[quote]Professor X wrote:
GSUPike wrote:
Here is a better one.
Wow. If anyone on this forum IS NOT seeing gains like that from years of training, something is wrong. I swear people talk about the man like he’s winning Olympia contests. He is simply bigger than the average couch potato. Anyone with half decent genetics for weight training should be able to reach that point and surpass it.[/quote]
i totally agree with you prof.
In defense of Barry Bondsfrom Dr. DeVany’s website:
Around the Bases, One More Time
I was once an expert witness in a case where the plaintiff made the same argument many proponents of steroids make. Their expert claimed that they had been damaged and it was plain to see that the damage was large because the company spent so much money trying to prevent the damage.
This is completely circular, as are so many of the steroid arguments. The conclusion, the damage, is already in the premise. To make this more clear I said this is like saying there are a lot of ghosts in my house because why else would I spend so much money on ghost detection devices and ghost prevention services. I never saw a judge laugh so hard. End of case.
To make the same claim for steroids is equally silly. Because some athletes take them they must work. Look these guys are not rocket scientists and neither are the people who may be advising them. What Joseph rightly did was to say look at the evidence over all steroid and non-steroid hitters, or a sample of them. This is how a scientist would test the proposition. And, he pointed to the large number of steroid users who failed to accomplish anything.
Too many people fall for this Michael Jordan effect; I’ll go buy his shoes and play like him. New shoes will not give you a vertical leap of 40 inches. And a few steroid shots won’t give you the skill and quickness to hit home runs.
Just because it is chemistry and not simply shoes, some people may fall for the Michael Jordan effect. And there is slightly more to it in this instance. But, there is no talent in that juice, just a testosterone derivative that will change many things in your body, not just your muscle. Your testes will begin to shut down because there is a feedback between their output and what is in your blood. Excess testosterone will aromatize (body fat is the big factor here) into estrogen, so you will find your feminine side. You may find that big breasts get in the way and slow your bat speed. There is almost no experimental evidence on this issue because there are so many risks of trying to do an real scientific test. The one I could find from 1996 showed negligible effects of steroids in a controlled experiment.
For all the fears of steroids, there are no reported cases of baseball players dying of cancer or showing any health problems. There is likely to be a higher level of steroid use on your local high school football team than on a professional baseball team. And these insecure young males who lack the knowledge and balance to deal with challenges are the most likely users who then go on to become abusers.
And let’s let poor Lyle Alzhedo rest in peace. He has been made the poster boy of steroid abuse. Abuse is far different from sensible use. There is no evidence that steroid use promotes brain cancer. More Boston Marathon runners (4 that I know of so far and there are doubtless more) have died of brain cancer than football players who were known steroid users. And, in the case of marathoning, the chemical messengers and mechanisms are known (see my Top Ten Reasons Not to Run Marathons).
I repeat: there is not a shred of evidence that steroids improves home run hitting. How I looked at the issue…
Read More ?
was to examine performance over many players and years, adding up to some 44,000 player years. There have been no changes. The statistical distribution (a complex object which is really the only way to look at this issue historically because averages are unstable and the standard deviation does not exist) is the same. Bonds performance (his 73) does not exceed his average by as much a Maris’ (61) exceeded his average or McGwire’s (70) exceeded his. Poor Roger Maris was hounded and taunted and never received the honor he should have by these creepy, pencil-necked sports writers. The idea of asterisking his record was sick (Ruth too, played more games than Williamson did when he broke his record and his final record was achieved in more games than his previous record, but no astericks for him). Roger declined into alcoholism if I recall correctly. Bonds is too strong for this to happen to him. And he has the proper contempt for these self-promoting sports writers who could not even carry his bat to the plate, no less swing it.
Look, it is a complex stochastic process because it is elite performance we are looking at. You don’t expect Mozart to write three great pieces of music every year, year after year. Home run hitting at the very highest levels is fundamentally the same process; it is genius at work. Babe Ruth had substantial variation in his home run hitting, though less than any one has been able to do since he led the way and changed the game.
