jad

48 hours to make asses of ourselves on topics no one either (1) understands (2) gives a crap about (3) believes related to baseball.

Not so. Because the % of infected and non-infected subjects is not the same, the confidence in positive/negative results is also NOT the same. That's the point of this math/probability exercise: it depends on the percentage of the general population carrying the infection, as you yourself state above. If you get a negative result, you can be fairly confident that result is accurate (90-95% or so). If you get a positive result, you only have a 1 in 3 chance of that being accurate (this is using your own figures ). (If there were no one carrying infections, for example, you could have 100% confidence in a negative result, 0% confidence in a positive one). To evaluate the results in a meaningful way, you need to know (or assume) what percentage of the gen. pop. is infected.

Ha! nice. (Although in my defense, I did say "roughly".) What is interesting about this problem is (1) you can have more confidence in a negative result being accurate [iF, that is, your original premise of 10% 'real' infections is correct, which itself is based in part on the assumption of accuracy of testing!], and (2) it's not strictly a probability problem, since you cannot know WHY you are getting a false positive, and the existence of false positive may not be purely random. If it were random, then re-testing would solve things. But apparently, no one is willing to assume that. It's nice that we are now applying these models to the efficacy of vaccination rather than testing!

Let's see if I remember the math. If you have a test that's 95% accurate, and you administer it to a population where 10% actually have the virus, then roughly half the positives will be false positives.

Right. And didn't exactly go all in on AfricanAmerican or Hispanic players after that.

He would have made minor leaguers in the RS system happier! But hey, I'd take a re-set over a WS appearance any day of the week.

So now they have zero pieces. Plus they got rid of that stiff Price by paying half his salary to play for someone else. Because really, who needs starting pitching? Things are looking up.

The one good thing about this this past year is that that hasn't been a problem!

I don't think it has anything to do with toughness (although armchair fans love to complain that professional athletes are far less bad-ass or tough than they themselves are). It likely has more to do with physics. Can't remember the equations but essentially muscle strength increases in what is essentially two dimensions (a muscle is as strong as its cross-section). What it has to do (act against) often increases in terms of volume (three-dimensions). (Or with, say, speed, in one dimension) So in certain situations, if you double the 'load' you have to quadruple the size of the muscle. (elephants do not have the same body proportions as do mosquitoes). Probably most noticeable in football, where a small increase in force requires a disproportionate increase in protective equipment. What human bodies evolved to do is deal w/ 'run-of-the-mill' activities. When you get to extremes, the 'ordinary' proportions of humans will no longer be up to the job. And most pro athletes are at those extremes. That's why they get injured more than those of us who sit around drinking beer, as God and Darwin intended.

Alas, when you're an athlete, and not a performer, those flubs still register as K's.

I think your irony may have sailed past unnoticed! But yes: of course we like 'the way the game used to be played'. Sports are better when teams adopt different strategies--of course, successful ones will be copied. Then someone will try something else. The absolute WORST response of the leagues is to put in rules PREVENTING innovation: e.g., outlawing the shift because Bryce Harper complains he doesn't get enough hits. The 'three-batter' rule, etc. Should tennis re-institute the rule that servers must keep both feet on the court? Should the NBA outlaw zone defense? Should MLB make the infielders stand on the base? There are plenty of rule-tweaks MLB can make that don't interfere with innovation ( simply shrinking the strike zone? putting in a pitch clock? ).

Yeah, it's one thing when he K's because some pitcher manages to put three pitches exactly on the low-outside corner. JD lays off, knowing he can't hit it, or gives a perfunctory swing. It's another thing where the ball heads that way and ends up a half-foot off the plate and he still flails at it. Those are the swings that seem worrisome.

Than "we" were?

I don't know whether it is simply my own naiveté or the reality of these post-DT and Bloomian times, but I find it impossible to determine whether anything said or done is serious, and equally impossible to say anything outrageous enough to be recognized as ironic.

I've seen maybe a half-dozen at-bats. In what I've seen, he is being hammered by the low outside pitch, which he cannot hit, even waves at a half foot out of the zone.

It was a lot of fun BEING drunk (if I remember those times correctly), and it certainly is great fun being stoned. But listening to someone else who is drunk or stoned?--not so much.

Curt Gowdy for the RS was the best; Joe Castiglione is right in that tradition.

Harry Carey was a drunk, whose antics got old fast. No one needs announcers like that anymore than we want a return of Johnny Most. Better to think of them as relics of past history.

I guess I follow this. Given the Mookie situation, getting rid of perhaps the best hitter on the team for a AA reliever makes perfect sense.

Well, some do and some don't. When I have a player I like, I support him no matter how well he plays, and I'll follow them even if they get traded. I may get disappointed, but I don't boo them. And when there's a player I don't like, I'd razz them even if they win the MVP. (But I think that kind of attitude is getting rarer and rarer, in large part due to the attitudes of GMs and owners.)

https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2021/03/16/mookie-betts-red-sox-gq-mlb?s_campaign=bcom%3Asocialflow%3Afacebook&fbclid=IwAR2z6Fw8fkoz24GoPCeeNHmVmCqaCtkzGsBiKJRgqhBLT8M74uOn8Nkengo Not sure I buy the 'Boston owes me nothing; I owe Boston nothing' statement. But he's certainly right that that's the way this particular business is run by those with the most power. Not sure it's good for the popularity of the sport to have the owners and commissioner adopt this attitude, express it publicly and thus encourage players to do so as well. If I hear a musician say stuff like this, I won't go to their concerts or buy their music.

Well, maybe not. But probably better to have comments on the matter here than buried in the other thread, where it was a sidenote. Good points raised there, though.

? Why? Not a big LB fan, but I sure prefer him to most professional sports team owners.

You're 65 and pain-free?????? (You want to explain to the rest of us old f*rts how you do that?)

I don't know. Why do you like players? Who knows. Why do like particular musicians? Why do you like friends? Lovers? Ketchup? I think of those two fantastic catches a couple of years back. The antics in the outfield. Loved the hair. Love Federer, Isner, Ferrer (when he was still playing) and Monfils, hate Dkokovic, Serena, ... This is related to athletic ability only insofar as they are all professionals. If we don't look at athletes as humans, but only as a set of talents and statistics, why wouldn't we just play video games?