Slashdot Mirror
Rocket Science vs. Barry Bonds
Ray Radlein writes "How about a good old-fashioned Sports story? With its multitude of different statistical measures, baseball has always had the highest Geek Quotient of any major sport. Alpha Geeks of Baseball have included former relief pitcher Rob Murphy, who put his Computer Science degree to good use writing software to evaluate thoroughbred race horses, and Boston Red Sox ace and probable future Hall of Famer Curt Schilling, who not only runs a company that makes hex-based war games, but once got embroiled in an on-field feud due to Everquest. However, Baseball Geeks have a new hero to look up to: Jason Szuminski, who on Sunday became the first MIT graduate to pitch in a major league baseball game. His degree in Aerospace Engineering must have stood him in good stead as he observed the ballistic trajectory of a Barry Bonds fly ball which just barely stayed inside the Padres' new stadium."
All this talk about projectile motion is making me itch to play a game of grand theft auto
He's only doing a case study.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
One might say Bonds fought he law, and the law won.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
"But what's the bag going to look like?" Szuminski asked.
Methinks this guy has been watching a little too much Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Oh well, at least he's a pitcher and not a catcher.
1. get killed by your friend in everquest
2. get back at him by hitting two home runs
3. take down the espn servers by linking it to slashdot
4. ???
5. profit!
The generation of Moneyball General Managers is here. Billy Beane, John DePodesta (Harvard), Theo Epstein (Yale) are paving the way for seamheads who know baseball and use statistical analysis to build their teams.
Now, there's hope for geeks with math and statistics degrees who want to break into baseball.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
"With its multitude of different statistical measures, baseball has always had the highest Geek Quotient of any major sport."
You might want to check out cricket, www.cricinfo.org and Wisden for some serious stats.
Not to mention that with all the offshoring to India there's a huge cricket loving geek population there. Baseball's only a fairly minor sport in world terms.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Everquest players caught playing baseball... how tragic!
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Not really even close. He's 37 and has 164 wins. Ain't gonna happen.
-dameron
What's the mathematical symbol for steroids and how would you represent it in your equation?
We should be putting our brains in jars, not celebrating our limitations in some meatspace "sport".
;)
I believe Ted Williams beat you to the punch when he had his head cryogenically frozen so he could later be cloned. And you say you can't apply science to baseball.
There's no crying in math.
Slashdot... sports? You do realize that would involve getting up and moving right?
Slashdot sucks
Call me when an MIT grad makes the NFL.
I thought that cricket had the highest geek quotient out of all the sports, since you need some kind of technical degree to understand WTF is going on in the game.
I call bullshit.
Perhaps you get excited over clean code, or something else equally geeky, but let me tell you, there is very much a passion for a lot of us geeks out here in the sports arena.
As far as baseball players being unable to understand the rules, or even having seen a rule book, provide a link.
I can provide quite a few (search ESPN.com, or, even better, actually WATCH the game you profess so much loathing for) links for your reading pleasure. I'd rather you educated yourself though.
Of course, that was your opinion, this is mine, yada yada yada.
Sent from your iPad.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
The guy that Schilling played everquest with, Doug Glanville has got to be the reigning baseball alpha geek. Check out the articles he wrote for espn.com. I am sure they are going to hire him when he decides to hang up cleats. Stark loves to interview him.
5 1 7 8
Trip to africa - http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=17308
Astronomy club - http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=17719
<high-level position here>
<name of stupid small company here>
baseball has always had the highest Geek Quotient of any major sport.
I'd say auto racing, with it's high degree of computerization, engineers/designers or mechanics, and use of the grand-daddy of geekdom - radios, would rate as high or higher.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Read this for a better perspective on Bond's possible steroid use.
Roger Maris's HR totals go like this:
14, 28, 16, 39, 61, 33, 23, 26, 8, 13, 9, 5
Thanks to baseball-reference.com.
Oh, yeah, 1961 was an expansion year. Nothing like a journeyman whacking away at diluted pitching to break Ruth's single-season HR record...
PS - Barry Bonds is about the same size and weight as Brett Favre...
You simply must hit the williard into some cilium with your fracaman. And remeber: it doesn't matter who wins. It matters who wins three times in a row. Tally ho!
Baseball is a game played by a bunch of drunken, tobacco chewing goons, illiterates from third world countries, and other assorted misfits who make their living playing a kid's game.
Gee, this is only moderately offending.
not one single player had ever SEEN a rulebook let alone OWNED one, and none of them cared to even investigate rule changes.
