DarthPenguin

Congrats!

The steroid era is a tough one tbh as it is almost impossible to know how many people were on them. It isn't guaranteed that you become massive when you are on steroids (ala the change in Bonds over time) with different substances having different results - just need to look at Tour De France cyclists using steroids / performance enhancing drugs to improve other aspects of fitness. Just because someone was not massive doesn't mean they didn't take something to avoid injury / increase stamina etc. My personal solution would be to have a "steroid era wing" (not labelled as this but with the years instead) and have the players in that and some exhibits for context. I just keep coming back to the fact that all the players had to compete in the same environment: yes they may have been stronger and able to hit further but defenders may have been faster and able to chase down more hits / jump higher for an above the wall catch; pitchers may have been throwing harder or had more break due to ability to grip harder and impart more spin. In my head it is kinda like baseball having to lower the mound after the absolute domination from Bob Gibson - the mound obviously benefitted him but does it invalidate his numbers ? For me it doesn't. I do take the argument though that it was self inflicted! Plus it is nice to have halls of fame: it isn't something that we really have over here - plenty of footballers who are club legends and legends of the game but there isn't a museum dedicated to them etc.

Welcome, nice to (virtually) meet you

He is one of those where you can see both sides really. Also comes down to your perspective on what the Hall of Fame is / what it stands for. If you view it as the shrine to the best players ever where people can remember them / a museum dedicated to the best players ever then i personally think guys like Rose, Bonds, Clemens. McGwire, A-Rod all need to be in as historically speaking they were amongst the best players to have ever played (museums still include exhibits / information on horrendous people and times in history). If you view it as a shrine to the best examples of baseball then those players maybe dont make the cut. Personally, when people like Ty Cobb are in then you have kinda already removed the moral argument, and with the other players who are in an used corked bats etc. you have removed the cheating argument too, but i can see how some people come down on the other side of the fence. The ambiguity sorta reminds me of the NBA MVP debate : is it the best player or the most important player to the teams success? Under the former criteria MJ should have basically won it every year in the 90s but using the latter criteria Karl Malone got one etc. Personally i much prefer the way baseball does the CY Young : best pitcher or the way that football does the Ballon Dor : best player. Lot less ambiguity as to what the award means.

Will be interesting to see - though i am wondering if there are a few red flags appearing now: flaming out in WWE and NFL; getting beaten at NCAA (while i am sure his opponent is excellent he is still the olympic champ!)

Also, i am very much looking forward to the season starting in anger soon! Go Mariners!! Though i will be visiting Toronto this summer and fingers crossed i manage to catch Scherzer pitching whilst there!

100% agree on all of that. There are always a few players who midway / nearer the end of their career everyone talks about as "surefire first ballot HoFer", even cases like (ignoring the steroids issue) ones like Barry Bonds where the comments were "clear first ballor HoFer, definite inner circle player up there with Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth etc." Players like that, where it is so so so obvious that they should be in should basically always be unanimous in my opinion. When it comes to the voters i can see the argument for it not being the writers but then unfortunately you run the risk of personal bias amongst players creeping in even more. Using another sport, football, as an example: the Spanish football team used to have an issue in the past where the Barcelona players and Real Madrid players would flatly refuse to pass to each other during games due to rivalries; i live in Glasgow and the rivalry between Rangers and Celtic is rather well known and would lead to similar issues. Journalists seem like the least bad option to me tbh unless it becomes a set of statistical criteria which them removes some of the mystique (eg if it became need to average 2 standard deviations more home runs over a ten year span that players from comparative sample A, plus have metric B plus metric C).

Yeah i saw that, was surprised to see Steveson back in the NCAA tbh (i don't follow NCAA wrestling generally but i know he had flamed out at WWE and also didn't make the Bills roster). I had expected he would have taken up MMA tbh and seen what damage he could do in the UFC. I thought he would have ended up a better version of Lesnar at the very worst (more decorated wrestler plus more time to learn the skills)

Thats a fair point. They have some very odd stances - such as Ichiro not being unanimous to the Hall. Granted i have some slight bias as a Mariners fan, but i can't see how he is anything but a top tier hall of famer. I understand the historical precedents for this in prior years but once Mariano went in unanimous then i thought that should set the precedent going forwards for guys like Ichiro, Pujols (when it's his turn), Verlander etc. The stigma of being the first player to be unanimous and making sure they were deserving has been dealt with and there are multiple guys now who should get it.

