Jury Idiocy Comes to Montana

[Sam]

I may be wrong, but I believe Tumblebug works for Anderson Bats.

Tumblebug makes some compelling points...interesting propaganda from a metal bat company....putting forth data compiled by LL, for LL, to protect LL. I'm sure all of that data was presented in some form to this jury....and given the appropriate amount of consideration.

The fact remains that more kids die from playing baseball and softball than soccer, cheerleading and volleyball combined.

Until any of you guys put your little Susie out there in the circle, you really have no opinion. The pitchers' parents are going to wake up and demand that their DDs are better protected. If you don't like it, get a pitching machine.

[Tumblebug]

I apologize for blurring the issue with facts. Perhaps a suspension in logic is warranted when reading my post. Thanks for pointing out my error. Carry on.

[Sam]

Hey Tumblebug,

Nobody is arguing a switch to wood bats....its more of an argument to lower the BPF to 1.00....you guys can still make your non-wood bats....we just want them made less hot.

Does your DD pitch?

Mine has been hit twice by your bats and had two surgeries...she nearly lost the ability to have children due to an old 100mph Rocketech. Those are stats that LL doesn't keep. The sky is falling....the sky is falling....

[Tumblebug]

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's misfortune.

Don't have a DD, I have six boys. All of my boys that could pitch did or do. I've coached baseball or softball since 1985. Played before that. I've been on or around a diamond all of my life.

The people that want a "less hot" bat are a tiny minority. There is not a problem here beyond probability.

[Blind Squirrel]

Why is a pitcher wearing a mask in SoCal such a rare sight? I can remember seeing one pitcher wearing a mask in the last 4 years of 18G ball. It was on a team from back East. There may have been a few more but not as many as 5 total in 4 years. Anybody want to estimate what percentage of pitchers in each age division wear masks in SoCal?

John

[Sam]

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's misfortune.

Don't have a DD, I have six boys. All of my boys that could pitch did or do. I've coached baseball or softball since 1985. Played before that. I've been on or around a diamond all of my life.

The people that want a "less hot" bat are a tiny minority. There is not a problem here beyond probability.

We are currently a tiny minority. We are the parents of only 20% of the players....but without us, there is no game.

I notice that you didn't quote ASA's vast database of batted ball injuries. I have never seen ASA reports on any of my DD's injuries, so that seems to suggest to me that they don't keep any data on batted ball injuries....so you really don't know the probability of batted ball injuries in ASA fastpitch softball.

The LL data is somewhat interesting, but not really comparable since LL pitchers throw from 46' and don't leap towards home plate when they pitch. Softball pitchers are 35' from the batter at release....LL pitchers are 41' or 42' from the batter....LL pitchers have more time to react....about 15% more time. Those are facts aren't they?

[Tumblebug]

The game's not right for everybody, there's always cheerleading.

[Sam]

The game's not right for everybody, there's always cheerleading.

Wow. That could be the single most lame post anyone has ever authored on this board when confronted with facts they apparently could not argue. For someone who doesn't have a daughter, you are certainly very brave with ours.

[Crabby_Bob]

The game's not right for everybody, there's always cheerleading.

Wow. That could be the single most lame post anyone has ever authored on this board when confronted with facts they apparently could not argue. For someone who doesn't have a daughter, you are certainly very brave with ours.

http://www.livescience.com/health/080811-cheerleading-injuries.html

[Skarp]

The LL data is somewhat interesting, but not really comparable since LL pitchers throw from 46' and don't leap towards home plate when they pitch. Softball pitchers are 35' from the batter at release....LL pitchers are 41' or 42' from the batter....LL pitchers have more time to react....about 15% more time. Those are facts aren't they?

Whether LL injury statistics are relevant I don't know, but I know that the mere fact that there is 15% more distance is far from dispositive on the issue. How fast do baseballs hit by boys travel relative to softballs hit by girls? And how much damage do the two different balls do in same-speed impacts? Perhaps it is an apples to oranges comparison...but which are the apples and which are the oranges?

Anecdotal stories about injuries have zero probative value with respect to whether these bats present an unacceptable risk of danger to the girls. The only way to properly assess risk is to determine how many catastrophic injuries have occurred relative to the frequency of opportunities for such injuries to occur. And it seems to me that the evidence is coming down heavily against the proposition that the bats are excessively dangerous. ASA might not keep data about every injury that occurs, but you can bet that they track all of the really serious ones, and those are what this discussion is exclusively concerned with.

Now if you want to bring non-catastrophic injuries into the equation, you'll have to start evaluating all of the myriad other ways that kids can get hurt playing softball, and advocating for mitigating those risks as well. There are collisions, and twisted ankles, and slippery bases, and balls flying all over the place in practice and in warm-ups, etc., etc. I would wager that the vast majority of injuries in softball are of this nature, and not from batted balls.

And Sam, several times in this thread you have admonished that eventually somebody is going to get killed. The fact that you haven't been talking about kids who have already been killed is telling...because the bats you complain of are used to hit untold thousands of softballs at girls in games every single weekend. If the risk was more than infinitesimal, you would already have plenty of headstones to point to.

The fact that Tumblebug manufactures these bats doesn't make him a bad person. Nor does it render his statistics or arguments any less valid. If his arguments are bad, demonstrate it. If his statistics are faulty, show how. Attacking his character neither advances your argument nor weakens his.

FWIW, and IMO.