Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue • Hacker News Board

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#21

Post by chrisBob » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

UnethicalHacks wrote: post #7

MSM wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a few conversations with friends about which sport I'd choose to play if I could be a professional in any sport. I think baseball would be at the bottom of my list. You have to go to the ballpark nearly every single day for almost 8 months. I'm from Detroit and I'm looking at the Tiger's schedule right now. In September they have TWO days in the entire month without a game. By that time they will also be pla…

And the average salary is $3.8 million. [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/baseball/major-league-...

The pay might be high but the average career is much shorter than that of a programmer. I bet the lifetime earnings aren't even that much different than the average person checking HN from California.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#22

Post by Legion » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #13

bitsoda wrote: post #9

Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch shorter, less frequent games. On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to include 16 teams…

> by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100 Since coming to North America I've always felt one of the problems with Baseball and Hockey is they just play too many games, so no game is significant enough. When your team loses to a certain team, you don't care enough because you know they'll play them multiple times more. Baseball is 162, Hockey is 82 games in "regular season" NFL is only 16 games, which to m…

In my opinion, the lockout-shortened 2012-13 NHL season (started in January, 48 game regular season) was the best thing ever.

Particularly in a country where NFL football reigns supreme, the NHL starting an 82 game season in October is just a loser. Starting the compressed season in January, with the NFL regular season over, made so much more sense.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#23

Post by snappy173 » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:43 PM UTC

baseball, as with all sports, has a long and storied history with using various performance enhancing drugs to cope with injury and fatigue. amphetamines were commonplace in ball four ... bouton casually discusses greenies, players' coffee vs. regular coffee, etc. there was a sporting news snippet from the 1910's (that i can't find right now) that discussed pitchers dealing with arm fatigue ... the takeaway was that some pitchers preferred cocaine injections, while others preferred morphine. and then there was the steroid era ... lots of attention of course to creating cartoonishly large players, but most of these drugs were to shorten recovery from workouts ... you don't magically get huge from taking steroids.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#24

Post by VLM » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:45 PM UTC

bitsoda wrote: post #9

Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch shorter, less frequent games. On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to include 16 teams…

"The sport could use a shot in the arm in terms of viewership"

Your linked article also carefully tiptoed around the other elephant in the room, that being, as the pix demonstrates, not just a sea of old people, but a sea of old white people except for one Hispanic (old) guy. As whites become a minority race and the average age of a MLB viewer goes up one year per year, the pro level will die out pretty soon. How this interacts with billion dollar municipal bond offerings to pay for stadiums and such is interesting to contemplate.

Note, its probably a net gain to the sport overall, even if only 5% of the couch potatoes join or attend a local amateur game or take their kids to little league after MLB shuts down. Even if only 1% take a ball to a local park, it'll still be a net gain for the game overall.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#25

Post by llimllib » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:49 PM UTC

UnethicalHacks wrote: post #5

carsongross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what I'd recommend: for four hours, alternate sitting and standing every ten minutes in a sunny park. When standing, once every thirty seconds or so tense into a squat position and concentrate as hard as you can on something about 100 feet away. Every 10th time, sprint all out in a random direction. Every 20th time, throw a rock as hard as you can as far as you can. What you will find is that you, a normal hu…

No, if you're a professional athlete this should not be all that difficult. Boring but not difficult. Look at the average baseball player. So many of them are plump or overweight. I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. baseball needs some yoga and proper nutrition.

The overweight players are overweight for the same reason that (American) football linemen are: it's useful for their skill.

One of the reasons that Prince Fielder can hit as many home runs as he does is that he has a lot of mass; it's also one reason that steroids were effective. Not (just) for strength, but the more mass you have to swing into the ball, the farther it will go.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#26

Post by freehunter » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

UnethicalHacks wrote: post #5

carsongross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what I'd recommend: for four hours, alternate sitting and standing every ten minutes in a sunny park. When standing, once every thirty seconds or so tense into a squat position and concentrate as hard as you can on something about 100 feet away. Every 10th time, sprint all out in a random direction. Every 20th time, throw a rock as hard as you can as far as you can. What you will find is that you, a normal hu…

No, if you're a professional athlete this should not be all that difficult. Boring but not difficult. Look at the average baseball player. So many of them are plump or overweight. I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. baseball needs some yoga and proper nutrition.

