Winter Banter 24-25

[North and West]

what a  lousy winter it has been so far... whats even more lousy is the negative comments i been reading in the weather threads  if this is what winters will be like from now due to climate change on why even bother.

One thing I have to disagree with is the reflexive reach to climate change for every thing that doesn’t go the way someone prefers. Understand that I’m not denying it or playing it down or don’t think it’s impacting preferred outcomes. It’s like businesses blaming Covid for every issue they faced in the past five years; sure, it’s been an issue, but sometimes it’s just how it goes.


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[dseagull]

3 minutes ago, North and West said:

One thing I have to disagree with is the reflexive reach to climate change for every thing that doesn’t go the way someone prefers. Understand that I’m not denying it or playing it down or don’t think it’s impacting preferred outcomes. It’s like businesses blaming Covid for every issue they faced in the past five years; sure, it’s been an issue, but sometimes it’s just how it goes.


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Well...  the suppression is definitely because of Covid.   We need to flatten the curve, just until the 20th.   

[donsutherland1]

14 minutes ago, North and West said:

One thing I have to disagree with is the reflexive reach to climate change for every thing that doesn’t go the way someone prefers. Understand that I’m not denying it or playing it down or don’t think it’s impacting preferred outcomes. It’s like businesses blaming Covid for every issue they faced in the past five years; sure, it’s been an issue, but sometimes it’s just how it goes.


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Although it's possible, but not yet certain, that New York City is in the very early stages of a transition to lower snowfall from a warming climate, it should be noted that even in a warmer climate, both big snowstorms and snowy winters will remain possible for decades to come. Washington, DC's 7.2" snowfall on January 6 provides an example. Winters 2009-10,  2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 provide examples of snowy winters there.

The impacts of climate change will concern generally warmer winters, more "stuck patterns," and SST-forced changes from the increasing frequency of marine heatwaves. Nevertheless, internal variability will remain significant, even within the context of a warmer climate than the present one.

[North and West]

Although it's possible, but not yet certain, that New York City is in the very early stages of a transition to lower snowfall from a warming climate, it should be noted that even in a warmer climate, both big snowstorms and snowy winters will remain possible for decades to come. Washington, DC's 7.2" snowfall on January 6 provides an example. Winters 2009-10,  2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 provide examples of snowy winters there.
The impacts of climate change will concern generally warmer winters, more "stuck patterns," and SST-forced changes from the increasing frequency of marine heatwaves. Nevertheless, internal variability will remain significant, even within the context of a warmer climate than the present one.

Great point. I’ve always likened climate change to steroids in baseball; obvious impact, more home runs, but not every home run is attributed to it.


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[LibertyBell]

59 minutes ago, donsutherland1 said:

Although it's possible, but not yet certain, that New York City is in the very early stages of a transition to lower snowfall from a warming climate, it should be noted that even in a warmer climate, both big snowstorms and snowy winters will remain possible for decades to come. Washington, DC's 7.2" snowfall on January 6 provides an example. Winters 2009-10,  2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 provide examples of snowy winters there.

The impacts of climate change will concern generally warmer winters, more "stuck patterns," and SST-forced changes from the increasing frequency of marine heatwaves. Nevertheless, internal variability will remain significant, even within the context of a warmer climate than the present one.

Yes and it's also a stretch to use that as the reason for this year when the Deep South is seeing historic snowfalls.

In that way it's similar to 72-73 and 01-02

[LibertyBell]

49 minutes ago, North and West said:

Great point. I’ve always likened climate change to steroids in baseball; obvious impact, more home runs, but not every home run is attributed to it.


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it affected some hitters more than others.

I can guarantee you that at least 50% of Bonds home runs were because of it.

 

[psv88]

48 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

it affected some hitters more than others.

I can guarantee you that at least 50% of Bonds home runs were because of it.

 

How can you “guarantee” that? He was a 40/40 player pre steroids 

[coastalplainsnowman]

5 hours ago, psv88 said:

How can you “guarantee” that? He was a 40/40 player pre steroids 

That's what makes it even more of a shame.  The guy had been averaging over 35 HRs / 100 RBIs a year and was already at between 400-450 HRs when he likely started.

