Ever since I first saw him play, I’ve thought that Sammy Sosa looked a bit like someone with Down Syndrome.
Granted, the pictures are a little… different:rolleyes:, but it’s the best comparison I could get at a minute’s notice.
Another possibility - is he deaf? I always thought my fully mentally functional cousin, who was almost completely deaf, looked similar to a Down Syndrome child…
hrh
IMO, if Sammy Sosa, was special in any way (DS, deaf, etc), the media would have been all over it years ago just for him making the Big Leagues, and it would have been ALL over the news during the McGwire-Sosa homerun race of 1998.
And even if he is only partially deaf, he doesn’t seem to have any trouble hearing questions during his press conferences about his woodshop skills 
He is fully functional, so to speak.
And the prize for Dumbest Question of the Day goes to…
I must be missing something, because I don’t see anything particularly odd about either of these pictures. 
Just cuz I’m a big fan of baseball, AND Sosa for that matter, Physics tells us (Jesus H.! Every damn post I get involved in involves friggin Physics!!!) Physics tells us that Force equals Mass times Accelertion. If Sammy’s bat weighs LESS, he generates more acceleration, but LESS Force. But if he had left the damn bat alone, he would have LESS acceleration and MORE mass! The SAME Force! Sammy is a HOME RUN HITTER!!! NOT a fluke!
What? This thread has nothing to do with his home run hitting ability.
And just when I thought this thread couldn’t get stupider…
Is this about my woodshop remark? If so, dude, take a Valium or two. Nobody said he was a fluke: you don’t put together the past 5 seasons Sammy has as a fluke. And nobody claimed corking bats helps either. It was just a little harmless quip, hence the smiley afterwards. As a Cardinals fan, it’s my duty to razz the Cubs. 
Well I knew that this thread really wasn’t about Sammy’s ability, but I STILL thought I should throw in my two cents!
can people with down’s syndrome be bilingual?
BTW, since we’re getting all physical (so to speak) mass refers to the amount of matter an object contains (it is also a measure of inertia), and the weight is related to the force of gravity (i.e., the gravititaional force acting on an object). So by corking a bat, the weight is less, but mass remains the same. So more acceleration and equal mass means more force.
However, from all I’ve heard about the actual effects of corking a bat, the weight difference is minimal. Instead of hitting a 400 ft homer, Sammy would knock one out about 405 feet. Big flippin’ deal, huh?
I heard someone say that his face looks a lot different now compared to when he first started because of steroid use. Anyone with a “before” picture so we can judge for ourselves?
No! (with more defference…) The mass ALWAYS remains the same. Period. The WEIGHT never chaged, since Sammy never played away games on the moon…
And to kind of agree with you, Crunchy Frog, bid flippin deal! Sammy has PLENTY of power to hit one out! If anyone thinks all his HRs were due to a corked bat, you are sadly mistaken!
Is this about my woodshop remark? If so, dude, take a Valium or two. Nobody said he was a fluke: you don’t put together the past 5 seasons Sammy has as a fluke. And nobody claimed corking bats helps either. It was just a little harmless quip, hence the smiley afterwards. As a Cardinals fan, it’s my duty to razz the Cubs.
So we agree that Sammy doesn’t need to cork bats to hit the longball. (And I can’t think of any knowledgeable baseball fan who thinks Sammy has hit all those HRs with corked bats, surely this year wasn’t the first time he’s broken a bat on the field, it’d have been found out by now) But you confused me by saying “The mass ALWAYS remains the same. Period. The WEIGHT never chaged, since Sammy never played away games on the moon…” So if the mass is the same and the weight never changed, then why does a bat weigh less after corking it? And if mass does remain the same, then that backs up what I had said before, more acceleration + same mass = more force. I haven’t studied physics since high school, so none of this is fresh in my mind, just so ya know. I’m thinking I may well just be confused.
And sorry about that double post, BTW, I screwed things up hitting the back button and that accidentally got thrown in there again.
Frog, dude! I REALLY am not disagreeing with you!
What I’m saying…If Sammy stays, exclusively, on Earth, corking his bat, NOT corking his bat, makes NO difference.
The WEIGHT only changes if he goes into space…
I’m not arguing either, I’m just confused. Like I said, I haven’t studied physics since high school, so none of it is fresh in my head.
Anyway, I guess it’s all moot, since the basic idea is the same: Sammy hits the crap out of baseballs.
(Of course as a Cardinal fan, I have to hereby state that I still prefer our outfield of Edmonds and Pujols and a when-healthy JD Drew)
Now I’m confused.
If a regular, solid bat weighs 36 oz. and you cork it, it will weigh less than 36 oz. In fact, just after the corked bat fiasco, they kept showing a demonstration of how to cork a bat on ESPN. It weighed about an ounce or two less after they corked it.
If you drill out a bat (as if to cork it) and weigh the wood you removed, you will find that wood weighs more than the amount of cork you would use to replace the wood you originally removed. Thus, when a bat is corked, it weighs less than the original bat.
Sorry, but this is just wrong.
Let’s call mass “stuff”. Was there less “stuff” in Sammy’s bat after the cork was put in? YES. You can tell that first of all because in the same gravitational field, it weighed less.
Second, think about why that would be. The answer is that cork has a lot of space in it. That’s why we use if for bulletin boards, and not oak. Imagine trying to push a tack into oak with your thumb to put up your memo.
Soooo… his bat had less mass, yes, but the theory is that if he was swinging less mass, he would be able to compensate with more velocity, keep the same hitting surface (although not the same bat strength, as you can see), and the increase in velocity would give him a jump in kinetic energy.
E= m times v squared. If you get the velocity to go up by 25% (which is high, I’m sure), then the energy in fact goes up by 56%.
Notice that ESPN found that all he probably gained was a few ounces. This is why I’m skeptical personally that it’s worth the time, trouble, and public scorn to cork a bat.
[Oh, and Crunchy, we have to get together and use our mental powers to repair Drew’s knees. But how about that Bo Hart, eh?]
[And doesn’t that name sound like something out of a comic book?]
