What's on your mind today?

[Claireliontamer]

Well, today he took one powerful swing and completely broke the internet in the US:

Amazing. Things like this are part of the reason I'm an inveterate opponent of the designated hitter.

Okay, I know NOTHING about baseball, can someone explain in simple terms why this is amazing?

[No one]

Simple, the Internet said it was.

[Firebird]

Okay, I know NOTHING about baseball, can someone explain in simple terms why this is amazing?

He's a big, lovable, goofy guy who can't hit. Just look at him

[Claireliontamer]

Okay, I know NOTHING about baseball, can someone explain in simple terms why this is amazing?

He's a big, lovable, goofy guy who can't hit. Just look at him

Is he a fan or one of the players? 

[No one]

Can't he be both?

[Firebird]

Okay, I know NOTHING about baseball, can someone explain in simple terms why this is amazing?

He's a big, lovable, goofy guy who can't hit. Just look at him

Is he a fan or one of the players?

Player. See my earlier post

[xSilverPhinx]

Mondays should be abolished. Death to Mondays!

[Buddy]

Mondays should be abolished. Death to Mondays!

My Mondays are everybody else's Fridays so I really wouldn't complain if we got rid of them

[Icarus]

Claire you are surely pulling our leg. JJ must have explained about the game of baseball. He would have told you that baseball is among the favorite summer spectator sports of the American public. 

Just in case he has not brought you up to speed about American folly, consider this: The game is played on a field that has four small plates, called bases, laid out in the form of a square, each side being 90 feet apart.  A person, the pitcher, stands at the approximate geometric center of the square. His job is to throw a baseball of about 7 cm diameter toward a batter who is standing at one of the intersection points of the square. That place is called home plate. The batter attempts to hit the pitched ball with a cylindrical wooden bat that is about the same diameter as the ball.

The pitcher can throw the ball at remarkable velocities approaching 100 miles per hour. The batter does not have  much time to look at a ball that is going that fast. I know that you can do  the math quite competently. The pitcher is about 65 feet from the batter.  He is throwing the ball at a velocity of perhaps 140 feet per second. The pitcher is a clever bastard who imparts a rotation on the ball as it leaves his hand. That means that the rules of aerodynamics cause the ball to curve, rise, or drop, depending on the radial velocity and direction of rotation as the pitcher cleverly intended. It is most difficult to hit the ball with the small wooden bat that the batter is holding when the ball is following a curved path. Add the one half G tee squared factor and it is even more difficult to hit the ball.

Now the pitcher is responsible for preventing the batter from hitting the ball effectively. He is paid very well for his efforts if he is good at it. A not unusual salary is 40 million USD for a five year contract. Particularly effective batters are also paid well but not usually as much as pitchers..... maybe 30 mil for a five year contract. 

The fat slow running dude in the vid is a pitcher who is pretty good, not quite sensational, at his job. It is a given that pitchers are notoriously poor hitters. The fat guy could not previously hit a bull in the ass with a barn door. Yet he managed, on this occasion, to hit the ball so well that it soared over the fence of the ball park.....thus he scored at least one point for his team.

The game is somewhat more complicated than the above explanation, there are some delicate nuances and obscure rules,  so I will leave those explanations  to JJ. Baseball differs considerably from your game of Cricket.

[jumbojak]

I'm not a sports fan and, thankfully, was never forced to play baseball as a kid. Youse otha guyse gonna have to fill Claire in cuz I can't...

[Claireliontamer]

Claire you are surely pulling our leg. JJ must have explained about the game of baseball. He would have told you that baseball is among the favorite summer spectator sports of the American public. 

Just in case he has not brought you up to speed about American folly, consider this: The game is played on a field that has four small plates, called bases, laid out in the form of a square, each side being 90 feet apart.  A person, the pitcher, stands at the approximate geometric center of the square. His job is to throw a baseball of about 7 cm diameter toward a batter who is standing at one of the intersection points of the square. That place is called home plate. The batter attempts to hit the pitched ball with a cylindrical wooden bat that is about the same diameter as the ball.

The pitcher can throw the ball at remarkable velocities approaching 100 miles per hour. The batter does not have  much time to look at a ball that is going that fast. I know that you can do  the math quite competently. The pitcher is about 65 feet from the batter.  He is throwing the ball at a velocity of perhaps 140 feet per second. The pitcher is a clever bastard who imparts a rotation on the ball as it leaves his hand. That means that the rules of aerodynamics cause the ball to curve, rise, or drop, depending on the radial velocity and direction of rotation as the pitcher cleverly intended. It is most difficult to hit the ball with the small wooden bat that the batter is holding when the ball is following a curved path. Add the one half G tee squared factor and it is even more difficult to hit the ball.

Now the pitcher is responsible for preventing the batter from hitting the ball effectively. He is paid very well for his efforts if he is good at it. A not unusual salary is 40 million USD for a five year contract. Particularly effective batters are also paid well but not usually as much as pitchers..... maybe 30 mil for a five year contract. 

The fat slow running dude in the vid is a pitcher who is pretty good, not quite sensational, at his job. It is a given that pitchers are notoriously poor hitters. The fat guy could not previously hit a bull in the ass with a barn door. Yet he managed, on this occasion, to hit the ball so well that it soared over the fence of the ball park.....thus he scored at least one point for his team.

The game is somewhat more complicated than the above explanation, there are some delicate nuances and obscure rules,  so I will leave those explanations  to JJ. Baseball differs considerably from your game of Cricket.

Nope, I think he banned me from talking about sport after the million Superbowl questions I asked.

[Crow]

Looks like he took 'inspiration' from Mark McGwire.

[Buddy]

I swear Charlie is the Tardis of cars. I found an entire tool kit underneath the carpet in the boot while I was vacuuming today.

[Firebird]

I swear Charlie is the Tardis of cars. I found an entire tool kit underneath the carpet in the boot while I was vacuuming today.

"In the boot"?  Come on, surely you haven't gone full-on British on us, have you??

[Buddy]

I get an earful if I refer to the back as the trunk and the front as the hood so it's habit now.