Right, baseball players don't know what's going on. Obviously you've never heard of Questec and baseball's infinite wisdom to install these cameras to monitor umpires. And Curt Schilling and the Braves didn't like it. So, don't tell me that baseball players don't know know what's going and and aren't going to do something about it.
I tutor statistics and calc at a big university (think Final Four) and at the 95% confidence level I reject the null hypothesis that IQfb > IQbb.
Oh, like that episode of the Simpsons where the hammock makes clones of Homer?
after failing to connect for the fifth straight game
Then get a new dial-up service!
although he was intentionally walked
They're taking that Petco thing too far.
and scored in the five-run eighth inning
Look, let's keep that kinda thing private... but scored with who?
"I'd like to do it at home," said Bonds
<butt-head>heh-heh heh-heh, he said "do it"</butt-head>
got Bonds to fly out to left
Cool! Like what the flying chair everybody thought the Segway was going to be?
San Diego's bullpen fell apart in the eighth
They obviously didn't engineer that structure very well.
San Diego manager Bruce Bochy had his only lefty reliever
Sounds like my adolescence.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
- And Schilling's a much better pitcher than Ryan.
I disagree. Ryan is better than Schilling lifetime in many important statistics like ERA and SO. I could see a claim that Schilling at his best was as good as Ryan at his best (although Ryan's 1.69 ERA season of '81 is hard to beat), but you can't credibly claim that Schilling is a much better pitcher than Ryan.Of course, these statistics aside, Ryan's No Hitter record combined with his longevity near the top make him a shoe-in for the HOF, things that Schilling will find hard to match. Ryan was a shoe-in, though, so Schilling could get in, too.
What is this Sports of which you speak?
SIGLOST && SIGUNUSED && SIGQUIT
How about Curt Schilling himself, who carries a powerbook on the road and has quicktime clips and a database of hundreds of batters?
Reportedly he also spent time on a famous red sox chat board the night before he signed with the sox, trying to make up his mind whether he should sign...and convince everyone he really was Curt Schilling(he managed to, after instantly returning questions on his career stats that, according to friends, would have taken a "good baseball researcher" at least 5-10 minutes to find).
He finished up VERY late that night(well, morning) by saying essentially "Thanks, I've decided to sign with the sox, I've always heard red sox fans were the most knowledgeable, you guys have proved it". A few hours later(heh) at the press conference, John Henry(who also logged in at one point) joked(along the lines of) "and in Curt's contract is a clause prohibiting him from staying up past midnight talking on internet chat boards the day before a game."
Please help metamoderate.
It was invented to keep the team in the field from getting two outs whenever the bases were loaded or there were men on 1st and 2nd and the batter popped up in the infield (or shallow outfield, umpire's disgression).
The reasoning was: the runners had no chance to get out of a double play. The fielder could choose to catch the ball (and double up the runner) or drop the ball (and make an easy double play). The runner was damned if he ran to break up the DP or damned if stayed on base to keep from getting doubled up. Now the team in the field just gets one (automatic) out.
But I guess you probably weren't serious.
No sig for you.
Actually that was Raphael, with the red mask.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
I certainly agree that football involves a lot more thinking and planning than people usually credit.
If you're up at, like, 3:00 AM or so during football season, ESPN has a show called Edge NFL Matchup, hosted by Suzy Kolber, Ron Jaworski, and, er, some other guy whose name has just flown out of my head. A lot of the show is stock football stuff, but every so often they will break down not just the execution of plays, but their design -- and it can be quite fascinating.
I remember watching them explain one play where they went over every last bit of it for like five minutes or so, explaining what every player on offense was doing, and what the expected defensive reactions would be; and the upshot of it was a play where, basically, every last player was involved in some specific set of actions designed solely for the purpose of getting the right cornerback to turn his hips slightly towards the inside of the field at just the wrong moment, so that the receiver could break off his move. It was so intricate, so meticulously planned, and so well explained, that I can't imagine any True Geek not getting a rush out of it. Their explanation, with the film, and the diagrams and arrows they superimposed, was like single-stepping through an elegant piece of code in a good debugging environment, watching all the variables change just so as everything falls into place.
Better yet, there were no restrictions on who could play - anyone could make the team if they just showed up. My senior year, two guys on the team had *never* played before. Mix that in with a few good players and you have a really weird dynamic for the season. After being part of a really strong high school program, and garnering a decent amount of scouting attention, I absolutely know what he means by "playing down" to the level of your surroundings. It was sort of a letdown when I got there, but not really all that shocking - I didn't go there to make a career pitching.
I had a great time, but it definitely wasn't a place you go to nurture your athletic skills. I'm glad to see that someone stayed focused enough to make it though, if only so that I can live through him vicariously!