Are Playoff Radar Guns Blowing Smoke?

[Guest vtmet]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/playoffs/2006-10-12-radar-love_x.htm

New York Mets scout Bob Johnson, sitting behind home plate, looked up at the McAfee Coliseum scoreboard Tuesday night during Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, did a double take and burst out laughing.

The radar gun reading flashed 97 ... for Oakland Athletics reliever Joe Kennedy.

"That gun had to be soaked in greenies," Johnson says. "There was not a chance he was throwing 97. He tops out at 93 mph. He's never thrown that hard in his life.

"Fans love velocity, but when you see some of these numbers, especially the screwy ones late in the game, all you can do is laugh."


{a really long but good article, only put the first few paragraphs up}

[Guest vtmet]

IMO playoff radar guns have been tainted for years...I remember the first WS that the Marlins won, FOX guns had just about every Marlins pitcher hitting 95+ mph with even Dennis Cook hitting 98 mph...Tonight, every fastball from Mota & Wagner was showing 97/98/100 mph...and even Jeff Weaver and that lefty Johnson were throwing 93+ mph on every fastball...with 88 mph changeups...

[Guest Edgy DC]

Fans don't love velocity.

The people who bring you Fox News at 11 ("Coming up... stuff that could fucking kill you!") love velocity.

[nymr83]

i dont think its the playoffs, its a season-long thing. i've seen Wang clocked at 98 MPH at yankee stadium, give me a break.

[Valadius]

Of course it's juiced, Fox loves it so much that they turn the radar readout orange when it gets, what, 97 or over?

[Gwreck]

Wagner was shown at 97 on the Shea scoreboard, which is pretty consistent through the season. Haven't seen him top 97 anytime this year at Shea, and certainly not tonight.

[Willets Point]

Edgy DC wrote: Fans don't love velocity. The people who bring you Fox News at 11 ("Coming up... stuff that could fucking kill you if you don't vote Republican!") love velocity.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I didn't write that.

Wait, let me check...

[Valadius]

Wagner definitely was shown as throwing 99 on Fox, and I believe they went up to 100 at least once.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I think Joe Buck said something about the inflated numbers on their radar guns. I don't listen all that closely, but I think he made some kind of a skeptical wisecrack.

Fans don't love velocity? Some do. I don't pay too much attention to the radar readings, but you can't say people didn't get a kick out of how fast Bob Feller and Nolan Ryan threw the ball.

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's relative velocity, and witnessable to the naked eye.

Numbers on a gun lose meaning when everybody is throwing 98-102. When everybody's fast, nobody's fast.

I guess what I meant is fans don't buy the crap.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

True. When I saw that Mota registered a 97, I didn't get excited, I got dismissive.

[Frayed Knot]

]I think Joe Buck said something about the inflated numbers on their radar guns. I don't listen all that closely, but I think he made some kind of a skeptical wisecrack.

He said, 'I think they got those guns from BALCO'
(or something along those lines)

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

That's also where Joe got his fake low voice.

He's a phony. The game gave him an awesomely dramatic moment and he too-cool-for-schooled it.

[Frayed Knot]

Meanwhile on the radio side, all those inclined to treat Gary's 2-inning drop in to the booth as a federal crime will be pissed to learn that the Beltran HR fell during his p-b-p inning and therefore it's he - rather than Howie or Tom - who has the signature call of the series so far.


heh, heh, heh

[seawolf17]

There's something to that "fans love velocity" thing. Didn't Philly fans get all worked up every time Wagner hit 100 on the gun when he first signed there? I even think he made some comment about it.

[MFS62]

Velocity is nice.
But we all know that chicks dig the long ball.

Stu Miller would probably have registered 95 on that gun.

Later

[metirish]

]There's something to that "fans love velocity" thing. Didn't Philly fans get all worked up every time Wagner hit 100 on the gun when he first signed there? I even think he made some comment about it.

They booed him when he didn't reach 100 on the gun....more on this in the Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/sports/baseball/13sandomir.html?ref=sports

[Guest Edgy DC]

I guess I wrote with far less nuance last night than I should have.

I don't mean what I literally wrote, that fans aren't impressed by extreme performances. They are, of course. But fans of any reasonable sophistication pick up on it a lot sooner than entertainment purveyors give them credit for when they're getting played by a surfeit of artificial extreme perfomances --- juiced home runs, dialed up radar gun numbers, fake boobs, trend-chasing uniforms, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor's booze consumption in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

They're doing a dis-service if they aim the product at nine-year-olds and it's outr� by the time they're 13. But wrestling never lacks for fans, so what do I know?

[metirish]

Not surprising that the article in the Times claims that the FOX gun was generally 3mph faster than the scoreboard gun during the Tigers and A's series.