Scott’s Scribblings

Baseball has been slowing growing a following in Europe of the past couple decades. You might have heard the International Olympic Committee voted to remove Baseball from the Olympics. Normally, I wouldn’t care about what the Olympics did, but the baseball programs of some European countries, like Ireland, get much of their funding from their national Olympic Committees.

In an effort to get the IOC to reconsider, the World Baseball Classic in 2009 will be held at various venues across Europe (rather than in Cuba as originally planned). Furthermore, a European wide professional league would expose the sport to more Europeans than the small leagues that currently exist in many of the countries.

An excellent introduction to European baseball can be found in the documentary The Emerald Diamond.

Baseball and science go together like chocolate and peanut butter. This image shows the timing required by a batter to hit a ball. The image is based on the work of Robert Adair, who literally wrote the book on the Physics of Baseball. 15 milliseconds (0.015 seconds) is all that separates a fair ball from a foul.

More: NASA has a java applet that simulates pitches based on user criteria. You can even simulate pitches on Mt. Everest or on Mars. I must note that it doesn’t properly simulate a knuckleball (a pitch with no rotation that travels erratically).

Things not done this weekend include: Attending a White Sox game in sub-freezing temperature and processing Escape Pod submissions.

Things done this week include: Viewing White Sox games in comfort of own apartment and reviewing for .NET certification for about 10 hours.

…On opening day.

Is there any more optimistic day than the first day of baseball?

Let’s go you White Sox!

[Update]

Well so much for that. Sox lost 12-5 with Conteras giving up 8 runs (7 earned) in 1+ inning.