If memory serves from that BALCO book, he was jealous of all the attention McGuire and Sosa were getting in 1998, yet looking up his 1998 he was 'only' 37/122/.303.  Having said that, given that he was getting into his mid 30s, and the fact that he averaged 52 HRs a year from 2000-2004, I don't think it's a stretch to say that it increased his production by 50%.  I know that's less than Liberty's number, but the point is that right around the time that his neck disappeared, something sure seemed to have a significant effect.

[North and West]

it affected some hitters more than others.
I can guarantee you that at least 50% of Bonds home runs were because of it.
 

I disagree with you. His batting eye was on par with Ted Williams - he didn’t swing at pitches outside at the zone - and he squared up the ball better than anyone. He was incredible before steroids. The steroids were the extra heft that took 400’ fly balls to center and made them 425’ home runs.

Hence the climate change analogy.


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[snowman19]

@Allsnow When is the inevitable “Buckle up!!” tweet coming??

[Allsnow]

11 minutes ago, snowman19 said:

@Allsnow When is the inevitable “Buckle up!!” tweet coming??
 

Haha. I just posted it in the Jan thread. 
 

I think we all been buckled in since Jan 2022 with this guy 

[LibertyBell]

39 minutes ago, North and West said:

I disagree with you. His batting eye was on par with Ted Williams - he didn’t swing at pitches outside at the zone - and he squared up the ball better than anyone. He was incredible before steroids. The steroids were the extra heft that took 400’ fly balls to center and made them 425’ home runs.

Hence the climate change analogy.


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omg I knew him from before steroids, he was very good but not great.

nowhere close to a .400 hitter

Ken Griffey Junior was MUCH better (in all phases of the game.)

[LibertyBell]

13 hours ago, psv88 said:

How can you “guarantee” that? He was a 40/40 player pre steroids 

it's not just about home runs but how his on base percentage spiked way high because no one wanted to pitch to him.

He didn't have the talent of a Ken Griffey Jr.  He was very good but not on the level of the greatest.

[LibertyBell]

7 hours ago, coastalplainsnowman said:

That's what makes it even more of a shame.  The guy had been averaging over 35 HRs / 100 RBIs a year and was already at between 400-450 HRs when he likely started.

If memory serves from that BALCO book, he was jealous of all the attention McGuire and Sosa were getting in 1998, yet looking up his 1998 he was 'only' 37/122/.303.  Having said that, given that he was getting into his mid 30s, and the fact that he averaged 52 HRs a year from 2000-2004, I don't think it's a stretch to say that it increased his production by 50%.  I know that's less than Liberty's number, but the point is that right around the time that his neck disappeared, something sure seemed to have a significant effect.

Yeah and this is exactly why those guys should -NEVER- be allowed into the hall of fame and all their *records* need to be wiped from the history books.

[Dark Star]

20 hours ago, North and West said:

Great point. I’ve always likened climate change to steroids in baseball; obvious impact, more home runs, but not every home run is attributed to it.


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It seems 33% was the increase in production from the use of steroids, league wide in general (at, least from my calculations).

[Dark Star]

Since we are on the "banter" post, I will share my feelings on baseball in steroids.  Baseball, of all the major sports, seemed to be the one were individual efforts could be the most quantitated.  Because of that, I think you could compare generation to generation.  Steroids ruined the mathematics.  No longer can you play simulation computer games based on statistics (to compare generations).  The steroid era will always have the dominant hitters (in general).  My calculations estimated that steroids increased your production by about 33%.  People who did not want to question the steroid era would say that steroids did not hit home runs.  That the hardest thing in sports is to hit a baseball.  While the latter is true, steroids did increase home run production, as well as your batting average.  When Congress held its "steroid hearings" everyone interviewed on the panel were "obvious" steroid users (Congress probably had the "anonymous" testing results when they assembled the witness panel) except for Palmeiro and Schilling.  Even though Palmeiro had not increase in size, his home run production had increased, and after the hearings, he was found to have been juicing.  The only one of the panel not "caught" was Schilling, but perhaps he was more cautious, only juicing for "special" games, especially the playoffs (which might explain why he "rose to the occasion" and was one of baseball's premiere post season pitchers)?  Unfortunately, because of the number of known users at the time, everyone in that era will be suspect.  Some defended their use by saying that they were using them to recover from injury.  Some defend the use by saying that baseball had not yet banned the substances, but they were illegal and needed a prescription, so they were already breaking the rules.  It's amazing how the steroid manufacturers have tried (and succeeded) many times to keep ahead of the testing technology.  Again, to me, steroids broke that sacred ability to mathematically compare players from generation to generation.  As the years pass, I am less in tune with sports in general.  I am old, and in the way...

