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Mr. Asterik (aka Barry Bonds) breaks the record
ChadTower:
Man, people will go after anything to minimize this guy's achievements.
What's next? Rocket shoes we are only noticing now? Bats made of alien materials that just happen to look like wood?
EDIT:
--- Quote ---Similar devices are presently denied to average major leaguers, who must present evidence of injury before receiving an exemption.
--- End quote ---
Hrm.
Justin Z:
Well, Justin Z, thanks for proving my point. In all of your examples, every player on the field knows what's going to happen before it happens. Then if it happens, they know what to do next.
Even if this gross generalization were true, the human element would, by definition, make the game unpredictable, thus ruining the very basis of your argument from the start. That's the problem with absolute statements like the one you've made. They fall down logically.
Furthermore, not only do five players in the field never know what pitch is coming (2nd, short, pitcher and catcher hopefully do), but no matter how good of an eye you have, you don't know how the ball is going to come off the bat until a significant amount of time has passed. You'd better be able to figure out what's happening, and react . . . quickly. You don't know from the start.
Were baseball played by robots, you might have a point.
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1. Baserunning
(a) Hit and run?
(b) Double steal?
(c) Delayed steal?
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You always steal if you think you're fast enough to make it.
Not a chance. You steal when you feel the situation calls for it. You're more likely to send a good runner than a poor one, true. But my college baseball team's first baseman, who's about 235 pounds and to put it plainly, is slow, had 8 stolen bases last season, which was like third on the team. Speed has far less to do with it than you want to claim it does.
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2. At the plate
(a) Approach pitches aggressively?
(b) Wait for pitches and try to draw a walk?
(c) Sacrifice bunt?
(d) Drag bunt?
(e) Slash?
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You can't wait out pitches if the pitcher is throwing strikes. Who cares on the rest of it? You know a batter is going to bunt before he's on the plate.
No, you can't. So your strategy has to change. You would need several cocktail napkins to cover your strategy at the plate from pitch to pitch.
Again bringing up the team I mentioned before, we had a player who would get one strike on him and then had at least ten drag bunts for singles that he executed after taking or swinging and missing the first strike. There was no way to tell if he was going to do it or not.
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As for defense, do you
(a) play in your corners?
(b) play at double play depth?
(c) execute a wheel play?
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You go to where you think the batter might hit it, but either way, you gotta run to wherever the ball is hit if it's in your zone.
I suppose then that wide receivers don't run to where the passer has thrown the ball? That linebackers don't stop pursuing the option quarterback and start pursuing the pitch man when the ball is lateraled? That basketball players dribble away from the basket in an effort to drive in and score? That goalies move their pads out of the way of a shot puck? Your statement doesn't make sense.
Sorry, but I stand fully by what I said. There's nothing unpredictable in baseball.
Have you ever seen a team steal home?
[/quote]
Jouster:
No, that would require that there be nothing else on TV...and my internet would need to be down...and I'd have to be all out of beer...and the batteries to my laptop would need to be dead after my power went out...oh wait, if the power was out I couldn't even watch TV...so no, I've never seen anyone steal home.
Jouster
DrewKaree:
First, RTS, it's "asteriSK" ;D
Second, shardian and Justin, you guys are getting trolled something fierce. The only reason it's not smacking you in the face, callin' your momma fat, and pissing on your shoes is that you two are too invested in proving him wrong - which anyone with half a brain and a logical look at the situation can see he's wrong and simply trolling for fun.
Third, this:
--- Quote from: www.czabe.com ---Are you sick of Barry Bonds talk by now?
Good. Because this is my Forrest Gump: “… And That’s All I Have to Say About That” entry on the entire “Bonds Saga.”
Let me sum it all up as follows. Barry Bonds career comes in two main “Acts.”
Act I
Barry Bonds was chugging along as an elite 5-tool player, with 30+ HR power in Pittsburgh for years. After moving to San Fran and a more hitter friendly park, his numbers were goosed a bit, and he was cruising easily to a HOF induction on the first ballot.
This act was powered by the following: good bloodlines, being around the major leagues since he was a kid, natural talent, and hard work.
Act II
Barry Bonds saw the admiration and attention that was showered on Sosa and McGwire in the summer of ’98. Bonds knew that both players were mere fractions of what he was. Bonds knew that they were juicing. He was jealous. He was scorned. He was going to do something about it.
Taking a combination of all kinds of stuff (cream, clear, steroids, and HGH) Bonds maniacally transformed himself into the Home Run Cyborg that started busting the charts on production for a player his age.
This act was powered by the following: great chemistry, a burning desire to stick it up a lot of people’s asses, and lots and lots of weight lifting.
I believe that once Bonds set the record 73, and STILL did not get the McGwire “God treatment” from the media, he then set his sights on 756.
I can appreciate the drive that took Bonds to the mountaintop, even though I don't condone the means.
I can recognize the record Bonds now holds, without celebrating it.
For everybody that says Bonds “cheated baseball” or somehow “tarnished” the game, get a life.
This is a sport that has had more work stoppages than a mob-run construction site in Jersey. This is a sport that denied blacks the chance to play for an unconscionably long time. This is a sport of Pete Rose, the Black Sox Scandal, cancelled World Series, and Steve Howe getting 7 chances at striking out his coke addiction. Hell, half the NL East testified to drug use in Federal Court, and got CHEERED the next night on the field while serving no suspension at all.
Bonds has the record. Deal with it. It’s just a number, and he would have still been a Hall of Famer even without the needle.
All that’s left is for the number nerds to squawk about it. So go ahead, squawk away. I’m moving on.
--- End quote ---
Justin Z:
--- Quote from: DrewKaree on August 09, 2007, 02:46:06 pm ---Second, shardian and Justin, you guys are getting trolled something fierce. The only reason it's not smacking you in the face, callin' your momma fat, and pissing on your shoes is that you two are too invested in proving him wrong - which anyone with half a brain and a logical look at the situation can see he's wrong and simply trolling for fun.
--- End quote ---
Cheers, although on my 15 minute break here at work there was little else better to do. ;)
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