I can match that lovely set of tooth you've been sportin....

At least you keep your sense of humor with you.

[Sam]

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/nyregion/22bat.html?n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes+Topics%2FSubjects%2FA%2FAccidents+and+Safety

Interesting article about NY banning metal bats. Includes LL's argument that TB made along with some other arguments by some guys that got their teeth kicked in so badly that the ban was approved. Brown University's study was also referenced.

[MoeFoes]

I think I finally get it!!!!!

1. Lets change the game of softball to protect the pitchers just like the NFL did to protect the quarterbacks......
So that pitchers can just stand in there and throw cookies and have nerf balls bounce off there skully!!!!

2. If your DD lacks the skills to field a liner then I guess she's not a pitcher. Or infielder by that matter. Quick reflexes are as much apart of the position as hitting your corners. Don't change the game to protect kids that shouldnt be there. Maybe they should just throw slower so batters can just hit them over the fence

FACT: There are more injuries that happen outside the pitching circle than in it. So spare me the save the pitchers preaching!!! Pitchers quiting? Who cares? Batters would rather hit off a machine anyway! But the great thing is as long as coaches give pitchers all that glory & as long as schools offer full rides for pitchers they will still have parents forcing their DD to stand in the circle with over use injuries and take liners even if they are good pitchers and weak fielders.

Give them wood bats!! And then when the pitchers are getting smashed get them plastic bats???????????????????

Then what?

[Skarp]

Gosh, Skarpy,

Do you make this guy take his pants off before you kiss his a$$?

lol...I'm not kissing anyone's ass. Just making my normal, useless, smartass contributions.

But, truth be told, you're getting your teeth kicked in on this one. Just calling it like I see it.

That's the great thing about perception, Skarpy, it is our own reality. See....I think I'm winning. I don't think TB is an evil bat manufacturer....I just wanted everyone to be able to identify the dog he had in the fight so they could accurately weigh his opinion. Hell, tobacco companies made some pretty funny claims. He apparently thought I was blaming him....I'm not...but his company has a huge stake in keeping the status quo. They could give a rat's a$$ about pitcher safety.

I do think that it is intellectually dishonest for the bat companies to claim that they don't push the envelope to produce bats that cause the ball to travel faster and farther while complying with the bat standards. A bat that causes the ball to travel faster and farther is inherently more dangerous than a bat that doesn't....herego....they know that they are making bats more dangerous to the one fielder who must remain 35' directly in front of the batter....they have no choice....its where they have to end up. They can't play back or play up....they can't cheat towards the hole....they can't release and retreat.

Maybe ASA will think about making some changes to protect the pitchers. If I can at least get people to think about it, I have done what my little voice can do.

Perception has nothing to do with it. Reason does. You might think that you are right (and, truth be told, I could be fairly easily persuaded to your point of view), but you have done precious little to prove that you are. Anecdotal evidence is useless. So is attacking the person rather than addressing the points that he makes. If current bat standards have caused an appreciable increase in the occurrence of serious injuries, by all means provide the facts that show that. If you do, I'll be right on board. You may remember the metal cleat thread, where I came down squarely against them on safety grounds. But absent that kind of proof, your argument is weak.

You claim that you don't think TB is an evil bat manufacturer, but when you say that he "could give a rat's ass about pitcher safety," that is exactly what you are calling him. Is it not possible that he honestly, and on principled grounds, believes that the current standards do not pose a significant safety risk? Or is it in your view necessarily the case that he is arguing from self-interest and simply spinning stats to bolster his position? In my opinion (because sound reasoning requires it) you can't jump directly to the "liar, liar, pants on fire" conclusion unless there is clearly no basis other than self-interest for him to hold to his position. Since he has provided ample objective support for his position, your task, if you want to win the argument for real and not just in your perception, is to show that the facts he is relying on are faulty. Merely calling him a liar (which is the essence of all "dog in the hunt" comments) doesn't even begin to get that done.

I really don't understand what you are trying to say in your second paragraph. Are you saying that it is inappropriate for manufacturers to make the best, most competitive bats they can even when those bats comply with safety standards that the manufacturers themselves do not create or impose? Should the manufacturers take it upon themselves to aggregate injury data, crunch numbers to ascertain marginal injury propensity, and then make value judgments about the way the game should be played and the level of risk that should obtain despite the fact that governing bodies already exist for precisely those purposes? Should the bat companies take it upon themselves to substitute their opinions for those of the governing bodies, when said bodies directly represent the interests of the actual participants? The idea is absurd. My question would be "who in the hell are the bat companies to refuse arbitrarily to provide a product that we all want and which our Association has deemed safe for use?"

More importantly, why are my frickin' paragraphs so long in this thread? If I wasn't me, I would hate me right now.

[anonlooker]

More importantly, why are my frickin' paragraphs so long in this thread? If I wasn't me, I would hate me right now.

Because, as you well know, they are properly structured paragraphs. Otherwise, I would hate me, too, for having read them!

But if you really want shorter paragraphs, simply think smaller thoughts.