Yeah it sounds like he is doing really really well. Also sounds like some solid building blocks for next year too

yeah that makes sense. I like the games but i personally find they work best in one of two ways: either : 1) teach a technique or two and then move to the games to try to apply them (though tbh this already always existed and was just known as positional sparring - we used to do this as eg start in closed guard: person on bottom has to sweep only or maybe submit too - top person can only pass or only defend etc which are basically the games) 2) start with the game, ask the students how they are getting on then teach some techniques to deal with the issues and rerun the games applying the new material

thanks! I am trying to look on the positive side that it was the first bad flare up in a decade (which shocked my gp when i saw them) so i do manage it pretty well usually. I also identified what set it off this time so should be able to prevent it going forwards. Was pleased with the judo grading though Have been really enjoying the class and i think it will really help my bjj too (plus the additional fitness work will also help my karate!)

Sounds like some good sessions. Reading some of the bjj stuff has led me to a question i was interested to hear your perspective on: There is a lot of debate in bjj places at the moment about the merits of old fashioned technique based sessions compared to ecological sessions (game style like your sessions seem to be). My academy does a lot of the game type stuff too which i actually quite like but i got to wondering what it must be like for newer students who don't know many/any techniques yet, where they might end up totally floundering and trying random stuff. I'm curious how you have found starting out bjj and learning that way? (or did you already have a solid prior base of some techniques that you can fall back on?)

I have been very remiss in updating this over the last few weeks so will add updates here as a single post! In the process of getting new home gym sorted still (likely to be done end of March), all equipment is ordered as is new cabin etc so just need it all to be delivered and assembled etc. In the interim have been mainly doing kb workouts and some ski-erg stuff for strength and conditioning work. My gout flared up really badly in my foot (is a legacy of an old injury) so struggled to put any weight on my feet for a few weeks which curtailed some of the training a bit - have made less bjj and karate sessions than would be ideal. On the plus side though, when foot was fine (and since last post), i managed to successfully get my first judo grading done so i now have a new red belt (aka i can manage to step on the mats without falling on my face!). Means i am on track for the years goals with regards to judo at least!

As a non American (so i wasn't exposed to the mythos around certain sports growing up) i have always found some of the rules in the baseball hall of fame to be a little funny. Personally, since pretty much everyone accepts that Rose never bet against himself or his team (And there were no allegations - that i am aware of - that he tried to get opponents to underperform) i don't see why he can't be allowed in now. I have always found the outcry against the 'steroid players' to be a little silly based on some of the players who are in. I have always thought it should be either all proven cheaters out or look at eras etc : there are several players in the hall that openly admitted to corking their bats; taking 'greenies' (how is this not performance enhancing since it let them play better); greasing the balls etc. so i don't see how that is fundamentally different to some players taking steroids (since players on both sides of the ball did so an argument could be made that they may 'net off'). From the little i know about the Black Sox scandal several of the players should be in as they didn't cheat and actually had an excellent series!

would be interesting to see the actual amount that Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were getting paid at their peaks. There are rumours that Messi was actually on £100m a year (the Barcelona books were apparently very very messy). Mbappe did get offered a billion pound contract to play in Saudi though a few years ago and turned it down

I totally agree but only slight different take i would have would be on the 'finished what they started' point as it would depend how they set their goals! Easiest example i can give is my 8yr old son: he trains both karate and judo and is massively massively keen on his judo. He set himself a goal (a year or two ago) of being olympic champion (he aims high lol) and works really hard - i have heard him supping broccoli soup and telling himself he needs to have it if he wants to win the olympics. A while ago he got his 8th Kai (it's the under 8 'black belt' which i had never actually seen in person before so i must admit i was really proud of him). He then got invited to join his judo club (it has 10+ locations) competition squad and his response was "thats me finished that part, first step out of the way to the olympics" (he isn't lacking in self belief either!). So i could see a situation where someone has set stepped goals: 1) get black belt 2) get 3rd dan within X years of this 3) get instructors qualification etc etc and so in that sense they could be finished Though i do agree that in most instances it is likely that they are looking at it exactly the way that you thought!

