Jury Idiocy Comes to Montana

[SkinnyFats]

I think both youth baseball and youth softball should enlarge the infields and move the pitchers back. If you move the pitchers back the game gets more offense, I like that. I get more offense and you get a safer pitcher. So you got no beef with me.

I couldn't agree with you more here. This would be nice for a variety of reasons, safety being only one of them.

[SkinnyFats]

Something inane

The SNR of most threads around here is close to zero. I apologize for trying to raise that even a little bit. I'll stop posting now; beating my head against this particular wall is losing its appeal.

You can now return to your regularly scheduled Heybucket programming, which just might include:

Whoopee! My kid won a game!
Whoopee! My kid won a tournament!
My part of the country is better than yours.
My state is better than yours.
My part of the state is better than yours.
My county is better than yours.
My town is better than yours.
My weather is better than yours.
My team is better than yours.
My coach is better than yours.
My johnson is better than yours.
Look at my bats! Aren't they shiny?
What's the hottest bat out there right now?
Who's the best team in Topeka?
Blues suck.
My kid doesn't play much, should she change teams?
Is it OK to quit in the middle of the year?
My kid pitched 167 innings last month and her shoulder hurts. What stretches can she do?
Daddyball.

Enjoy.
Fats out.

[Sam]

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.

Skarp,

Your perception of what I wrote is not accurate. I never attacked TB...TB claimed he was being attacked...I just told the truth about his stake in the game. I produced an alternate point of view with alternate data. I notice you aren't asking the same questions of the LL data that your are of the data referenced in the article I posted. I don't have to prove the "facts" produced by LL baseball, for LL baseball, are inaccurate. The data from the article I posted was derived from an entity that has no dog in the fight. It is against a bat manufacturer's interest to question the LL data.

[Tumblebug]

Skarp’s perception is his own and you have no call to tell him otherwise. You are out of line to tell anyone that what they perceive, believe, think or feel is anything different than what they say it is.

You didn’t tell the truth about me. You don’t know the truth. I don’t know how you could be any more wrong. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know my personal philosophy. You know nothing about my business acumen or my business philosophy. You only know I am a bat manufacturer. For you to say what you think I believe or feel and put that in a negative light is a personal attack on me. And so, on a very personal level, I perceive, believe, think and feel that you are out of line.

My part in the safety of the game is in always producing a quality product that complies with the rules which are deemed safe by the softball organizing bodies. Every major bat manufacturer has had a bat banned for non-compliance except us. And in spite of the competitive disadvantage, my company has never had a bat banned for being outside the rules. We play by the rules and thereby provide for the safety and integrity of the game. You have no business saying otherwise.

As for my “stake” in it, you apparently don’t understand supply and demand. It would actually be a huge windfall for me to have the standard change and have the current bats become unplayable. That means that every bat I ever sold would have to be replaced at the end-user’s expense. That would mean that they would have to buy them from someone and that someone may very well be me. A redesign to de-tune a bat design would be nearly free to me. Only old inventory would be a problem but that would only be a minor inconvenience. Having the opportunity to resell every bat I ever sold would not have a single negative effect on my business. But I don't think it would be good for the game or benefit the buying public.

My perception is that you are a crusader with an agenda to promote and you don’t mind making assumptions and casting aspersions to promote it. You claim you don’t have to disprove Little League’s facts. But you haven’t proven anything or convinced anyone of anything other than the fact that you are capable of being less than honorable in your efforts to disparage both bat manufacturers and Little League without a single shred of your own evidence or data to support your position. You aren’t winning an argument; you’re deluding yourself into believing that you are making a cogent argument at all.

[Crabby_Bob]

Skarp,

Your perception of what I wrote is not accurate. I never attacked TB...TB claimed he was being attacked...I just told the truth about his stake in the game. I produced an alternate point of view with alternate data. I notice you aren't asking the same questions of the LL data that your are of the data referenced in the article I posted. I don't have to prove the "facts" produced by LL baseball, for LL baseball, are inaccurate. The data from the article I posted was derived from an entity that has no dog in the fight. It is against a bat manufacturer's interest to question the LL data.

I have looked at the NY Times article [nytimes.com] and tried to follow the link to find the Brown study. I did find a Brown University study here [brown.edu]. (Crisco et al. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 2002; 34(10):1675-1684) There is a substantially similar paper here [brown.edu]. (Greenwald, Penna, Crisco. J. Applied Biomech. 2001; 17:241-252) I've also read this [kettering.edu]. In the Brown University study, bat W is wood, bats M1, M2, M3, M4, and M5 are metal.

The NY Times dutifully paraphrases Crisco, et al. 2002...

"Batted ball speeds. The average batted ball speed was
fastest for bat M2 (93.3 mph) and slowest for
bat W (86.1 mph) (Fig. 2). Bat M2, as well as
bats M3, M4, and M5, with average batted ball speeds of
90.4, 91.7, and 90.6 mph, respectively, were each significantly
faster than bat W, whereas M1, with an average batted ball speed of
88 mph, was not statistically different from bat W.
At a 95% confidence level, the estimated difference in the
average batted ball speed between wood and metal was
-0.7 to 4.5 mph for bat M1, 4.2 to 10.3 mph for bat M2, 1.0 to
7.6 mph for bat M3, 2.6 to 8.7 mph for bat M4, and 1.9 to 7.2 mph for bat M5."


