THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

But carbon fiber blades are not required for him to function as a human being either.  He can still move without them (either on what’s left of his legs, or a wheelchair).  He can still eat without them, breathe without them, and procreate without them.

I’m a lot shorter than LeBron James, which has had a direct impact on my ability to play in the NBA.  It’s the way I was born, there’s nothing I can do about it.  Should I be allowed to build stilts so I can make it into the NBA?

What would be truly interesting to me is if someone was born with something like a third leg, that was actually helpful in running.  If that person could run an 8 second 100m dash, or a 39 second 400m, what would the IOC do about that?  To me, it would suck for every two-legged runner out there (especially the fastest two-legged runner)… but I think those records would have to be deemed valid.

Cocaine is not required for anybody, regardless of your physical condition.

A prosthetic is required for someone who wants to be a runner and he has no legs.  Given that he needs a prosthetic, I would say making the most advanced prosthetic possible is fine by me (ala Steve Austin).

As for your Lebron James, I would say yes that you should be allowed to wear stilts, if there is a disabled person out there that is already wearing them.

I’m not suggesting that we all turn into Borgs (...I need to get out more...) to compete, but if a disabled person turns to a technological solution, then that technological solution can be used by anybody.

I don’t see any problem with banning this guy and similar persons.  The potential practical outcome if you didn’t is absurd.  Anyone with a disability could simply get some kind of “bionic” prosthetic and win every competition.  There has to be an ability to evaluate that prosthetic to determine whether it is “fair” (obviously that is difficult, problematic, and involves some grey area) to the competition.

If I have no legs, can I get motorized legs in order to win every running event?  What if that is a normal, albeit expensive, option for prosthetic legs? If I have no arms, can I get some kind of bionic arm that allows me to pitch 120 mph?  What if in 20 years the normal “state of the art” prosthetic arm allows anyone to pitch 120 mph?  Only one-armed athletes will eventually pitch in the major leagues, and all pitching records will be broken.

Come on, Tango.  You can’t possibly be in favor of no restrictions or testing of prosthetic devices and the like?

Why would you be biased against such persons?  To them, normal is having a bionic arm.  That’s their existence as a human.  You are suggesting that you have to limit specific parts of their bodies if it exceeds the limits of human potential.

He could have one eye, but a bionic arm, which in totality, might put him at below the MLB average.  Is that ok?

The guy is a human being, not some special class of human that can be barred from playing.  Women, Blacks, Paraplegics, Mutants, etc.

Your basing your presumptions on what is normal for you.

What if paraplegics create this great game, and they play it for 10 years, a game where their bionic parts give them a special advantage, which is why they like to play it.

But, some “normal” humans play it too, and soon it catches fire like crazy. 

Who gets to be barred from the professional league?

What if Alexander Cartwright and James Naismith were bionic men?  What then?  They couldn’t play their own creation at the highest level?

There’s one human class.  That’s got to be the presumption.

Right - the slippery slope argument is what I’m worried about as well.  If this guy competes, it’s just going to become a matter of who makes the most advantageous blades that wins the races.

The people who make the rules are the ones who draw the lines.  If Cartwright and Naismith were bionic, and made that a requirement for competing, power to them.  I could no more play that than I could play in the NBA.  And if someone invented a non-bionic version of the game, I’d think that would become more popular… but who knows.

What about wrestling?  Can someone who weighs 245 lbs wrestle in the 135 lb class, if the reason he weighs 245 is because of a pituitary tumor?  If I’m not as strong as Barry Bonds, can I use a metal bat?  Can I compete in the women’s events in track and field?  Me and Jackie Joyner are both in the “human” class, and it’s not my fault I got an X and a Y…

People who hold competitions make rules to help insure (ensure?) what they deem to be fair competition.  We have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  I don’t think we have a right to be included in every group, organization, and competition.

The thing is.....
Something like this would take out all the hard work that making the Olympics should require. If any ordinary person can get prosthetics put on and suddenly become the fastest person alive, how is that fair to be real athlete who train their entire lives to reach the Olympics. It’s an inherent unfair advantage.

