smuscarella

This is my blog. There are many blogs like it. But this one is mine.

81 notes

chitwoodandhobbs: Get A Good Ball To Hit One of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball, Ted Williams. Hitting a baseball is largely considered to be the most difficult thing to do in all of sports and Ted Williams could do it better than nearly every one. That’s a one-line resume. No further explanation necessary. Ted Williams was a naturally gifted athlete with sharp eyesight and quick reflexes. Perhaps the same skills that lent to becoming a top-notch fighter pilot in WWII. What gave Williams the edge was his scientific, systematic approach to hitting. The now famous Ted Williams strike zone first appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1968, Science Of Batting. In this article he broke down the strike zone into 77 baseballs. The average on each of ball is not what Williams actually hit but rather his projected average — that’s key. Ted Williams doesn’t pretend that he can hit every pitch. Balls low and outside he knows he should lay off, the odds are against him. But right in the center of the plate, that’s his “happy zone”. “The heart of the plate, belt-high, and with some sugar on it.” Maybe it was Williams’ shear willpower that allowed him to hit .400. He had the self control to wait for his pitch. And then wait some more. I remember Lefty Chase, who pitched for Washington. He had a hell of a curve and fastball, but he was wild. One day he got me to 3 and 2 with two men on, and threw a big sharp curve, and I took it. Fooled me. Strike three. I got up again in the fourth inning, bases loaded, count goes to 3 and 2, and here comes another, and I’m hanging in there, waiting, waiting, and I don’t think I moved until the ball was right by my ear. It darn near hit my hat and spun it on my head. I walked. @chitwoodhobbs

chitwoodandhobbs:

Get A Good Ball To Hit

One of the greatest hitters in the history of baseball, Ted Williams. Hitting a baseball is largely considered to be the most difficult thing to do in all of sports and Ted Williams could do it better than nearly every one. That’s a one-line resume. No further explanation necessary.

Ted Williams was a naturally gifted athlete with sharp eyesight and quick reflexes. Perhaps the same skills that lent to becoming a top-notch fighter pilot in WWII. What gave Williams the edge was his scientific, systematic approach to hitting.

The now famous Ted Williams strike zone first appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1968, Science Of Batting. In this article he broke down the strike zone into 77 baseballs. The average on each of ball is not what Williams actually hit but rather his projected average — that’s key. Ted Williams doesn’t pretend that he can hit every pitch. Balls low and outside he knows he should lay off, the odds are against him. But right in the center of the plate, that’s his “happy zone”. “The heart of the plate, belt-high, and with some sugar on it.”

Maybe it was Williams’ shear willpower that allowed him to hit .400. He had the self control to wait for his pitch. And then wait some more.

I remember Lefty Chase, who pitched for Washington. He had a hell of a curve and fastball, but he was wild. One day he got me to 3 and 2 with two men on, and threw a big sharp curve, and I took it. Fooled me. Strike three. I got up again in the fourth inning, bases loaded, count goes to 3 and 2, and here comes another, and I’m hanging in there, waiting, waiting, and I don’t think I moved until the ball was right by my ear. It darn near hit my hat and spun it on my head. I walked.

@chitwoodhobbs

(via hilker)

1,310 notes

hilker: sustainable-sam: highcountrynews: This Map Shows Where All The Trees Are In The US NASA’s Earth Observatory just released a map illustrating where all the trees are in America. The map was created over six years by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey. The dark swaths of green represent parts of the country with the greatest concentration of biomass. You can see dense tree cover in the Pacific Northwest as well New England, which has been reforested after intensive logging in the 18th and 19th centuries. Maine you are sexy.  that’s a cool map.

hilker:

sustainable-sam:

highcountrynews:

This Map Shows Where All The Trees Are In The US

NASA’s Earth Observatory just released a map illustrating where all the trees are in America. The map was created over six years by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey. The dark swaths of green represent parts of the country with the greatest concentration of biomass. You can see dense tree cover in the Pacific Northwest as well New England, which has been reforested after intensive logging in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Maine you are sexy. 

that’s a cool map.

14 notes

laliberty:

Keynesian Economics vs. Austrian Economics

Watch as Ben Bernanke and Paul Krugman embarrass themselves with their absolute cluelessness. Watch Peter Schiff speak truth while being ridiculed. I’m surprised there wasn’t more of Ron Paul; there’s so much material, the video could have gone on for quite some time.

This video makes this hysterical defense of Krugman/Keynesians and attack of Ron Paul/Austrians by ryking that much more comical - particularly in light of ryking’s use of a college “study” that not only had no Austrians in its pool of only 26 “pundits,” but had such non-economist ignoramuses (ryking made it a point to note that Krugman was an economist while Paul was merely a physician) as Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Sam Donaldson.

(Source: youtube.com)