New Baseball Bat Designed to Dampen the Sting
An acoustics engineer finds out how to avoid a batter's painful hand vibrations.
Daniel Russell's setup measures vibrations in a bat and pinpoints the barrel's sweet spot.
Anyone who has ever hit a baseball off the wrong part of
the bat knows the shot of pain that courses through your hands. Now,
thanks to acoustics engineer Daniel Russell of Pennsylvania State
University, that unpleasant jolt could become a relic of the game’s
past.
Russell, who has been devising baseball-centric
experiments for years, recently helped solve the physics mystery at the
heart of the infamous sting. Nearly a decade ago, baseball equipment
manufacturer Marucci Sports put a vibration damper inside its aluminum
bats to eliminate the pain, but the technology was not working as well
as hoped, so the company recruited Russell.
After interviewing several college players, Russell
learned they all felt pain in the same spot: the fleshy tissue between
the thumb and forefinger in the upper hand of their grip. They all held
the bat in roughly the same place, so Russell analyzed the corresponding
region in his lab. He used two rubber bands attached to either end of a
frame that suspended the bat horizontally. Then he struck the bat at
various points with a hammer. An accelerometer affixed to the barrel of
the bat tracked the vibrations while a transducer in the hammer’s tip
measured the force applied.
Striking the bat five to six inches from the tip, an area
known as the sweet spot, generated virtually no vibration. Smacking it
outside the sweet spot, on the other hand, forced 450 to 700 vibrations
per second to pulse at the bat’s grip, thereby causing the sting. And
these vibrations peaked in intensity right where the player typically
holds his upper hand.
Russell realized nothing was wrong with the damper, which
consists of a rubber-spoked wheel that transfers vibrations to a brass
weight set inside the knob of the bat. The idea was right — the weight
should have absorbed the pulses — but the device was tuned to the wrong
frequency.
Marucci adjusted its dampers and later used Russell’s
findings to develop a new Kevlar-based grip that also cancels the sting.
Recently, other companies have begun using the dampers. Now a poorly
hit ball isn’t so painful. “This little brass piece vibrates like crazy,
but you don’t feel it in the hands at all,” Russell says.
Packers’ Rodgers Says He’s Shocked Braun Broke Baseball’s Drug Rules
Tim Tebow, a quarterback for now, led players through a drill during the Patriots’ first day of training camp.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said Friday that he was
shocked and disappointed after his friend Ryan Braun admitted to
violating baseball’s rules against using performance-enhancing
substances.
Braun, the Milwaukee Brewers slugger, “looked at me in the eye on
multiple occasions and repeatedly denied the allegations, said they
weren’t true,” Rodgers said after the first practice of training camp.
Braun accepted a season-ending 65-game suspension earlier this week.
He and Rodgers are friends and are in business together with a Milwaukee
restaurant, 8 Twelve MVP Bar and Grill. Rodgers defended Braun on
Twitter last year, saying he would bet his substantial salary that his
friend was clean.
Rodgers said he was simply “backing up a friend.” The two have spoken since Braun’s admission.
“Obviously, in hindsight, a more measured approach next time would
obviously be a better course of action,” Rodgers said. “People make
mistakes. I definitely believe in forgiveness and moving forward.
Obviously, he has a tough task in front of him moving forward with his
career, on and off the field.”
Asked about the business relationship and the licensing agreement for
their bar and grill, Rodgers said that was yet to be determined.
TEBOW SPEAKS Tim Tebow
said the murder case involving Aaron Hernandez was “heartbreaking and
sad,” and he is praying for all the families involved.
Tebow, the Patriots’ third-string quarterback, spoke briefly about
Hernandez, his former teammate in college at Florida, after the first
practice of training camp. He declined to say whether he had any contact
with Hernandez since the shooting death of Odin Lloyd on June 17.
