Re: Roberts: OH mini update (p.183); Happy 200!! (p.200)

[seanimal]

Oh I read about that experiment in Scientific American. There were some other experiments about things that don't matter but I can't remember the other ones right this moment.

[wekse]

a half second is a hell of a difference and i'd imagine if this was true every big leaguer would be sliding into first...just my opinion though, i'm not a scientist.

[DeuceBaseman]

a half second is a hell of a difference and i'd imagine if this was true every big leaguer would be sliding into first...just my opinion though, i'm not a scientist.

 

Sorry i was off, I just looked back at the results. Running through was 4.425 secs, Sliding head first was 4.325 secs, and sliding feet first was 4.2 secs. So it was about .2-.3 secs faster from sliding feet to running.

[mul21]

i'm curious about this "experiment". you had 10 buddies run to first and slide into first and timed them. how many times did they do each version? were they just running or were they hitting off a tee?

 

1/2 a second faster sounds awfully dubious

 

I had 9 of my friends, and me. So 10 of us did it. Some of us had a lot of baseball skills and sliding skills while some have never slid before and I had to teach them how to slide. Each one of us ran to first through the bag 5 times, slid into first feet first 5 times, and slid head first 5 times. Some of us did it in a different order, like some slid head first first, some ran through first, and some slid feet first first. I had them start at home plate and just sprint towards first. I timed them as soon as they started moving and stopped it as soon as they hit the bag. Almost every trial (except for maybe 2 scores) showed that sliding feet first was fastest, followed by head first, then running through. One of my friends timed me as well and I had it in that same order. I averaged all the scores and it was about .5 seconds faster to slide feet than it was to run through. And about .3 seconds faster to slide feet than slide head. I think this showed me a lot, especially since I used many different skill leveled people. I'm going to try it again this year with my HS team.

 

While your hypothesis and experiment may be true, I think your time figures are way off. If you figure a world class sprinter covers 100m in 10 seconds, .5 seconds equates to about 4-5 meters (12.5-15.5 ft). There's no way that's possible. Now, if you were saying it was .03 and .05 seconds difference, I could buy that. That would equate out to about 1-1.5 ft, which is significant, but not completely unbelievable like the other scenario.

 

Edit: And he realized he was wrong, rendering my post pointless. But I still find .1 and .225 seconds to be highly unlikely unless the participants are running on one leg or the timing mechanism had a huge error in it. That still gets you somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-7 feet difference in getting to the bag.

Edited February 19, 2008 by mul21

[DenverCubs]

 

have fun breaking your finger/dislocating your shoulder when you run into the first baseman's leg

That is not what we are arguing and we have both already stated so.

Right...sliding is stupid because you will get hurt way more often, not because it gets you to the bag slower.

[TheGrinch]

DOUBLE POST Edited February 19, 2008 by TheGrinch

[TheGrinch]

a half second is a hell of a difference and i'd imagine if this was true every big leaguer would be sliding into first...just my opinion though, i'm not a scientist.

I'd agree that is a heck of a difference and I would doubt it really is that large of a difference...but then again, the fact that people in baseball aren't doing something is far from good evidence of anything. Some baseball management might not know what OPS+ is, or if they do, they disregard it.

 

(BTW, love the sig. Whenever I'm hanging out with the wife and we are bored, I do Eric's part of the "reception room sketch" and it brightens our day)

 

EDIT: What Mul said, even the corrected times from the experiment seem too large.

[CubinNY]

F =ma

An object with a certain velocity maintains that velocity unless a force acts on it to cause an acceleration, or in this case a deceleration. Any time a person stops running they are decelerating.

 

Also probably some other ones that I forgot a long time ago about velocity and friction.