A first baseman, sure. They only need to be able catch well and sometimes throw across the infield. Find me an out-of-shape center fielder. Miguel Cabrera, for example, is a bit bigger. He's slow getting around the bases. But his talent, other than being a first baseman, is hitting the ball hard enough that he can casually stroll around the bases if he wants.

But humans were meant to run. That's why we stand upright, that's why we sweat. Running long distances on a flat grass field, to a trained athlete, is going to be less fatiguing than standing still in the sun waiting for something to happen. Pitchers throw 100+ pitches at 90+ MPH and for the most part, are dead accurate. Even if the ball is spiraling through the air to confuse the batter. And the players, other than the starting pitcher, are out there almost every single day, and sometimes play two games per day. Baseball has a ridiculously packed schedule.

So I would disagree that soccer players have it rougher. Running is easy.

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#27

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #19

grecy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100 Since coming to North America I've always felt one of the problems with Baseball and Hockey is they just play too many games, so no game is significant enough. When your team loses to a certain team, you don't care enough because you know they'll play them multiple times more. Baseball is 162, Hockey is 82 games in "regular season" NFL is only 16 games, which to m…

You just haven't followed baseball closely enough. When it's September and you're in a close divisional or wildcard race, there is nothing more exciting in sports: every pitch counts and every at-bat counts -- and there are ~5-6 games per week. (And that only counts your team! Part of the terror of a close race is that you're also watching every pitch and every at-bat of your rivals.) If anything, it's almost excitin…

[deleted]

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#28

Post by ryanhuff » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

UnethicalHacks wrote: post #5

carsongross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what I'd recommend: for four hours, alternate sitting and standing every ten minutes in a sunny park. When standing, once every thirty seconds or so tense into a squat position and concentrate as hard as you can on something about 100 feet away. Every 10th time, sprint all out in a random direction. Every 20th time, throw a rock as hard as you can as far as you can. What you will find is that you, a normal hu…

No, if you're a professional athlete this should not be all that difficult. Boring but not difficult. Look at the average baseball player. So many of them are plump or overweight. I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. baseball needs some yoga and proper nutrition.

I won't pretend to appreciate the challenges of being a professional baseball player, but I can imagine that the constant travel and resulting disorientation is a contributing factor to fatigue. This article discusses the challenges.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/2878521/

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#29

Post by defen » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:09 PM UTC

TwoBit wrote: post #2

I must not understand Baseball well, because it strikes me as one of the least fatiguing sports that there are.

162 games in 184 days, half of which are in not-your-home-city. Any particular game isn't too bad, but the cumulative stress of that many games and that much travel really adds up. That's also why the meta-game of baseball is important - e.g. sometimes it's better to play your weaker guys in the middle of the season, with the concomitant reduced chance of winning those relatively unimportant games, so you can have your stars rested for September/October. But don't rest them too much, or you won't even make the playoffs...

Re: Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue

#30

Post by scott_s » Tue, Feb 24, 2015, 10:11 PM UTC

UnethicalHacks wrote: post #5

carsongross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what I'd recommend: for four hours, alternate sitting and standing every ten minutes in a sunny park. When standing, once every thirty seconds or so tense into a squat position and concentrate as hard as you can on something about 100 feet away. Every 10th time, sprint all out in a random direction. Every 20th time, throw a rock as hard as you can as far as you can. What you will find is that you, a normal hu…

No, if you're a professional athlete this should not be all that difficult. Boring but not difficult. Look at the average baseball player. So many of them are plump or overweight. I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more to deal with. baseball needs some yoga and proper nutrition.

I agree that one baseball game is less stress on an athlete's body than one soccer game. But soccer players play about 30-40 games a season; major league baseball players play 162 games a season.