Hairyducked Idiot

First, you can't just "try" to be a slap hittter. You either have that skill or you don't. If he was a slap-hitter, he would have been one all the way through the minors. Second, if you are thinking of the double I think you are, you are incredibly underestimating how hard it was hit. Nobody in all of baseball cuts that ball off for a single.

Probably should have let Fukudome pitch the 10th. Well, hindsight...

He's a bad player. Certainly the worst in the Cubs starting lineup.

First hard hit ball off of Zambrano, by my recknoning.

Sheets has just been that good. We've hit him harder than the Brewers have hit Zambrano.

First, I bet there's a lot less difference than you'd think in your performance. People like to think they perform best when they are most relaxed and happiest, but the evidence doesn't really point to that. If there was an ability to hit differently in "pressure" situations, it'd show up in the studies. It's that simple. Guys who hit the most home runs tend to continue hitting the most home runs. Guys who hit lefties but not righties tend to continue to do so. Guys with high batting averages one year tend to be the ones with high batting averages the next season. Guys who hit well in the clutch? No tendency overall.

"No, not really. I understand what probability distribution is" Apparently you don't, or you would have made the following statement. "but I don't buy the fact that Casey Blake sucking year after year after year after year after year in those situations is due to the fact that it had to eventually happen to somebody and he's just the unlucky one. Poor Casey Blake, he can't be blamed for him being a choke artist, he's just unlucky! Every year!" Except for that year where he absolutely rocked with RISP and 2 outs, as someone pointed out. This is just the intellectual cousin of believing that a roulette wheel is due for black. It's a simple misunderstanding of how statistics works. "I really don't understand why people can't accept the fact that the mental aspect of the game sometime results in players reacting differently in important situations. Why is that so hard to believe? They aren"t robots, they're humans. Some people can handle the pressure, some people press and try to do too much. That's not probability distribution." Because there was no pressure in all those high school, college, and minor league games that they thrived in all the way up? "If I don't hit .300 in AA, I have to go back home and work in a factory for the rest of my life. But if I do, I'm a millionaire." That's no problem for these guys, but seeing a baserunner on second base makes them choke up?

Hmm. Now I guess I'm done posting in this thread, too. That pretty much covers it.

I've also heard that roulette wheels sometimes hit black many times in a row.

"I don't think guys likethat exist, and if they do, there aren't many. Guys that either suck or excel in clutch stats are all over the league. That's a lot of "flukes". " I don't think you've really done any research to support that conclusion. I suspect you pretty much just made it up. If you want to do a statistically sound study of whether or not that is the case, feel free. Others have already done the legwork for you, though. It is cool that you link Andy Dolphin's study. I know him, and have played a lot of the awesome statistical games he designs. But with that study, I strongly suspect what he actually discovered was not "clutchness," but the ability to exploit defensive inefficiencies in situations that involve runners on base. I'm perfectly willing to accept that ground-ball hitters do a slightly better job of taking advantage of hitting with runners on base because of defensive inefficiencies (or, if you prefer a different explanation for Dolphin's results). But that's a long step from Dolphin's study to making the sorts of claims you have made in this thread.

There are hundreds of players in the majors each year. It is statistically inevitable that a few will have flukey splits several years in a row.

Well, it'd only postpone the day when Wrigley Field can finally be replaced with a modern ballpark, so I guess I'm marginally against it.

I couldn't care less. Why should a professional sports team be expected to comment on a public issue?

I run a dual-boot XP/Linux Ubuntu computer at home. At my job, I use a Mac. I've found that I can goof off on the internet equally well on all of them.

I've never once driven with even a single drink in me. Not only do I not talk on my cell phone while driving, my friends and family know that they will be hung up on if I find out they are driving while talking to me. I haven't exceeded the speed limit in two years. I feel completely at ease sitting in judgment on Leyritz and anybody else who does it. The "it could have been anyone" thing is something that befuddles me, like people who are that irresponsible and selfish assume the rest of us are as well. That said, I'm a right dirty jerk in a lot of other ways.

Steve Stone's crystal ball was predicting that pitchers would throw breaking balls out of the zone to impatient hitters when ahead in the count. Uncannily prescient there, Steve.

Pat Hughes before they replaced Cubs games with the Pat and Ron Show .

Translation for Bulls fans = We are content with making the playoffs and losing in the 2nd round again, so deal with it. The team as constructed is good enough to win the East. That has more to do with the East than the Bulls, but it's true. No it's not. Everyone's giving Cleveland crap for not improving. We did not improve much either. Joe Smith? Joakim Noah? That's not the difference of winning another playoff series. We can't beat New Jersey. They'd sweep us in a best of 7. Pierce, Allen, and Garnett would get to the line 60 times against us. We can't beat Boston. And Detroit manhandled us in our series against them last year. We're the 4th best team in the East as it stands. I think Miami and Toronto would give us a solid 7-game series as well. We'd be favored, but no prohibitively. I wonder how long until Bulls fans realize the team is in the worst possibel spot you can be in the NBA. A lot of pretty good young players + no superstars = playoffs losses = no lottery picks = no chance of superstars = virtually no chance at title. Detroit was a fluke. Virtually every other title in the last few decades has been won by one of the top 5 or 10 players in the league at the time.

Fair to note, though: Unless the rules have changed in the last few years, I don't believe teams directly receiving revenue from jerseys. I think it is shared equally among all teams.

In baseball? Absolutely. Great is very rare. Pretty good (I know you said 'very', but grant me a little license) is abundant. With A-Rod at SS or 2B, you are giving ~10% of your team's plate appearances to one of the best hitters in the game, and you are doing it from a position that your competitors have to fill with slap hitters. You start your team with A-Rod at a middle infield position, and I start mine with Ryan Theriot, and that difference is almost insurmountable if you don't do anything stupid with your remaining 24 roster spots.

Down 1, Webb has only thrown 89 pitches through 7. He should have enough to finish, or at least get through eight. Aren't we glad we were aggressive early in counts?

Theriot's major league career continues to thrive on the fact that if you make enough crappy contact, sometimes you get lucky.

Cubs have more hard-hit balls, more baserunners, fewer Ks, and trail 1-0. Arizona really is magic.

No fair! Their scrappy young infielder is actually a good player.

Ballgame. Series. Window of opportunity. Franchise.