MLB Off-Topic

[DrJones]

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

[TripleCrown9]

Part of what makes baseball great is the myths.

No need to disprove them.

[l3ulvl]

Quote: Originally Posted by TripleCrown9

Part of what makes baseball great is the myths. No need to disprove them.

Pretty sure Cecil Fielder hit it from Detroit to Canada

[Blzer]

Quote: Originally Posted by TripleCrown9

Part of what makes baseball great is the myths. No need to disprove them.

10-15 years ago I would've agreed with you, but we're in a new era now where technology provides us all that we can with today's numbers, and I feel they must be compared as evenly as science can with yesterday's numbers.

I'm sure that these looming legends and tales were experiences that were awesome and thrilling to behold, almost like movie special effects suddenly seen in real life. Those will cherish these experiences as long as memory lasts. But romance is not physics, majesty is not measurement, and thrill is not accuracy. Today, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'm even set to debunk Statcast when I feel it's wrong (as it did with Kris Bryant at Wrigley Field).

For those myths that we have no way of disproving, I'll let them be. Kingman's home run, however, is from archived footage in a present-day ballpark. Not only can we verify what 520 or 540 feet at Wrigley Field looks like thanks to satellite imaging, but that video does not tell me that the ball hit where it was claimed to be hit. I could be wrong, but I've heard eyewitness testimony be wrong or altered so many times that the legend literally just becomes a fable.

I forgot that Sosa once hit a bomb out there that might be about that 530-foot distance. It cleared a tree to the right of the same Waveland building that Hill hit his shot onto. That's probably the farthest in-game one I've seen at Wrigley in footage.

[TripleCrown9]

I mean yeah, disproving stuff like that is absolutely possible.

But I genuinely don't care. Kingman hit one onto that front porch that went 540. That's cool.

Mantle hit one that was still rising when it hit the top of the frieze at Yankee Stadium, that everyone believes was easily 600 feet.

Babe Ruth called his shot.

Ted Williams hit a home run so far that not a single player in the 78 years since has even come close to that red seat.

Not everything has to be answered with "Well, actually..." Sports are allowed to be fun.

[Blzer]

Quote: Originally Posted by TripleCrown9

I mean yeah, disproving stuff like that is absolutely possible. But I genuinely don't care. Kingman hit one onto that front porch that went 540. That's cool. Mantle hit one that was still rising when it hit the top of the frieze at Yankee Stadium, that everyone believes was easily 600 feet. Babe Ruth called his shot. Ted Williams hit a home run so far that not a single player in the 78 years since has even come close to that red seat. Not everything has to be answered with "Well, actually..." Sports are allowed to be fun.

Of course they are allowed to be fun. I said all the time that the ball sounded different off Bonds' bat than anybody else's, and maybe that's true, maybe it's a placebo effect, or maybe it's completely fictionalized. I just think that today's world is a bit different when everything can be quantified, and we're seeing that some things just couldn't have ever been.

By the way, Carl Everett once called his shot and no one seems to point that one out.

[Picci]

"Maybe Tomorrow We´ll All Wear 42. That way they won't tell us apart"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4hHjMEsp2I

[Ghost Of The Year]

''Well, actually''...
if a bat was corked 'properly', a ball could be hit 540 foot, plus you get the wind blowing right. I'm not saying that's how Kingman did it , but its plausible. Sosa was a known bat corker, I'm sure there were plenty down thru the years who corked one time or another and were never caught. Its a lot easier to catch a pitcher with spider tack or sandpaper than to discovering a bat has been corked.

I'm so sceptical of everything nowadays, I wouldn't be shocked if Cal Ripken or Derek Jeter admitted to PED's, or even if Babe Ruth had used corked bats. Cheating in baseball didn't begin with Jose Canseco, baseball has a long and storied history with cheating from the moment the second team was formed. And that isn't exclusive to baseball. Cheating since day one has been in football, basketball, automobile racing, bowling, chess and anything that has two entities competing with each other. Cheating is human nature, even if not everyone acts on the impulse.