Dateline October 31, 2009

Football may well be America's new favorite pastime, but Baseball remains as its most magical--and spooky. How else can one explain the ball hitting the camera on Halloween night during baseball's first use of the instant replay?

Sorry James Randi. Sorry Penn & Teller and Dawkins & Hitchens--but I'm a believer now--a believer in the One True Church of Cooperstown.

Football, however, is a false religion. We know that "sport" doesn't remember its saints and its hero's as fondly (apart from "Sweetness.") Instead of Zen-fully regarded thoughtfulness, it is the ruthless aggression of the Deacon Jones headslap that is rewarded, as per Carlin's Comical Comparison of the two sports.

Worse, football is too linear--too binary.

You crossed the plane or you didn't: Your knee touched or it didn't.

Run up the middle. Don't jinx.

Baseball on the other hand, is an Eastern Religion. It is cyclical. You run the bases in a circle of diamond. Relativity is in effect here, with Strike Zones as Floating Point mathemagicks.

Quantum Entaglement's two prophets, Schrödinger and Heisenberg, tried to explain to the dullards down here that you cannot measure the property of the string (and cork) without changing it--as certainly as the replay will change Baseball into Football's noisy old Protestantism.

Zarathustra thus sent his servant, A-rod, who--being equal parts Marduk, Luke Skywalker and Ulysses--sought to blind the eye of Polyphemus with an implement of wood; smashing a spheroidal ball of strings and mass-energy of undetermined speed towards the soul-stealing panopticon as ghosts rounded the bases--each looking a little like a particle, yet together looking a little like a wave.

The result of the double-slit experiment is in:

God hates instant-replay Baseball.

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P.S. Oh, and Auburn upset Ole' Miss by 13 points in 13 catches that same day...

Happy Halloween!

Niners!

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In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

Fun post, publiusr.

Well, it wasn't baseball's first use of instant replay. I'm not even sure it was the first use of instant replay in the post-season.

It was, however, the first time in the post-season that instant replay resulted in changing a call from no-home-run to yes-home-run.

And I'm not entirely sure it was the right call. It sure looks to me like the camera extended over the field of play. The ball never broke the plane of the wall.

A ball that hits an obstruction before leaving the field of play and never does leave the field of play is still a live ball in play, isn't it?

I saw a Metrodome game once where a pop foul - which nobody even moved on because it was so clearly going into the stands - hit a speaker and stayed in play. The pitcher was the only one who saw it and sprinted over to make a diving catch in foul territory. The batter was called out.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Yes, I agree with Sean, fun posting. But I'll alway be a football fan.

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In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

Questionable calls seldom go against the Yankees. It's just a law of baseball.

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

Strike three, ball four,
walk, a run'll tie the score.
Fly ball,double play,
Yankees win again today!
Those damn Yankees,
Why can't we beat 'em?

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

What's the deal with pitcher's mounds? Can't they throw a ball unless they get to stand on a hill? Football has no passing mounds. Baseketball has no free throw mounds. Volleyball has no spiking mounds. Ten pin bowling has no approach mounds. Why can't baseball pitchers stand on the ground like everybody else?

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

Go Red Sox!

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

Game six of The World Series is about to start! Sorry, no Red Sox.

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Life is like a box of chocolates. All of your choices are bad for you.

The mound is actually lower now than it used to be. It was lowered in 1969 to move some advantage from the pitcher to the hitter, although obviously not too much.

Lowering it even further would only serve to make for longer, higher-scoring games, and that's not what the sport needs right now. IMHO.

BTW, I've been informed that the rule regarding balls striking obstacles in flight has been changed since that 'Dome game I mentioned, so maybe the A-Rod ruling was okay after all.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2009 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Not if it's deemed a homerun.

... or flying obstacles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCjsa2XOiDw (only 4 seconds)



Go Red Sox!

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

I haven't seen the video, but I'm guessing it has Randy Johnson in it. And a cloud of feathers.

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Cum catapultae proscribeantur tum soli proscripti catapultas habeant.

Oh well. So much for my first attempt to channel Bob Costas...

Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, right?