

Baseball’s Fight with Fatigue - peterkrieg
http://www.wsj.com/articles/baseballs-fight-with-fatigue-1424710560?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks

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TwoBit
I must not understand Baseball well, because it strikes me as one of the least
fatiguing sports that there are.

~~~
carsongross
Here is what I'd recommend: for four hours, alternate sitting and standing
every ten minutes in a sunny park. When standing, once every thirty seconds or
so tense into a squat position and concentrate as hard as you can on something
about 100 feet away. Every 10th time, sprint all out in a random direction.
Every 20th time, throw a rock as hard as you can as far as you can.

What you will find is that you, a normal human, can keep this up for about one
hour, before you collapse of exhaustion or hurt yourself.

That the super humans who play professional baseball are able to do this day
in and day out for more than half a year is insane.

~~~
UnethicalHacks
No, if you're a professional athlete this should not be all that difficult.
Boring but not difficult.

Look at the average baseball player. So many of them are plump or overweight.
I'd argue that soccer players running 10-15 miles every game have a bit more
to deal with.

baseball needs some yoga and proper nutrition.

~~~
freehunter
A first baseman, sure. They only need to be able catch well and sometimes
throw across the infield. Find me an out-of-shape center fielder. Miguel
Cabrera, for example, is a bit bigger. He's slow getting around the bases. But
his talent, other than being a first baseman, is hitting the ball hard enough
that he can casually stroll around the bases if he wants.

But humans were meant to run. That's why we stand upright, that's why we
sweat. Running long distances on a flat grass field, to a trained athlete, is
going to be less fatiguing than standing still in the sun waiting for
something to happen. Pitchers throw 100+ pitches at 90+ MPH and for the most
part, are dead accurate. Even if the ball is spiraling through the air to
confuse the batter. And the players, other than the starting pitcher, are out
there almost every single day, and sometimes play two games per day. Baseball
has a ridiculously packed schedule.

So I would disagree that soccer players have it rougher. Running is easy.

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philwelch
Baseball pitchers regularly play well into their 40's. Jamie Moyer was still
pitching a month or two shy of turning 50. For soccer players, still playing
at 40 is nearly unheard of. Ryan Giggs did it, but that's about it, and it was
mostly sentimentality that kept him playing that last year or so. So I would
disagree that baseball is that much more taxing than soccer.

~~~
jghn
"Baseball pitchers regularly play well into their 40's"

Unless you're someone like Mark Prior who had their body give out when their
career was just getting started. Why are you only highlighting the outliers,
the genetic freaks (amongst genetic freaks no less)?

The thing with baseball pitchers is that there's an enormous selective
pressure on their bodies (primarily shoulder & elbow) being able to withstand
the brutal toll throwing all those pitches causes. The absolute best pitchers
(talent wise) might never even make it to the MLB because their arm falls
apart before they get a chance. There are pitching motions which hurt my arm
just doing them in slow motion, now imagine heaving a baseball 90+ mph
repeatedly for your entire life.

This is a far different selective pressure than what e.g. soccer players would
have where quickness & speed on their feet is what matters.

The problem with these discussions is that people are using words like
"taxing" to only narrowly mean what they want it to mean.

~~~
philwelch
There are lots of Major League pitchers in their 40's. There might be no
Premier League outfield players in their 40's. Lots of players in both sports
get injured and end their careers in their 20's.

No doubt that a starting pitcher's pitching arm takes a lot of abuse, but they
can have much longer careers than almost any other athlete.

~~~
jghn
That's not my point, what I was saying is that the two have completely
different curves due to relying on completely different physical attributes.

A soccer player (or NBA player or many NFL positions, etc) is going to
deteriorate steadily as they age after hitting some peak year. For some sports
there'll be a slight bubble after that ast the intersection of athleticism
decreasing and increasing wisdom but not for all. Sure, someone might endure a
catastrophic injury and some players are made of glass (e.g. Greg Oden in the
NBA) but generally players will wash out either when their athleticism is not
high enough for their level or it deteriorates below the level necessary.

A baseball pitcher's curve is different. Their arm/shoulder will either be
able to withstand the long term abuse or it won't and if it's the latter
they'll wash out pretty early on (likely long before they ever see an MLB
field). Once they clear that hurdle the actual deterioration rate is much
slower in the general case. It also helps that pitching is a position where
accumulated wisdom can really help, a lot like the quarterback in american
football and that can help balance out declining athleticism as well

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snappy173
baseball, as with all sports, has a long and storied history with using
various performance enhancing drugs to cope with injury and fatigue.
amphetamines were commonplace in ball four ... bouton casually discusses
greenies, players' coffee vs. regular coffee, etc. there was a sporting news
snippet from the 1910's (that i can't find right now) that discussed pitchers
dealing with arm fatigue ... the takeaway was that some pitchers preferred
cocaine injections, while others preferred morphine. and then there was the
steroid era ... lots of attention of course to creating cartoonishly large
players, but most of these drugs were to shorten recovery from workouts ...
you don't magically get huge from taking steroids.

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bitsoda
Interesting ideas by the Marlins, but I'd like to see the MLB take this
further by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100, and trimming the
inning count from 9 to 7. Sure, the historical data won't match up, but it
would be better for the players and more entertaining for the fans to watch
shorter, less frequent games.

On an unrelated note, it would be nice if they expanded the playoffs to
include 16 teams with the first two rounds being a best out of 5, concluding
with the NLCS/ALCS and World Series being a best out of 7, of course. It would
get more fanbases interested in their team if they at least made a playoff
appearance more often.

The sport could use a shot in the arm in terms of viewership as the average
age of your typical MLB viewer is ~54 years.

[1][http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-01/fixing-
baseb...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-04-01/fixing-baseballs-
old-people-problem-with-merchandise-highlights)

~~~
grecy
> _by cutting down the number of games from 162 to 100_

Since coming to North America I've always felt one of the problems with
Baseball and Hockey is they just play too many games, so no game is
significant enough. When your team loses to a certain team, you don't care
enough because you know they'll play them multiple times more.

Baseball is 162, Hockey is 82 games in "regular season"

NFL is only 16 games, which to me, makes it much more exciting because each
win or loss really matters, and as a spectator I actually care.

~~~
bcantrill
You just haven't followed baseball closely enough. When it's September and
you're in a close divisional or wildcard race, there is nothing more exciting
in sports: every pitch counts and every at-bat counts -- and there are ~5-6
games per week. (And that only counts your team! Part of the terror of a close
race is that you're also watching every pitch and every at-bat of your
rivals.) If anything, it's almost exciting to a fault...

~~~
grecy
It was recently explained to me that Professional sports is watching other
people have the time of their lives....

If you're at a bar drinking, or at the game, you're literally paying to watch
other people have the time of their lives.

Worth thinking about

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chrisBob
I am surprised they focus on the hitters. I thought that the pitchers were the
only ones that were a big concern. It sounds like the league needs a rule that
each player can only play 5 days with out a mandatory day off.

~~~
rhino369
I don't think the league needs to mandate anything. It's not like these are
dropping dead. It is like a marathon, pacing yourself is just part of it.

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VLM
No one wants to comment on the blindingly obvious startup aspects? When
dealing with millions of dollars, experienced professionals don't get shoved
like sardines into the smallest possible space, don't even try to produce at
world class level for 16 hours a day 7 days a week for years, don't turn to
energy drinks and potato chips as a primary source of nutrition... Apparently
pro-ball is the "anti-startup" despite the similar focus on individual rock
stars and teamwork and millions of dollars on the line. Perhaps they're just
dumb jocks, or maybe, just maybe, startup culture is wrong? Obviously its one
or the other.