This is horrible. First off, I earlier explained that friction (at least from the ground) is not in play here. You are diving to touch the bag immediately, not to slide into it. Second...the bold part. A science teacher's head might explode if a student told him this with no explanation. No, you just explained why when you stop running you don't necessarily decelerate. F=ma. There is air-resistance...but that effects you when you are running, too. In fact, continuing to run will INCREASE the frictional forces working against you as you are still connecting with the ground. I'll conceed the point that not taking those last two steps will decrease your speed as you cross the bag. I am not arguing that and never will. But the advantage of being able to reach out and touch the bag as your center of mass is significantly behind the bag offsets that slight loss of speed.

 

If you imagine Wilt Chamberlain diving toward the bag instead of running over it, can you imagine the advantage of having your center of mass behind the bag and still being there? The only difference there is scale.

 

[bragging]Claiming that science says it's impossible with a Geophysicist probably isn't your best bet, btw. [/bragging]

Friction is not at play? You are either joking or you've never seen someone slide into first base in a cloud of dust.

 

The center of mass has nothing to do with sliding or running, velocity does.

 

Sliding cannot be faster than running through a base for the following reasons:

 

1. a person has to stop running to slide thereby slowing down

2. when a person slides more surface area is in contact with the ground thereby slowing down

 

The only reason that people slide into second base, third, and home is:

 

1. To avoid a tag.

2. so they don't lose contact with the base when tagged.

 

We can have a debate about lunging vs sliding if you want, but there is no debate about running vs sliding.

Q: Why don't sprinters or speed skaters slide to the finish line?

A: Because sliding slows them down.

 

This is pretty ridiculous.

[DenverCubs]

F =ma

An object with a certain velocity maintains that velocity unless a force acts on it to cause an acceleration, or in this case a deceleration. Any time a person stops running they are decelerating.

 

Also probably some other ones that I forgot a long time ago about velocity and friction.

This is horrible. First off, I earlier explained that friction (at least from the ground) is not in play here. You are diving to touch the bag immediately, not to slide into it. Second...the bold part. A science teacher's head might explode if a student told him this with no explanation. No, you just explained why when you stop running you don't necessarily decelerate. F=ma. There is air-resistance...but that effects you when you are running, too. In fact, continuing to run will INCREASE the frictional forces working against you as you are still connecting with the ground. I'll conceed the point that not taking those last two steps will decrease your speed as you cross the bag. I am not arguing that and never will. But the advantage of being able to reach out and touch the bag as your center of mass is significantly behind the bag offsets that slight loss of speed.

 

If you imagine Wilt Chamberlain diving toward the bag instead of running over it, can you imagine the advantage of having your center of mass behind the bag and still being there? The only difference there is scale.

 

[bragging]Claiming that science says it's impossible with a Geophysicist probably isn't your best bet, btw. [/bragging]

Friction is not at play? You are either joking or you've never seen someone slide into first base in a cloud of dust.

 

The center of mass has nothing to do with sliding or running, velocity does.

 

Sliding cannot be faster than running through a base for the following reasons:

 

1. a person has to stop running to slide thereby slowing down

2. when a person slides more surface area is in contact with the ground thereby slowing down

 

The only reason that people slide into second base, third, and home is:

 

1. To avoid a tag.

2. so they don't lose contact with the base when tagged.

 

We can have a debate about lunging vs sliding if you want, but there is no debate about running vs sliding.

Q: Why don't sprinters or speed skaters slide to the finish line?

A: Because sliding slows them down.

 

This is pretty ridiculous.

1)I'm not sliding before I reach the bag, just after. After I've already touched it. Yes, you could easily get hurt "DIVING" at the bag. Thats not the point.

2)I understand the reasons for sliding into 2nd/3rd etc. That's a different situation.

3)The sprinters thing has already been covered. If to win a race you only had to cross the finish line with the tip of your finger, sprinters would be diving for the line with their hands stretched out in front of them. Since that doesn't win a race, they don't.

 

One more time, to get to the bag fastest, with any part of your body, you should probably dive head first, arms outstretched at the bag. You should time it so that the first thing your body (hand) comes in contact with (other than air) is the bag.

No one will do this since you will get hurt.