I was training for ultimately the Olympics in my sport and I had to quit because of a back injury. But if some guy suddenly beat out my for that last spot because he installed some type of artificial equipment to become part of his body, that wouldn’t be right. I would have trained 15+ years, 7 days a week, 4 hours a day, while the guy might have trained for only a couple years with an advantage that takes out most of the effort.

If I was to replace my spine with another one that works equally as before, that would be fine. However if that spine was designed to not only be significantly stronger, flexible, and durable than before, but also gave me a large advantage over the competition, that just isn’t right.

It would take out the human aspect of pushing the body to the limit. As an athlete that at one point competed at the highest level, it’s the human aspect of hard work, talent, dedication, and pushing the body to it’s limit that makes great athletes. I just don’t want this sport that is so dependent on the body to not become part of the human body anymore, but part of how well engineers can create parts of the human body.

Athletes shouldn’t be testing how well a doctor/engineer does his job, but how well athletes does at the sport. Why should the guy who doesn’t need to work as hard because of an artificial part get picked over the guy who works extremely hard over his entire lifetime. Natural talent shouldn’t be replace with unnatural parts.

But that prothetic is now part of him.  It’s not something he takes off when he’s not competing.

As for the female/male, women should be able to compete in the NBA, but men not in the WNBA.  Why?  Because you already have a class below the NBA that men can compete in.  The male/female split (at levels below the very top) are done for good reasons.  But, at the very top, you never make a distinction.

The 135/235 is again the same thing.  You have different weight classes.  But, when it comes to the very top, you just have one championship class.  Sumo wrestlers come in all sizes.

So, the rule is: at the very top, all are allowed to compete.  At levels below, you have classes.

Tango,

I don’t agree with you either; it seems to me the IAAF is trying to strike an appropriate balance in the Pistorius case - prosthetics would be allowed up to the point of levelling the playing field, but not to the point of giving an advantage. The same principle serves as a rationale for permitting medicine and limiting biochemical aids.

Tango, I don’t think you are going to win this argument!  Not that that is our goal here - to win arguments - of course.  But I think you are going to be a minority of one on this issue.

Regardless of what you think is “right” or “fair,” the bottom line is that your point of view cannot work (in a reasonable fashion).  Mike above said it best.  Those who make the rules draw the lines.  And they HAVE to draw the line somewhere otherwise it would lead to absurd results, such as anyone with a disability trying to find some “bionic” fix that would allow them to win every compettition in a certain sport.

Believe me, if you made the rules for baseball, if I lost my right arm, I would be looking for someone who could make me a prosthetic arm such that I could throw a baseball over 100 mph (sort of like Rookie of the Year).

I think this is a non-issue, other than of course that there are going to be gray areas.  The example you give may even be a gray area.  Hey, at least they are willing to test the devices in question to see if they are giving the user an “unfair advantage” (whatever that even means).  They could have just banned all persons with potentially advantageous prosthetic devices or any prosthetic device whatsoever.

As you said, I’m not looking to win arguments, and I don’t mind being the minority (such is the life of a sabermetrician).

And yes, baby steps on this issue.  It will be inevitable that cyborgs will be in the Olympics.  Perhaps not in our lifetime.

Two separate issues:  One, who, what, and how will compete in the future, and two, whether it is right and fair NOW to not allow someone with a prosthetic device that is deemed “unfair” to the other competetors to compete.

The article was about issue #2, and I think that they are handling it correctly.  Your original proposition, if I read it properly, was that they were NOT handling it correctly and that this guy (and anyone with a device that a person “needs” on a day to day basis, regardless of what that device does, how hi-tech it is, etc.) should be allowed to compete in any event he wants, even if that means that he will blow away the competition.

Other than the “not handling correctly” (I was pleased that they at least acknowledge the possibility of competition, so they handled it ok), your post is accurate.

