Comments on: Metrodome cheating, Kent Hrbek and Ron Gant

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 04:55:21 +0000

Does anyone have a photo of Kent Hrbek pushing Gant off of the bag? If so please e-mail it to me with the subject line of 91′ World Series, so I’ll know what it is.
Thanks,
Matt.

By: David

David — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:28:55 +0000

Thanks for your discussion of the Gant/Hrbek incident. As a Braves fan, it still bothers me. I have a friend (that I was actually watching the game with) who to this day refuses to say Hrbek’s name, consistently referring to him as “The Cheater.”

By: Mat

Mat — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:12:56 +0000

Sorry, not the same game, just the same series. I’ll stop now.

By: Mat

Mat — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:08:01 +0000

The Hrbek thing was definitely cheating, though. As for his wiki picture, Hrbek has kind of a weird, cheesy personality in the local media (getting his start in the media pitching air conditioning systems for Carrier) that has developed over time, so that picture doesn’t surprise me too much.

That game also had a great play where the Twins middle infield faked that they were turning a DP on a ball hit to the outfield, which slowed the runner advancing from first and likely prevented him from scoring. Not cheating in major league baseball (it would be cheating in my slow-pitch softball league), but definitely gamesmanship.

By: Mat

Mat — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:57:47 +0000

Do you have the citation to the Star Tribune article that discusses the AC thing? I wonder if it’s the same article that I knew about (though I can only search their archives for the last 14 days.)

I remember a couple years ago the Tigers were complaining about that and a group of engineering students from the University of Minnesota studied what the largest possible effect of the AC fans could be. The way the study was spun in the paper was that with the fans, the ball could go 7-8 feet farther. However, I knew someone who was in that group, and they said that the uncertainty in the study was somewhere around 7-8 feet, so that the result wasn’t statistically significant. But, this being the media covering science, that didn’t get included in the newspaper article.

If this had noticable effect, you’d expect that the AC fans would have to create enough of a breeze that it would feel like sitting outside on a windy day, and from personal experience, it has never seemed windy inside the Metrodome.

Also, if this was a big effect, you’d expect that it might show up in the HR splits for Twins closers, especially a guy like Joe Nathan who is a pretty extreme fly ball pitcher. From what I can tell, though, it looks like Nathan and Guardado gave up HR at basically the same rate at home and on the road.

Anyway, I think it’s an interesting topic, and I’ve got a copy of your book in a UPS truck somewhere which might clear things up, but I’m not seeing a whole lot of good evidence for a real effect here.