I've taken the liberty of removing metric units in favor of English. There is absolutely no question metal bats can be made to significantly outperform wood bats. The trouble is that four of the metal bats in the Brown study, M2, M3, M4, and M5 are illegal. This fact is noted in the Crisco, et al. 2002 paper...

"The bats categorized as -5 and -4 weight-length (bats
M2, M3, M4, and M5 in Table 1) are no longer allowed in
collegiate or high school play in the United States. The
governing bodies at these levels (the NCAA and the National
Federation of High Schools (NFHS)) have implemented
-3 as the maximum allowable difference between
weight and length. The performance capabilities of baseball
bats currently in use at the high school and collegiate levels
are unknown."

Brown University is starting a new study of baseball bats. See here [brown.edu].

Why on God's Green Earth(tm) the NY Times, in October 2006, would not note the fact that four of the five metal bats in the Brown study were illegal, I do not know. To ignore such an important fact, for the sake of selling newspapers, is not merely shoddy journalism but willfully dishonest and reprehensible. Then again, it's the NY Times.

[Tumblebug]

if you are reading a study about bat performance that is older than a few years it has almost no validity at all. This industry is very fast moving. And to be honest the acadamia nuts haven't quite figured out how to correlate their tests and test results with the results on the field. so the performance studies should be taken with a grain of salt especially the studies done more than a few years ago.

[Tumblebug]

And to be honest the academia nuts haven't quite figured out how to correlate their tests and test results with the results on the field.

Neither has ASA.

ASA is the biggest moving target of all. I think the best test of all and the one that ties my design hands the tightest is the BESR-BBCOR test the the NCAA uses. I think the ASA is scared to death of being sued.

[Sam]

Skarp’s perception is his own and you have no call to tell him otherwise. You are out of line to tell anyone that what they perceive, believe, think or feel is anything different than what they say it is.

You didn’t tell the truth about me. You don’t know the truth. I don’t know how you could be any more wrong. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know my personal philosophy. You know nothing about my business acumen or my business philosophy. You only know I am a bat manufacturer. For you to say what you think I believe or feel and put that in a negative light is a personal attack on me. And so, on a very personal level, I perceive, believe, think and feel that you are out of line.

My part in the safety of the game is in always producing a quality product that complies with the rules which are deemed safe by the softball organizing bodies. Every major bat manufacturer has had a bat banned for non-compliance except us. And in spite of the competitive disadvantage, my company has never had a bat banned for being outside the rules. We play by the rules and thereby provide for the safety and integrity of the game. You have no business saying otherwise.

As for my “stake” in it, you apparently don’t understand supply and demand. It would actually be a huge windfall for me to have the standard change and have the current bats become unplayable. That means that every bat I ever sold would have to be replaced at the end-user’s expense. That would mean that they would have to buy them from someone and that someone may very well be me. A redesign to de-tune a bat design would be nearly free to me. Only old inventory would be a problem but that would only be a minor inconvenience. Having the opportunity to resell every bat I ever sold would not have a single negative effect on my business. But I don't think it would be good for the game or benefit the buying public.

My perception is that you are a crusader with an agenda to promote and you don’t mind making assumptions and casting aspersions to promote it. You claim you don’t have to disprove Little League’s facts. But you haven’t proven anything or convinced anyone of anything other than the fact that you are capable of being less than honorable in your efforts to disparage both bat manufacturers and Little League without a single shred of your own evidence or data to support your position. You aren’t winning an argument; you’re deluding yourself into believing that you are making a cogent argument at all.

You are the one who is out of line, TB. You are flat out lying about what I have posted. You don't even read my posts....hell, you're asking questions about my DD's bats that I answered on page 2 of this thread, trying to prove that I'm the hypocrite I already admitted to being. I didn't disparage anything or anybody....you just don't like that somebody described your stake in the game. So, you whine about being attacked. Accept that you have the dog in the fight...we all do.

[Tumblebug]

You are the one who is out of line, TB. You are flat out lying about what I have posted. You don't even read my posts....hell, you're asking questions about my DD's bats that I answered on page 2 of this thread, trying to prove that I'm the hypocrite I already admitted to being. I didn't disparage anything or anybody....you just don't like that somebody described your stake in the game. So, you whine about being attacked. Accept that you have the dog in the fight...we all do.

You don't know what my stake is. You can guess and you have but you are nothing but wrong. My stake is to offer the most competitive product possible within the safety and performance guidelines of the softball and baseball organizing bodies. That is my stake and any other assumptions you make to support your personal opinions are fabrications.

I do give a "rat's a$$" about the integrity game and the safety of the people that play it. I care very much. For you to suggest that I would compromise that for a buck is offensive. That is personal. You can crusade all you want but leave my thoughts, feelings and intentions out of your assumptions because there is no way for you to know them without me telling you what they are.

[MoeFoes]

Well here is our safest bat......