[North and West]

Since we are on the "banter" post, I will share my feelings on baseball in steroids.  Baseball, of all the major sports, seemed to be the one were individual efforts could be the most quantitated.  Because of that, I think you could compare generation to generation.  Steroids ruined the mathematics.  No longer can you play simulation computer games based on statistics (to compare generations).  The steroid era will always have the dominant hitters (in general).  My calculations estimated that steroids increased your production by about 33%.  People who did not want to question the steroid era would say that steroids did not hit home runs.  That the hardest thing in sports is to hit a baseball.  While the latter is true, steroids did increase home run production, as well as your batting average.  When Congress held its "steroid hearings" everyone interviewed on the panel were "obvious" steroid users (Congress probably had the "anonymous" testing results when they assembled the witness panel) except for Palmeiro and Schilling.  Even though Palmeiro had not increase in size, his home run production had increased, and after the hearings, he was found to have been juicing.  The only one of the panel not "caught" was Schilling, but perhaps he was more cautious, only juicing for "special" games, especially the playoffs (which might explain why he "rose to the occasion" and was one of baseball's premiere post season pitchers)?  Unfortunately, because of the number of known users at the time, everyone in that era will be suspect.  Some defended their use by saying that they were using them to recover from injury.  Some defend the use by saying that baseball had not yet banned the substances, but they were illegal and needed a prescription, so they were already breaking the rules.  It's amazing how the steroid manufacturers have tried (and succeeded) many times to keep ahead of the testing technology.  Again, to me, steroids broke that sacred ability to mathematically compare players from generation to generation.  As the years pass, I am less in tune with sports in general.  I am old, and in the way...

Know what’s amazing? The best sports ever is when you and alone were twelve years old! And the best music just happened to be when you were sixteen!

(It works for my age as well!)


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[LibertyBell]

4 minutes ago, North and West said:

Know what’s amazing? The best sports ever is when you and alone were twelve years old! And the best music just happened to be when you were sixteen!

(It works for my age as well!)


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Steroids ruined baseball in another way it created the current era of poor hitters who can't hit and are swing and miss like our new winters.  I proposed a bunch of changes

foremost among them is ANY hitters who strikes out 3x in a game should be kicked out of the game (like 6 personal fouls)

another one is any hitter who bats less than .230 for half the season should be banned from MLB for the second half of that season.

we already semi-banned the shift but it isn't enough.

I also want to limit the number of pitchers allowed on the roster to 10.

 

 

[LibertyBell]

14 minutes ago, Dark Star said:

Since we are on the "banter" post, I will share my feelings on baseball in steroids.  Baseball, of all the major sports, seemed to be the one were individual efforts could be the most quantitated.  Because of that, I think you could compare generation to generation.  Steroids ruined the mathematics.  No longer can you play simulation computer games based on statistics (to compare generations).  The steroid era will always have the dominant hitters (in general).  My calculations estimated that steroids increased your production by about 33%.  People who did not want to question the steroid era would say that steroids did not hit home runs.  That the hardest thing in sports is to hit a baseball.  While the latter is true, steroids did increase home run production, as well as your batting average.  When Congress held its "steroid hearings" everyone interviewed on the panel were "obvious" steroid users (Congress probably had the "anonymous" testing results when they assembled the witness panel) except for Palmeiro and Schilling.  Even though Palmeiro had not increase in size, his home run production had increased, and after the hearings, he was found to have been juicing.  The only one of the panel not "caught" was Schilling, but perhaps he was more cautious, only juicing for "special" games, especially the playoffs (which might explain why he "rose to the occasion" and was one of baseball's premiere post season pitchers)?  Unfortunately, because of the number of known users at the time, everyone in that era will be suspect.  Some defended their use by saying that they were using them to recover from injury.  Some defend the use by saying that baseball had not yet banned the substances, but they were illegal and needed a prescription, so they were already breaking the rules.  It's amazing how the steroid manufacturers have tried (and succeeded) many times to keep ahead of the testing technology.  Again, to me, steroids broke that sacred ability to mathematically compare players from generation to generation.  As the years pass, I am less in tune with sports in general.  I am old, and in the way...

