sorry. i'm a cardinals fan.

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

and evidently, nobody cares. woo!

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

I'm sorry for not showing interest earlier... so how was your fucking of barry bonds? Was he everything you ever hoped for and more?

Did barry break the home run record in your ass hole.

Fuck Bobby Sands and all.

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Worldwide Front for Islamic Jihad against Jews, Crusaders and Naughty Monkeys

he was slightly better than gary "U.S." bonds.

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

I know 3 million people who would kill you for that statement.

Fortunately , im not one of them.

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

The ball has been juiced since the strike. The season of Sosa and Mac was a bunch of wet meat. Stats are meaningless when the equipment has been changed. The same is true for the Bonds 73.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Could someone translate that into English for me?

Could someone translate that into English for me?

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Sure. Spankling is expressing the opinion that in this day and age, due to a number of factors, including how tightly wound the innards of baseballs are, it's a whole lot easier to hit a home run than it was even ten years ago, and thus due to stat inflation the recent 60+ homer seasons are not worth those numbers in earlier years.

Of course by that logic, you have to also tone down the hitting statistics of the 20s and 30s, and the pitching stats of the 60s, but arguing crap like that is half the fun of being a baseball fan.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

Thank God we have a professor on board.

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"You'll burn for this. Burn in jail!"

All true. And what about that snow shovel the players wear for a glove these days? Back in the days of real baseball, players took the field with a glove only slightly larger than their hand - a scrap of leather.

Now, someone help me down off this soapbox before I break a hip.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Posted this to Fark.com:

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What others say about boorite!

Back in my days we didn't have no glove. We had catch the ball with our teeth on account of our hands being stapled to our sides. And what a ball it was... A 300 lb. sphere of solid granite. 'Course the pitchers couldn't even lift the thing. Had to lob it towards the batter with a catapult. We used to lose five or so men a game what got killed by getting smashed in the head with the ball.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

Spanks--i'm sure the advent of weightlifting has nothing to do with anything. also, mcgwire's pre-strike 49 (as a ROOKIE), must have been some sort of aberration. unless you were referring to the '81 strike, in which the cardinals' 58 team homers in 1986 don't make a lot of sense.

in fact, my explanation for the Bonds thing is colossal karmic imbalance caused by three years of a cardinal having held the record--the gods simply couldn't take it anymore. and for what it's worth, we're in the playoffs, so narr. (:

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

[Click to view comic: 'Through the ages']

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

You may have to tone down the hitting stats of the 20s and 30s, but you need to divide by two to even out the stats of the last four or five years.

Organized baseball's been around since 1876, the Cubs and Reds being the first two teams. In the long history of baseball from 1876 through 1997, 121 years, 2 people had ever hit 60 home runs or more, Ruth and Maris. In the last four years, Sosa alone has done it three times. Same kind of percentages apply for number of players to hit 50+ homeruns in a season.

The ball is juiced, the stadiums are smaller, and because of expansion the pitching is weaker. The last two don't bother me that much. The ball being juiced really pisses me off, however. It's quickly getting so we can't compare statistics from previous years with current years. Baseball's losing that link to history.

It would be like doubling the diameter of a basketball rim, halfing the diameter of a basketball, then saying Joe Schmoe is triple the basketball player that Chamberlain was, because he scores 100 points EVERY game.

P.S. Screw the designated hitter. :)

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

quote:

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Organized baseball's been around since 1876, the Cubs and Reds being the first two teams. In the long history of baseball from 1876 through 1997, 121 years, 2 people had ever hit 60 home runs or more, Ruth and Maris. In the last four years, Sosa alone has done it three times. Same kind of percentages apply for number of players to hit 50+ homeruns in a season.

The ball is juiced, the stadiums are smaller, and because of expansion the pitching is weaker. The last two don't bother me that much. The ball being juiced really pisses me off, however. It's quickly getting so we can't compare statistics from previous years with current years. Baseball's losing that link to history.

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(And don't forget the mysteriously shrinking strike zone).

And yet, the overall homer-to-at bat ratio hasn't risen proportionately in comparison to the number of 50+ home run seasons. It stands to reason that in spite of the factors you cite, some of it is that the top sluggers of our day are just plain better. Better training, better eyes, better whatever.

Of course, it would be fun to see what Babe Ruth could achieve with today's advantages.

As to not being able to compare eras, we never could. Who's better, the 1998 Yankees or the 2001 Mariners? Just 3 years, and I have no idea!

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

And I used to think baseball was boring!

...wait on, I was right...

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

I know 3 million people who would kill you for that statement.

Fortunately , im not one of them.

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I doubt you even know 3 hundred people.

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Mediocrity at its most average.

And by nature he hits for average not power, making that feat even more out of the ordinary.

quote:

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P.S. Screw the designated hitter. :)

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Sideways.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Sammy Sosa "hits for average not power"?! The same Sammy Sosa who has struck out 1,690 times over his career and has had over 150 strikeouts per year each of the last 4 years? (For the sake of comparison, the most Barry Bonds has ever struck out was 102 in his rookie season.) The same Sammy Sosa who has a career batting average of .277 (despite hitting .328 this year) and a career slugging percentage of .542? The same Sammy Sosa who has 450 career home runs?

Spanks is on crack.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

whoa, whoa! since when has sosa hit for average? generally, line-drive hitters don't swing at every first pitch they see, and strike out 150+ times per season. if you're referring to his bizarre string of .300 seasons, you need look no further than mcgwire's .299 in 1998--would you call him a hitter for average?

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

i guess you beat me to that, wirth (:

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars

incidentally, i can't believe you bunch of (generally speaking) sci-fi geeks is having a coherent conversation about baseball. MAN, i love this board!

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- christ@myself.com - fuck a cat, kill yourself - my alter ego has five stars