THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

How about we just leave things as they are since people are going to complain anyway.  People want to be able to complain and will find ways to do it no matter what you do.  Change something to appease some and if they aren’t complaining, others will. 

You can’t make everyone happy so why bother trying?

If we were to leave things the way they are, I’d be happy with it.  There’s no reason for Congress or the media to be involved in what is a private issue between employer and employee.

I would like for the employees to care enough about their workplace conditions that they’d be able to get their peers to have drug testing in place.  But, that’s for them to decide.

The second we decide to play moral authority, as a consumer, as a people, then that’s when we should have two leagues.  Then, let’s see the hypocrisy fly.

Is there any way we could possibly know who was “guilty” of gene doping (I don’t think it’s actually a crime)? Because if the “clean” league paid a “dirty” player a lot of money and was not detected, they could have a huge advantage. I think the two-league idea would fail because of this reason-- it would reward ($) the undetected “dirty” players who cross over into the clean league because they have an advantage over the clean players in the clean league.

I meant it in a more academic sense, where there would be no reason to keep it a secret.  (Imagine the enormous stigma of being caught stealing at one bank when another bank was giving money away?)

If you were to put in place the controls possible (and impossible), could the clean league possibly survive?

I remember early in college wishing I could get an “anti-driving” license: proof that I didn’t drive, and thus could be served alcohol!

I think the clean league would survive fine.

At some point in the future, when the technology is there, the human element will be removed completely, or take a negligible role in physical development. Right now, people still have to work out even if they’re taking Performance Enhancing Drugs. But when the drugs or technology aren’t just “enhancing” but become the dominant thing, then I imagine the games becoming incredibly boring since everyone will basically be the same. It’d be like arm wrestling where every game was a tie.

Even technique can be solved by technology. For example, I’ve always imagined a sort of computer-chip that will send a tiny electrical pulse into your arm, causing you to twitch in the exact amount needed to sink a jump shot. So you just need to get to the same spot on the court, and trigger it and you’ll hit the shot.

Basically, it’d be watching robots that had the same capability. Or if not, then we the competition would be between groups of scientists rather than athletes.

But let’s not go so far in the future and think about tomorrow.. I think the clean league would still survive: look at college basketball; it was supposed to die out when the NBA poached all the top talents, but it is still as big as ever.

I think the most interesting thing from playing out that little experiment would be seeing which players go to which league.  Maybe see if some players, as they get older, transfer to the Roid league, etc. 

As for the drinking thing: the powers that be oughta lower the drinking age to 18 anyway.

What’s weird to me about all these social experiments is we must have so much real-world data.  There are countries other than USA in the world.  There must be some countries with the drinking age at 16, 18, 21, prohibition, no restrictions, etc.  Same thing with the driving speed on highways, 100km, 120, no limit, etc.  We should know by now what the optimal setting is for NY, UT, OH, TX, etc.  Education, smoking.  Everything.

At some point in the future, when the technology is there, the human element will be removed completely, or take a negligible role in physical development. Right now, people still have to work out even if they’re taking Performance Enhancing Drugs. But when the drugs or technology aren’t just “enhancing” but become the dominant thing, then I imagine the games becoming incredibly boring since everyone will basically be the same. It’d be like arm wrestling where every game was a tie.

I have just the thing. Behold:

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-sci-couchpill1-2008aug01,0,4249687.story

Tango/#6 - Turning political - I think that’s one of the beauties of the Federal system, and why it was done that way. If there are 50 states free to choose how they handle and regulate things, we get to see who does it best, and then in time the rest will follow. But those who favor social engineering don’t wnat to fight 50 battles, so they run to the Supreme Court to get a one size fits all decision enforeced from the top down. A group of politicians may, for whatever reason, decide to “invest” tax payer dollars in A, but maybe B was the better choice. We wouldn’t know, or soon enough, if those in charge rule it out before it’s tried.