The Patriots cut Hernandez on June 26 after he was arrested. That
ignited speculation that the Patriots might try the 6-foot-3, 245-pound
Tebow at tight end. On Friday, he caught the only pass thrown to him in a
brief screen-passing drill.
“I’m going to do what Coach asks me to do,” said Tebow, who has a non-guaranteed, two-year contract.
Coach Bill Belichick was tight-lipped about what that would be. “I think
that we’ll use Tim wherever we feel like he’s best for the team,” he
said, a comment he makes about many players.
BAIL IN HERNANDEZ CASE A Massachusetts judge set bail
at $500,000 cash for a man prosecutors say was with Aaron Hernandez on
the night a friend of Hernandez’s was shot to death.
Ernest Wallace appeared in Attleboro District Court on a charge of being
an accessory after the fact to murder in connection with Odin Lloyd’s
killing. The defense attorney David Meier had sought bail of $10,000,
arguing Wallace wasn’t a flight risk and wanted to return to his family
in Florida.
Prosecutors asked for $1 million bail, saying Wallace was at risk of
fleeing and had a long criminal history that included drug convictions.
REDSKIN SUSPENDED Washington Redskins defensive end
Jarvis Jenkins was suspended for four games without pay for violating
the N.F.L.’s drug policy.
Jenkins released a statement saying he was “shocked and confused” to
learn that he had tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing
substance.
“It’s an obscure substance that I’ve never even heard of, and I still
don’t know how it got into my body,” the statement said. ”My only guess
is that it came from one of the supplements I was taking around the time
of the test, even though none of them listed anything banned.”
Jenkins is the eighth Redskins player to receive a drug-related suspension in less than three seasons
.
RAVENS TACKLE PRACTICES Offensive tackle Bryant
McKinnie joined his Baltimore Ravens teammates on the field after
missing the first day of training camp for being overweight.
But McKinnie didn’t make it to the end of the two-and-a-half-hour workout.
“He worked very hard,” Coach John Harbaugh said. “He’s carrying a little
too much weight right now. So, with this heat out there, it made it
tough for him to finish.”
The 6-foot-8, 360-pound McKinnie was held out of Thursday’s session by
Harbaugh, who said McKinnie was “in good shape” but too heavy to
practice.
McKinnie was a key figure in Baltimore’s run to the Super Bowl last
season. He started all four playoff games and helped protect quarterback
Joe Flacco, who was not intercepted during the postseason.
NO. 1 PICK IN CHIEFS CAMP Eric Fisher started the long
drive from his family’s home in Michigan to join the Kansas City Chiefs
in training camp a couple of days ago. The only problem: He hadn’t
signed a contract.
So he hung out in a motel somewhere in Iowa — he wouldn’t say where —
while his agent put the finishing touches on his deal. On Friday, Fisher
finally got the go-ahead to join his new team at Missouri Western State
University for the official start to his professional career.
“I’m happy to be here and happy to get to work,” said Fisher, the No. 1
overall pick in the draft, who arrived at training camp in time to pass a
conditioning test and participate in the first full-squad workout. “I
just wanted to get the deal done.”
BASEBALL STORY
"Merkle's `Boner'- A True Baseball Story"
It happened in September of 1908, in NY
City. The Cubs were facing the Giants with the pennant on the line. Each and
every game was a must-win situation. The score was tied 1-1, in the bottom of
the 9th, the Giants had runners on the corners with two outs.
Fred Merkle, a 19 year-old rookie, was the runner on first. The next batter
lined a single. The runner at third came home. It appeared to be a Giants
victory, they had taken the lead for the pennant, the cheering fans swarmed the
field. Merkle looked toward home plate and saw his teammate cross the plate.