If it’s part of him, it’s him.

I am still confused as to how something can be “fair and right” and lead to practical chaos (an absurd result) at the same time.  I am exaggerating a little (chaos), but you still have not explained how to handle the situation (which is entirely plausible) where a “bionic” leg is available such that anyone missing a leg who chooses to get such a bionic leg will win every race.  Same thing with a bionic arm and baseball.  Are you willing to live with that as a consequence?  If you are, then there is no counter-argument, I guess, other than, “I think that it would be wrong to create a situation where a bionic pitcher can pitch in the majors and break all pitching records and his team would win every game he pitched and no one would ever get a hit or walk off of him.” If you think that scenario is OK, then that is the end of the argument, I guess.

When you are determining whether something is “fair or right,” you have to imagine and consider all of the circumstances that would or might arise if that “something” were put into place, and compare it to what would happen if we did NOT put that “something” into place.  Isn’t that the way we evaluate the “rightness” of everything?

What if someone, I don’t know, let’s take a made up example, because of some injury, has his brain wired with a computer, and it gives him extra intelligence (or a more powerful brain).  Some technologically-based advantage that is now built into his brain.

He becomes the leading research scientist in curing cancer, beating out other top scientists for grants after grants.

Are you going to complain that it’s not fair, that he’s a “superhuman” and therefore doesn’t deserve to get opportunities to apply himself and earn millions of dollars?

There’s nothing special about sports, that you would make an exclusion in sports and not in other fields.

Once something becomes a part of you, you are not allowed to be treated as a subhuman or superhuman.  When it comes to competition for the highest possible honor, there’s only one human class.

If that means that bionic armed ballplayers will rule the day, or that computer-fused-brains of scientists will lead the world in bettering mankind, so be it.  The majority doesn’t always win.

I still go back to the fact that whoever makes the rules gets to decide, as far as I’m concerned.  Tango do you feel that barring some such person from baseball, or Nobel/grant consideration, constitutes a violation of their civil/fundamental/unalienable rights?  If so, I think that’s something that we just disagree on.

I think going to the supermarket, riding a public bus, marrying who you choose, being free from abuse and harassment, etc, are rights.  Playing baseball in the MLB is a not a right, and neither is getting a grant.  I couldn’t get certain scholarships for college because of the color of my skin and where my grandparents came from.  Getting one of those scholarships wasn’t a right, it was a privilege, and I’m certainly no less human than whoever did get one.

Private clubs do get to decide the rules.  If that means that Black people or women are barred, that is the right of the private club.  We have no disagreement here.

I see no difference in blocking a Black person from playing baseball or a woman from playing hockey or a paraplegic from competing in a race or a superbrain from practicing his scientific craft.

You judge the majority based on how they treat the minority.

Addendum to your grants, MLB, and scholarship illustrations: if the rules for eligibility and selection were written and everyone was aware of how it works, you can bet that there’d be a public outcry forcing a change.  If for example, scholarships were awarded by how much kickbacks someone receives, or other unseemly decisions, scholarship selections would change.  If everyone was aware that Black were excluded from entering MLB, player selections would change.  If everyone was aware that grants were based on guys with superbrains being excluded (and thereby lowering the chances of finding cures), this process would also change.

Private clubs making private selections based on private reasons is the right of that private club.  That doesn’t mean that what they did was right in a human sense.

Excluding someone based not on talent, ability, or potential, but based on something that is inherent to him as a human being (gender, bionics, race) is wrong in a human sense.

Should the Eddie Gaedel rule be revoked?

It’s an unwritten rule, but absolutely.

http://www.columbian.com/sports/localNews/2008/04/05012008_Little-Leaguer-gets-OK-to-play.cfm

As I noted in an earlier post, once a technological aid becomes a part of you as a way of life, then there’s no discrimination permitted.

A person needing an oxygen tank doesn’t preclude someone from playing at any level.  Certainly, safety issues need to be addressed, but beyond that, there are no second-class citizens.