No the current generation of hitters are juvenile and stupid, swing and miss variety (mostly miss).... I also blame the calculator jockeys for this.

See above for my proposed list of changes to fix it.  We need similar changes in basketball, the 3 point line should be moved out to 30 feet and there should be no corner 3s and when fouled on a 3 the free throw line should likewise be 30 feet out.  A dunk should only be 1 point and a mid range jumper 2 points.

[forkyfork]

i remember a home run record being broken while tracking the 1998 derecho

[psv88]

18 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

No the current generation of hitters are juvenile and stupid, swing and miss variety (mostly miss).... I also blame the calculator jockeys for this.

See above for my proposed list of changes to fix it.  We need similar changes in basketball, the 3 point line should be moved out to 30 feet and there should be no corner 3s and when fouled on a 3 the free throw line should likewise be 30 feet out.  A dunk should only be 1 point and a mid range jumper 2 points.

Can’t have it both ways. Can’t reduce a dunk to 1 and move back the 3. I agree no more corner 3s. There are probably more layups in a game than dunks, which require a complete break down in defense for the most part. 

[LibertyBell]

1 minute ago, psv88 said:

Can’t have it both ways. Can’t reduce a dunk to 1 and move back the 3. I agree no more corner 3s. There are probably more layups in a game than dunks, which require a complete break down in defense for the most part. 

true, thats a little iffy.... moving the 3 out to 30 and removing the corner 3 would probably be enough, although it would also mean that if someone got fouled on a 3 the free throw line for shooting the foul shots should also be 30 feet away.

[LibertyBell]

10 minutes ago, forkyfork said:

i remember a home run record being broken while tracking the 1998 derecho

I remember an F2 tornado hitting us on Long Island on Labor Day 1998.

[psv88]

1 minute ago, LibertyBell said:

true, thats a little iffy.... moving the 3 out to 30 and removing the corner 3 would probably be enough, although it would also mean that if someone got fouled on a 3 the free throw line for shooting the foul shots should also be 30 feet away.

Bridges game will then be completely eliminated…not that he does much now anyway

[LibertyBell]

32 minutes ago, North and West said:

Know what’s amazing? The best sports ever is when you and alone were twelve years old! And the best music just happened to be when you were sixteen!

(It works for my age as well!)


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about the music, there's no way to scientifically prove it, but music likely peaked between the 60s and the 90s.  Look at the types of songs and groups we had back then vs now, the lyrics were much more complex and read like stories and we used real musical instruments, vs the fake computerized crap.  I forgot who it was but someone once said the downturn of music can be traced back to when songs started to be written by multiple people rather than one person writing the song.  That became much more common starting around 2000.  Personally I much prefer singer songwriter musicians over people who sing and/or perform other people's written material.

 

[LibertyBell]

2 minutes ago, psv88 said:

Bridges game will then be completely eliminated…not that he does much now anyway

I worry about the Knicks, Thibs has a history of overworking his players and they're already starting to look tired.

[psv88]

5 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I worry about the Knicks, Thibs has a history of overworking his players and they're already starting to look tired.

Agreed

[Dark Star]

1 hour ago, psv88 said:

Can’t have it both ways. Can’t reduce a dunk to 1 and move back the 3. I agree no more corner 3s. There are probably more layups in a game than dunks, which require a complete break down in defense for the most part. 

Basketball is structured where you can't play defense.  If a shooter's follow through hits your outstretched arms, its a foul on the defense?

[LibertyBell]

23 minutes ago, Dark Star said:

Basketball is structured where you can't play defense.  If a shooter's follow through hits your outstretched arms, its a foul on the defense?

happening in football too, apparently, receivers are considered *defenseless* now.  I miss Ronnie Lott.

 

[LibertyBell]

I understand protecting QBs because they are the most important player on a team, but not receivers.  It's football, no one is *defenseless*.  No wonder offensive numbers are so jacked up