Merkle, startled as the crowd swarmed out of the bleachers onto the field,
stopped. Thinking the game was over, Merkle sprinted off the field. But, he had
forgotten an important rule of baseball, he did not go touch second. The Cubs retrieved
the ball, went and touched second. The game was declared at tie because order
could not be restored because the fans could not be removed from the field. The
two teams went on to finish the season in a dead tie for the pennant. They had
to play a one-game playoff. The Cubs won and went to the World Series. One loss,
the loss, that day knocked the Giants out! Merkle was never forgiven by the NY
fans for that blunder. He went on to have a solid career of 14 years and a
lifetime average of 273. However, everywhere he went he always was reminded by
fans of his terrible mistake on that day of his rookie season. A mistake that
will always be called, Merkles Boner.
Origins of baseball
The question of the origins of baseball has been the subject of debate and controversy for more than a century. Baseball and the other modern bat, ball and running games, cricket and rounders, were developed from earlier folk games in England.
Early forms of baseball had a number of names, including "Base Ball", "Goal Ball", "Round Ball", "Fletch-catch", "stool ball", and, simply, "Base". In at least one version of the game, teams pitched to themselves, runners went around the bases in the opposite direction of today's game, and players could be put out by being hit with the ball. Then as now, a batter was called out after three strikes.
Few details of how the modern game developed from earlier folk games are known. Some think that various folk games resulted in a game called town ball from which baseball was eventually born. Others believe that town ball, a game similar to rounders, played in 18th and 19th century North America, was independent from baseball.
Contents
- 1 Folk games in England
- 1.1 Stoolball
- 1.2 Dog and cat
- 1.3 Cricket
- 1.4 Cat, One Old Cat
- 1.5 Trap ball
- 1.6 Four (Your) Old Cat, Town Ball, Round Ball, and Massachusetts Base Ball
- 2 Abner Doubleday myth
- 3 Alexander Cartwright
- 4 Before 1845
- 4.1 Cricket and rounders
- 5 Elysian Fields
- 6 After 1845
- 7 References
- 7.1 Notes
- 7.2 Bibliography
- 8 External links
Folk games in England
A number of early folk games in England had characteristics that can be seen in modern baseball (as well as in cricket and rounders). Many of these early games involved a ball that was thrown at a target while an opposing player defended the target by attempting to hit the ball away. If the batter successfully hit the ball, he could attempt to score points by running between bases while fielders would attempt to catch or retrieve the ball and put the runner out in some way.Since they were folk games, the early games had no official, documented rules, and they tended to change over time. To the extent that there were rules, they were generally simple and were not written down. There were many local variations, and varied names.
Many of the early games were not well documented, first, because they were generally peasant games (and perhaps children's games, as well); and second, because they were often discouraged, and sometimes even prohibited, either by the church or by the state, or both.
Aside from obvious differences in terminology, the games differed in the equipment used (ball, bat, club, target, etc., which were usually just whatever was available), the way in which the ball is thrown, the method of scoring, the method of making outs, the layout of the field and the number of players involved.
An old English game called "base", described by George Ewing at Valley Forge, was apparently not much like baseball. There was no bat and no ball involved. The game was more like a fancy game of "tag", although it did share the concept of places of safety (for example, bases) with modern baseball.
In an 1801 book entitled The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, Joseph Strutt claimed to have shown that baseball-like games can be traced back to the 14th century, and that baseball is a descendant of an English game called stoolball. The earliest known reference to stoolball is in a 1330 poem by William Pagula, who recommended to priests that the game be forbidden within churchyards.
In stoolball, a batter stood before a target, perhaps an upturned stool, while another player pitched a ball to the batter. If the batter hit the ball (with a bat or his/her hand) and it was caught by a fielder, the batter was out. If the pitched ball hit a stool leg, the batter was out. Traditionally it was played by milkmaids who used their milking stools as a "wicket", according to one belief while waiting for their husbands to return from working in the fields.
According to many sources, in 1700, Anglican bishop Thomas Wilson expressed his disapproval of "Morris-dancing, cudgel-playing, baseball and cricket" occurring on Sundays. However, David Block, in Baseball Before We Knew It (2005), reports that the original source has "stoolball" for "baseball". Block also reports the reference appears to date to 1672, rather than 1700, and that it was the English game of baseball that had arrived in the U.S. as part of "a sweeping tide of cultural migration" during the colonial period.