yeah that seems a little bit 'off' to me. Without having read the research myself it has a whiff of someone only reading the abstract or misinterpreting the study. My partner has a masters in Sports Psychology (with a focus on improving human performance) - though she doesn't use it! and my brother in law was an international sports person for more than a decade and is now a professional s&s coach for pro teams (plus several other people i know who have competed nationally / internationally) and none of them hold to such a rule! Pretty sure one of them would have mentioned it. I have a feeling the research mentions a break every 30min or so (which also meshes with study approaches i have covered at work) which neatly fits with a water break and then you get back to it. I could definitely see people skipping the 'bad bits' and becoming less well rounded as a result

Thinking about it it also reminds me of a drill we used to do in the past: we would put a mat on the floor (usual gym mat size) and you and opponent would both step on it at either end. Then you would spar. Stepping off meant a loss (and pushups!); being knocked off meant a loss etc. Was quite a good drill to get used to fighting in an enclosed space i found. Sounds quite similar - though without the initial connection!

I just read through your prior 2019 post @Wastelander and it was really interesting! I can totally see how that would be an excellent training activity. Only question i would have would be on how applicable it would be to competition. I think it would work fine from the purposes of people competing, and allowing for development of skills. Not sure how it would translate to a competition that may be spectated (and not sure if that is something you would be aiming for anyway - though if trying to grow the art maybe you would be?). It strikes me that it may end up somewhat similar to watching a bjj competition which unless you are really into bjj can often be very dull as you just see two people hugging a lot and don't pick up the technical intricacies (obviously there is the odd exception but i am sure you get the point). What just came into my head though was how it might be really really well suited to building interest via seminars etc. I am thinking of stuff like Ian Abernethy's work where he travels a lot and teaches his techniques and is pretty well known. I could see a place for something similar with Noah Legel's kakedameshi courses!

should be an interesting game but can't see past the Chiefs. I keep thinking (this season especially) that the NFL playoffs reminded me a lot of Tennis with the 3 teams i thought would have the best shot of winning all being in the one conference (Ravens, Bills and Chiefs). The Bills reminded me of Andy Murray a bit, where he could manage to beat one of the other big 4 in a grandslam but struggled to beat 2 in a row. Once the Bills beat the Ravens i wondered if the same would happen with the Chiefs where it would be a bridge too far. If someone else had taken down the Ravens or Chiefs so the Bills only had to play one i think they would have won it all! Was pleased though this season to see how much better the running game was with Cook. They are so so close to getting over the hump now - hopefully they don't backslide!

Yeah sounds like he is developing really well - he will be an absolute monster when he is high school senior age himself! Out of curiosity, what to 3-2-1A and 4A mean in this context?

Thanks both Yeah everyone is fine: i'm trying to take the positive spin that this lets me sort out a new and improved home gym 2.0 lol. Could have been a lot worse though - i managed to get into it mid storm and turned off the consumer unit to prevent the possibility of an electrical fire and the roof could have landed somewhere much worse than my neighbours garden. Insurers are being very efficient so far too - hopefully it is the same when it come to resolving the claim!

Sounds like your daughter has got exactly the right attitude to belts! MY son said something similar recently and i must admit i was really proud of him: he recently got awarded his 8th kai in judo (under 8's 'black belt' : white with black stripe through it) and was understandably proud as neither of us had ever seen anyone with it! What i was please at though was he said " i want to go to the bigger kids class now. I know i will probably lose a lot as the kids are bigger than me and i will take a while to get next belts but i will get better faster and then i will be much better than i am now". He was totally focused on the skill improvement rather than the belt which was (i thought) a very mature take for a little kid. For me belts are a funny thing and i think peoples attitudes to them change the more they train / the longer they train for. After a while it does just (to me anyway) become a nice piece of material that tells me how hard i can safely go with someone when i spar them. I think bjj has helped with that a lot tbh as over time you get used to seeing really talented/skilled/athletic lower belts sometimes beating higher belts and it doesn't become as much of a big deal - no one (in my club anyway) questions someones belt level because someone 20 years younger, stronger fitter and faster beat them in a roll

update : we had a big storm at the weekend (hurricane force winds) and it ripped the roof off my otuside cabin that i use for a gym. Managed to bring some stuff inside (ski machine, weight plates etc) but can't shift the rack nor cable machine due to size and weight of them so they are unfortunately unsuable until insurance claim sorted. Have been managing to keep up my daily usage of ski erg though and will try to get some kettlebell workouts in until i can get back to 'proper' weights