Can you hit a curveball? Cool optical illusion

[ric1287]

:biggrin: Thankee for the laugh. Truly. Wasn't the case at all, since I really and truly despise baseball. It's a very slow game that doesn't require much skill. I think the slowness really turned me off, same with golf. At-bats were okay, but knocking it past the outfielders every single time then having to sit around for the next 20 minutes really turned me off.

hahaha man, spoken truly like that stereotypical dude that THINKS he's incredible at baseball (or any sport he played in grade school) because he hit a couple balls hard in a batting cage one time.

Just take off your d-bag hat for a moment, and consider how many thousands and thousands of pro baseball players there are every year that don't make it.

 

[BeauJangles]

:biggrin: Thankee for the laugh. Truly. Wasn't the case at all, since I really and truly despise baseball. It's a very slow game that doesn't require much skill. I think the slowness really turned me off, same with golf. At-bats were okay, but knocking it past the outfielders every single time then having to sit around for the next 20 minutes really turned me off.

Good story.

Baseball is so easy even a caveman can do it.

 

[SunnyD]

hahaha man, spoken truly like that stereotypical dude that THINKS he's incredible at baseball (or any sport he played in grade school) because he hit a couple balls hard in a batting cage one time.

Just take off your d-bag hat for a moment, and consider how many thousands and thousands of pro baseball players there are every year that don't make it.

Grade school, hah. Funny. I'm not saying I hit against pro pitchers or anything, but it was definitely well past grade school.

What's funnier is that everyone gets their panties bunched when someone says something bad about stickball.

 

[Fenixgoon]

baseball is boring. 3 seconds of action, 3 hours of non-action.

 

[Cyco]

Neat-o

 

[DrPizza]

Has anyone mathematically analyzed the strike zone? If you could narrow down which third of the strike zone the ball was going to go through, and just randomly swung in that third of the strike zone, you'd hit the ball what? Maybe 25% of the time? 30% of the time?

Heyyyyy, isn't that about a typical batting average? It's not skill - it's simply probabilities. I don't see how you can call something "skill" that you fail at 70% of the time.

Hell, good dart players in a bar - throwing a dart at a tiny bullseye - they hit it about 70% of the time or better. That's skill. Baseball: swinging a bat approximately where the ball is going to cross the plate & failing 70% of the time: not skill.

"Ohhhh, look! Hitting a curve ball takes a lot of skill!" Bullshit - they miss the curveball a huge percentage of the time, even if they suspect a curveball. Hitting it: mostly luck with some skill; not mostly skill.

4 year olds play t-ball. By 7 or 8, they're pitching the ball and hitting the ball. But, 7 and 8 year olds can't hit the bullseye on a dartboard 70% of the time. Conclusion: fat beer drinking dart players at bars have more skill than MLB players. They just can't run in the outfield. 😛

 

[Jeff7]

baseball is boring. 3 seconds of action, 3 hours of non-action.

This
+
this
+
this
=
Baseball @ 10000 hits per hour.😱

 

[Terabyte]

freaky

 

[dethman]

that's why they tell you to keep your eye on the ball

 

[Legendary]

Has anyone mathematically analyzed the strike zone? If you could narrow down which third of the strike zone the ball was going to go through, and just randomly swung in that third of the strike zone, you'd hit the ball what? Maybe 25% of the time? 30% of the time?

Heyyyyy, isn't that about a typical batting average? It's not skill - it's simply probabilities. I don't see how you can call something "skill" that you fail at 70% of the time.

Hell, good dart players in a bar - throwing a dart at a tiny bullseye - they hit it about 70% of the time or better. That's skill. Baseball: swinging a bat approximately where the ball is going to cross the plate & failing 70% of the time: not skill.

"Ohhhh, look! Hitting a curve ball takes a lot of skill!" Bullshit - they miss the curveball a huge percentage of the time, even if they suspect a curveball. Hitting it: mostly luck with some skill; not mostly skill.

4 year olds play t-ball. By 7 or 8, they're pitching the ball and hitting the ball. But, 7 and 8 year olds can't hit the bullseye on a dartboard 70% of the time. Conclusion: fat beer drinking dart players at bars have more skill than MLB players. They just can't run in the outfield. 😛

Surprising to see such poor math estimation out of you DrPizza :\

A .300 batting average is 30% of the at bats you take end with you hitting a ball aware from the 9 fielders and reaching first base without making an out. not the same as making any contact with the baseball.

on top of that we have:

Home plate = 17 inches wide, roughly 18 inches high (varies per batter but it's knees to waist essentially) = 306 inches squared
Maximum diameter of a MLB baseball bat = 2 3/4 inches (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_inches_in_length_can_a_major_league_baseball_bat)


so lay the 2 3/4 inches across the 17 inch wide plate and you have coverage of 46.75 inches squared, which covers 15.2% of the strike zone. And this is only in 2 dimensions, the strike zone has depth as well (also 17 inches)

and that's just for pure contact. try hitting it fair, sharply, away from a fielder 🙂

 

[Legendary]

also big 🙄 to anyone who claims they passed on giving it a go at the only sport that doesn't have a salary cap

 

[DrPizza]

Surprising to see such poor math estimation out of you DrPizza :\

A .300 batting average is 30% of the at bats you take end with you hitting a ball aware from the 9 fielders and reaching first base without making an out. not the same as making any contact with the baseball.

on top of that we have:

Home plate = 17 inches wide, roughly 18 inches high (varies per batter but it's knees to waist essentially) = 306 inches squared
Maximum diameter of a MLB baseball bat = 2 3/4 inches (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_inches_in_length_can_a_major_league_baseball_bat)


so lay the 2 3/4 inches across the 17 inch wide plate and you have coverage of 46.75 inches squared, which covers 15.2% of the strike zone. And this is only in 2 dimensions, the strike zone has depth as well (also 17 inches)

and that's just for pure contact. try hitting it fair, sharply, away from a fielder 🙂

Surprising to see that you don't realize the little guy up there, the one with his tongue sticking out, implies that I'm just joking. Oh, and they were VERY rough estimates. You overlooked that I pointed out that with some skill, you should be at least able to have the bat in the correct 1/3 of the strike zone. 😉 😛 😛 😉

edit: whoa, wait a second. While the bat only covers an area of 46.75 in², you're overlooking the fact that the ball can be slightly above or below the bat. 2-3/4" above or below in fact. Think of it this way: Stretch a wire across the plate. All a ball has to do is come within 2-3/4" of the wire to contact the wire. That's a 5 1/2" wide area for that ball. Add that on to the bat's thickness... Wow, now my joke is up to 45.6% probability of making contact with the ball. What percent of balls contacted by a batter result in outs? Subtract that & we should have a rough idea of the batting average of a random person capable only of timing the bat to be above the plate at the same time as ball. 😛 😛 😉 😉

 

[arcenite]

Surprising to see that you don't realize the little guy up there, the one with his tongue sticking out, implies that I'm just joking. Oh, and they were VERY rough estimates. You overlooked that I pointed out that with some skill, you should be at least able to have the bat in the correct 1/3 of the strike zone. You did the math... now we're up to 45.6% chance of making contact with the ball. What percent of balls that are connected with are actually hits? 😉 😛 😛 😉

What is 30%, Alex