In 1755, a book entitled "The Card", authored by John Kidgell, in Volume 1 (there are two volumes to the book) on page 9, mentions baseball: "the younger Part of the Family, perceiving Papa not inclined to enlarge upon the matter, retired to an interrupted Party at Base-Ball (an infant Game, which as it advances in its teens, improved into Fives ...). Kidgell's book contains the earliest surviving use of the term. "Base-ball" had appeared in 1744 in A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, but no copies of the first edition or other early editions have surfaced to date, only the 10th and later editions of Pocket-Book, from 1760 forward. Therefore, "The Card" by Kidgell dating to 1755 is the earliest surviving reference to baseball.
David Block discovered that the first recorded game of "Bass-Ball" took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. The English lawyer William Bray recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford, Surrey; Bray's diary was verified authentic in September 2008.
A 1791 bylaw in Pittsfield, Massachusetts bans the playing of baseball within 80 yards of the town meeting house.
By 1796 the rules of this English game were well enough established to earn a mention in the German Johann Gutsmuths' book on popular pastimes. In it he described "Englische Base-ball" as a contest between two teams in which "the batter has three attempts to hit the ball while at the home plate"; only one out was required to retire a side. The book also predates the rules laid out by the New York Knickerbockers by nearly fifty years.
The French book Les Jeux des Jeunes Garçons is the first known book to contain printed rules of a bat/base/running game. It was printed in Paris in 1810 and lays out the rules for "poison ball", in which there were two teams of eight to ten players, four bases (one called home), a pitcher, a batter, and flyball outs.
Another early print reference is Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, originally written 1798-1799. In the first chapter the young English heroine Catherine Morland is described as preferring "cricket, base ball, riding on horseback and running about the country to books."
In 1828, William Clarke of London published the second edition of The Boy’s Own Book, which included rules of rounders, and contains the first printed description in English of a bat and ball base-running game played on a diamond. The following year, the book was published in Boston, Massachusetts. Similar rules were published in Boston in "The Book of Sports", written by Robin Carver in 1834, except the Boston version called the game "Base" or "Goal ball". The rules were identical to those of poison ball, but also added fair and foul balls and strike-outs.
Also, in 1828, an article published in a Hagerstown, Maryland, newspaper briefly describes a young girl who is drawn away from her daily chores to play a familiar game with her friends. In "A Village Sketch", author Miss Mitford wrote: "Then comes a sun-burnt gipsy of six, beginning to grow tall and thin and to find the cares of the world gathering about her; with a pitcher in one hand, a mop in the other, an old straw bonnet of ambiguous shape, half hiding her tangled hair; a tattered stuff petticoat once green, hanging below an equally tattered cotton frock, once purple; her longing eyes fixed on a game of baseball at the corner of the green till she reaches the cottage door, flings down the mop and pitcher and darts off to her companions quite regardless of the storm of scolding with which the mother follows her runaway steps."
The account by Fred Lillywhite (1829–66) of the first English cricket tour to Canada and the United States in 1859 refers to the "base-ball game [being] somewhat similar to the English and Irish game of 'rounders.'" A day's play was lost during a cricket match in New York due to snow, but a game of baseball was arranged about a mile away between "the players of that game and a portion of the English party" (The English Cricketers' Trip to Canada and the United States, 1860).
A unique British sport, known as British Baseball, is still played in parts of Wales and England. Although confined mainly to the cities of Cardiff, Newport and Liverpool, the sport boasts an annual international game between representative teams from the two countries.
Stoolball
In stoolball, which developed by the 11th century, one player throws the ball at a target while another player defends the target. "Stob-ball" and "stow-ball" were regional games similar to stoolball. In stob ball and stow ball the target was probably a tree stump, since both "stob" and "stow" mean stump in some dialects. ("Stow" could also refer to a type of frame used in mining). What the target originally was in stoolball is not certain. It could have been a stump, since “stool” in old Sussex dialect means stump.According to one legend, milkmaids played stoolball while waiting for their husbands to return from the fields. Another theory is that stoolball developed as a game played after attending church services, in which case the target was probably a church stool.