What a dumb argument.

[CubinNY]

What a dumb argument.

Agreed.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that .2 seconds is probably within the margin of error for a 10 guys doing 5 trials for each of the 3 finishes.

[RedFlash]

What a dumb argument.

Agreed.

 

We definately need some baseball games, stat.

[TheGrinch]

Friction is not at play? You are either joking or you've never seen someone slide into first base in a cloud of dust.

 

Reading comprehension not a strong suit, huh? I'd post a longer response, but since I already answered this in the post you replied to, I won't. The simple concept of sticking your hand out to reach something seems over your head, so I won't bother arguing anymore.

 

I'm gonna go ahead and say that .2 seconds is probably within the margin of error for a 10 guys doing 5 trials for each of the 3 finishes.

Doing this test by hand with a stop watch from a biased observer is almost totally worthless.

Edited February 19, 2008 by TheGrinch

[CubinNY]

Friction is not at play? You are either joking or you've never seen someone slide into first base in a cloud of dust.

 

Reading comprehension not a strong suit, huh? I'd post a longer response, but since I already answered this in the post you replied to, I won't.

Me no get it.

 

I'll post my scientific publication record if you post yours.

[Derwood]

1)I'm not sliding before I reach the bag, just after. After I've already touched it. Yes, you could easily get hurt "DIVING" at the bag. Thats not the point.

 

that IS the point. any "theory" of getting to the bag fastest is tossed right out the window when it has no real world application

[DeuceBaseman]

Right...sliding is stupid because you will get hurt way more often, not because it gets you to the bag slower.

 

I disagree. I think sliding is safer than running through the bag. I have never got injured from sliding into a bag, especially feet first. But I have gotten injured running through the bag quite a few times and have seen others as well because they land on the bag awkwardly with the side of their ankles, or they hit the side of the bag or step on the 1B foot. If you know how to slide you shouldnt get hurt.

[brinoch]

All right. I asked once, nicely, to conduct the debate on sliding into first in another thread. The debate continued for several pages. This thread is now locked. Take the sliding into first debate into Baseball Discussions and into its own appropriate thread. Do you all understand this now?

[TheGrinch]

All right. I asked once, nicely, to conduct the debate on sliding into first in another thread. The debate continued for several pages. This thread is now locked. Take the sliding into first debate into Baseball Discussions and into its own appropriate thread. Do you all understand this now?

I'm boycotting this thread

[brinoch]

All right. I asked once, nicely, to conduct the debate on sliding into first in another thread. The debate continued for several pages. This thread is now locked. Take the sliding into first debate into Baseball Discussions and into its own appropriate thread. Do you all understand this now?

I'm boycotting this thread

 

Okay by me.

[Mizzou]

Wait... is this seriously a topic? People think that sliding into first will get you there quicker than sprinting? What the?

[sneakypower]

you're lucky Brenly didn't catch you doing those experiments.

[UK1679666180]

If you want your kids to get down to 1st quicker, teach them have to maintain good balance through their follow-through to get a good push-off out of the box. Most ids swing from their heels and have to gather themselves before running. They compound it by looking for the ball as soon as it leaves the bat, take 3 strides to 1B then look. Also, run a straight line, some weave like they've failed a DUI test.

[DeuceBaseman]

Wait... is this seriously a topic? People think that sliding into first will get you there quicker than sprinting? What the?

 

It will. I'm assuming you disagree because your little league baseball coach told you to "never slide into 1st".

[Outshined_One]

a half second is a hell of a difference and i'd imagine if this was true every big leaguer would be sliding into first...just my opinion though, i'm not a scientist.

 

Sorry i was off, I just looked back at the results. Running through was 4.425 secs, Sliding head first was 4.325 secs, and sliding feet first was 4.2 secs. So it was about .2-.3 secs faster from sliding feet to running.

 

I'm guessing you hand-timed this?

[seanimal]

what peer-reviewed journal did you publish these results in?