Having three guys break the old records (McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds in that order) is well within the statistical variation of the process. You would not think it impossible to roll box cars three times in a row in dice. Improbable, yes, but in enough throws it is sure to happen. And it could happen in home runs without any thing but the natural variation of events under the odds.
But, when you think of the odds in home run hitting it isn’t something tame like dice. It is a “wild” statistical distribution such as Nassim Taleb discusses in his excellent Fooled by Randomness or Mandelbrot in his many fine books and papers. It is the Richter Law of Earthquakes, the De Vany Law of Movies, and, as I show in my home run paper, it is the law of genius in science, the arts, and the extremes of wealth as developed by Pareto, Lotka, Price and Charles Murray in his magisterial Human Accomplishment.
Old timers hit home runs as far as modern players do. The longest home run accurately documented is still Mickey Mantle’s 1953 506 foot home over left field in the old Griffith Park (see my paper). As a kid (17) I hit a ball out of old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles (the old brick stadium where the PCL Angels played) that was over the wall at the height of the roof over the second tier of seating. Aaron, Adcock and others hit home runs over the fence at the temporary bleachers they put up in front of center field of the old Polo Grounds. It was 480 to dead center.
As to warning track shots turning into shots into the seats, I discuss that in the paper and show it can add no more than 1 to 3 home runs a year to a player’s performance. No evidence that this has happened. A mishit ball will be even more mishit at a higher bat speed.
Bonds used a 33 ounce, maple bat to hit his 73 home runs. Because maple is more dense, his bat had only a 2.5 inch diameter rather than the 2.75 that Ruth and Maris used and most players use.
I think he is on to something here. The higher density maple has a higher COR or coefficient of restitution that will drive the ball farther. Moreover, the smaller bat diameter puts more “bite” on the ball, causing it to spin more. That is why he gets such height on his shots, which is the key to tape measure distance. He is hitting with a 7 iron when the others are hitting with a 5 iron.
They are going to hit more line drives than he does and he might hit more towering pop ups. Even if he hits over the top of the ball it will have so much spin on it that it will be hard to handle. But, his bat has about 4% less hitting area, a small cost to a great talent like his and the spin and bite would seem to be worth it. I am going to look at my softball bats and see if I can find something with a smaller diameter than the allowed maximum.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Sepukku wrote:
8 Big Pimpin
That picture is awesome.[/quote]
Hahah yeah, I love that kid’s face. Oh and that girl is pretty fit too.
[quote]bosox4L wrote:
Sepukku wrote:
Some Favorite Non-Bodybuilding Pics:
She needs to lose the yankees uniform[/quote]
I hope you’re saying that because you want to see her naked, not because you’re a red sox fan! 
[quote]Smakm wrote:
…had to be done[/quote]
Pic didnt work?
More Pics:
Brave Man.
Halloween in the Hospital! (For X)
cool.
BUSTED! LOL! That’s the Irish for ya!
T-Ladies: Do you shave your beaver??
BUMP THREAD
baha
[quote]Sepukku wrote:
10-Last but certainly not least. Great Film. Ash is my hero![/quote]
I still remember seein that at the movies when I was like 10. When he “ryu’d” up the well and the chainsaw attached to his severed hand was the coolest thing a 10 yr old me had seen in a movie.
Ansel Adams
Mantegna - “Battle of the Sea Gods”
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Sepukku wrote:
10-Last but certainly not least. Great Film. Ash is my hero!
I still remember seein that at the movies when I was like 10. When he “ryu’d” up the well and the chainsaw attached to his severed hand was the coolest thing a 10 yr old me had seen in a movie.[/quote]
Haha, yes that was glorious! He then proceeds to cut off the witches hand which flies up and cups the mouth of the old man much to the liking of the blacksmith, who cracks up-So wonderfully random!! I could go on and on about it; glad there’s more Ash fans out there!
and again
[quote]superscience wrote:
baha[/quote]
LOL! genius!
[quote]Natural Nate wrote:
Ansel Adams[/quote]
V. Cool.