Originally, the stool was defended with a bare hand. Later, a bat of some kind was used (in modern stoolball, a bat like a very heavy table tennis paddle is used).
There were several versions of stoolball. In the earliest versions, the object was primarily to defend the stool. Successfully defending the stool counted for one point, and the batter was out if the ball hit the stool. There was no running involved. Another version of stoolball involved running between two stools, and scoring was similar to the scoring in cricket. In perhaps yet another version there were several stools, and points were scored by running around them as in baseball.
Because of the different versions of stoolball, and because it was played not only in England, but also in colonial America, stoolball is considered by many to have been the basis of not only cricket, but both baseball and rounders as well.
Dog and cat
Another early folk game was "dog and cat" (or "cat and dog"), which probably originated in Scotland. In cat and dog a piece of wood called a cat is thrown at a hole in the ground while another player defends the hole with a stick (a dog). In some cases there were two holes and, after hitting the cat, the batter would run between them while fielders would try to put the runner out by putting the ball in the hole before the runner got to it. Dog and cat thus resembled cricket.Cricket
The history of cricket prior to 1650 is something of a mystery. Games believed to have been similar to cricket had developed by the 13th century. There was a game called "creag", and another game, "Handyn and Handoute" (Hands In and Hands Out), which was made illegal in 1477 by King Edward IV, who considered the game childish, and a distraction from compulsory archery practice.References to a game actually called "cricket" appeared around 1550. It is believed that the word cricket is based either on the word cric, meaning a crooked stick possibly a shepherd's crook (early forms of cricket used a curved bat somewhat like a hockey stick), or on the Flemish word "krickstoel", which refers to a stool upon which one kneels in church.
The Toronto Cricket Club was established in that city by 1827 and the St George's Cricket Club was formed in 1838 in New York City. Teams from the two clubs faced off in the first international cricket game in 1844 which Toronto won by 23 runs.
Cat, One Old Cat
See also: Old Cat
A game popular in colonial America was "one hole catapult", which used a catapult like the one used in trap-ball.The game of "cat" (or "cat-ball") had many variations but usually there was a pitcher, a catcher, a batter and fielders, but there were no sides (and often no bases to run). A feature of some versions of cat that would later become a feature of baseball was that a batter would be out if he swung and missed three times.
Another game that was popular in early America was "one ol' cat", the name of which was possibly originally a contraction of one hole catapult. In one ol' cat, when a batter is put out, the catcher goes to bat, the pitcher catches, a fielder becomes the pitcher, and other fielders move up in rotation. One ol' cat was often played when there weren't enough players to choose up sides and play townball. Sometimes running to a base and back was involved. "Two ol' cat" was the same game as one ol' cat, except that there were two batters.
Trap ball
In Trap ball, played in England since the 14th century, a ball was thrown in the air, to be hit by a batsman and fielded. In some variants a member of the fielding team threw the ball in the air, in others, the batsman caused the ball to be tossed in the air by a simple lever mechanism; versions of this, called Bat and trap and Knurr and spell, are still played in some English pubs.Four (Your) Old Cat, Town Ball, Round Ball, and Massachusetts Base Ball
A diagram posted in the baseball collection on the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery website identifies a game played, "Eight Boys with a ball & four bats playing Four (Your) Old Cat" (Image ID: 56105) (Ed. note: In the diagram there is a type-over that makes the first letter of the name of the game hard to distinguish. The caption provided by the NYPL interprets the note as saying YOUR Old Cat, but I believe the game is actually FOUR Old Cat). This game was apparently played on a square of 40 feet on each side, but the diagram does not make clear the rules or how to play the game.
The same sheet of paper shows a diagram of a square - 60 feet per side with the base side having in its middle the "Home Goal", "Catcher", and "Striker", and with the corners marked as "1st Goal", "2nd Goal", "3rd Goal", and "4th Goal" as you travel counter-clockwise around the square. The note accompanying this diagram says, "Thirty or more players (15 or more on each side) with a bat and ball playing Town Ball, some times called Round Ball, and subsequently the so-called Massachusetts game of Base Ball".
Abner Doubleday myth
Doubleday's invention of baseball was the finding of a panel appointed by Albert Spalding, a former star pitcher and club executive, who had become the leading American sporting goods entrepreneur and sports publisher. Debate on baseball's origins had raged for decades, heating up in the first years of the 20th century, due in part by a 1903 essay baseball historian Henry Chadwick wrote in Spalding's Official Baseball Guide stating that baseball gradually evolved from English game of "rounders". To end argument, speculation, and innuendo, Spalding organized the Mills Commission in 1905. The members were baseball figures, not historians: Spalding's friend Abraham G. Mills, a former National League president; two United States Senators, former NL president Morgan Bulkeley and former Washington club president Arthur Gorman; former NL president and lifelong secretary-treasurer Nick Young; two other star players turned sporting goods entrepreneurs (George Wright and Alfred Reach); and AAU president James E. Sullivan.
The final report, published on December 30, 1907, included three sections: a summary of the panel’s findings written by Mills, a letter by John Montgomery Ward supporting the panel, and a dissenting opinion by Henry Chadwick. The research methods were, at best, dubious. Mills was a close friend of Doubleday, and upon his death in 1893, Mills orchestrated Doubleday's memorial service in New York City and burial. Several other members had personal reasons to declare baseball as an "American" game, such as Spalding's strong American imperialism views. The Commission found an appealing story: baseball was invented in a quaint rural town without foreigners or industry, by a young man who later graduated from West Point and served heroically in the Mexican-American War, Civil War, and U.S. wars against Indians.
The Mills Commission concluded that Doubleday had invented baseball in Cooperstown, New York in 1839; that Doubleday had invented the word "baseball", designed the diamond, indicated fielders' positions, and written the rules. No written records in the decade between 1839 and 1849 have ever been found to corroborate these claims, nor could Doubleday be interviewed (he died in 1893). The principal source for the story was one letter from elderly Abner Graves, a five-year-old resident of Cooperstown in 1839. Graves never mentioned a diamond, positions or the writing of rules. Graves' reliability as a witness was challenged because he spent his final days in an asylum for the criminally insane. Doubleday was not in Cooperstown in 1839 and may never have visited the town. He was enrolled at West Point at the time, and there is no record of any leave time. Mills, a lifelong friend of Doubleday, never heard him mention baseball.
Although the Baseball Hall of Fame was finally built in Cooperstown, Doubleday was never inducted into it. Versions of baseball rules and descriptions of similar games have been found in publications that significantly predate his alleged invention in 1839. Despite this, the ballpark only a few blocks down from the Hall of Fame still bears the name "Doubleday Field".
Alexander Cartwright
On June 3, 1953, Congress officially credited Cartwright with inventing the modern game of baseball, and he is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, the role of Cartwright himself has been disputed. His authorship may have been exaggerated in a modern attempt to identify a single inventor of the game, although Cartwright may have a better claim to the title than any other single American.
Cartwright, a New York bookseller who later caught "gold fever", umpired the first-ever recorded U.S. baseball game with codified rules in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 19, 1846. He also founded the older of the two teams that played that day, the New York Knickerbockers. The game ended, and the other team (The New York Nines) won, 22-1. Cartwright also introduced the game in most of the cities where he stopped on his trek west to California to find gold.
One point undisputed by historians is that the modern professional major leagues, that began in the 1870s, developed directly from amateur urban clubs of the 1840s and 1850s, not from the pastures of small towns such as Cooperstown.
