“…thinner air” cited by sports broadcaster
From DeadSpin’s Timothy Burke:
Tim McCarver Blames Global Warming For The Increase In Major League Home Runs
We’d normally save this sort of thing for McCarve’d Up (which will be back next week after being pre-empted for NFL draft coverage) but Tim McCarver said one of the stupidest things ever spoken on a television broadcast today, blaming global warming for “making the air thin” and thus leading to a rise in home runs.
Climate change, or in McCarver’s words “climactic change,” is the culprit (and not, say, steroids, the age of which McCarver insists is over). Global warming is a real thing (climate change deniers are already giving McCarver a beatdown online) but the theory it’s led to increased major league offensive production is one of the most insane things ever asserted by a professional broadcaster. And this man is in the Hall of Fame! [Fox]
h/t to WUWT reader Eric Neilsen
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Former MLB player and broadcaster Tim McCarver…Image from Wikipedia
Too many balls to the head?
UPDATE: It gets dumber. MLB has blocked the video on YouTube citing copyright violations…except that under fair use exceptions to the copyright law, criticism of boneheadedness is allowed, especially when using short snippets like this video clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSRwnY3eHKU&feature=player_embedded
And these two incidents, combined with exorbitant prices to support exorbitant salaries, are why I don’t go to baseball games anymore. The great American pastime has lost its mojo.
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So far looks like no one has posted it so here is the list of things caused by global warming / co2.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
There is a correlation between global warming and the decreased use of steroids in baseball. Oh heck, how about all sports, that’s why the Olympic committee has done away with drugs testing. Silly me.
pat says:
“I suppose that I need tell anyone with an education that a warm, moisture laden atmosphere would actually shorten the distance of a baseball given equal bat launching energy and trajectory as opposed to cold and dry .”{
Sorry Pat — moist air is less dense than dry air at any temperature.
It’s mo like mo sterrreeeooos dan it is tinner air.
Hey, don’t forget, the upper bleachers are known as ‘the nose bleed’ section…
DirkH says:
April 29, 2012 at 1:24 am
It has nothing to do with thinner air. 😉
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Well, obviously not. It’s far greater than that. As anyone who’s followed the O’s since the mid ’90s will tell you, baseballing events of the past three weeks or so have been so astonishing that they may well presage the end of days.
Does “climactic change” mean the end of the ‘No Hitter’? Times were different in the past when pitchers would achieve No Hitters.
Perhaps the thinner air is affecting the writers brain cells.
“…(At least when we have a World Series Cricket competition we actually invite around 14 different countries to compete)…”
Eh, I think a very large number of countries are represented by players in MLB…currently 17, I believe, from 5 continents.
Has Tim done a study with leagues in Japan, Cuba, etc? How does he know this isn’t just regional? lol
He’s a catcher, the smartest man on the field, the dumbest off of it.
Well that just proves that statistics is no more meaningful with respect to that children’s sand lot game, than it is to weather and climate; and surprisingly, in both fields, grown men actually watch and write down those numbers as if they actually relate to something meaningful.
Well they aren’t likely to change the name of the whirled series any time soon; but I understand there is a move in the NFL to change the name of that game to “Please don’t kick the ball !”
Aussie rules fans would all fall aslepp during an NFL spectacle.
Warmer weather in the spring could lead to more home runs. For those of you who have tried to hit a baseball (or golf ball, or whatever) you know how much it can sting when it is cold out. In addition, players will tend to stiffen up more in cooler weather.
However, warmer weather in mid summer could lead to more exhaustion and lessen the ability to focus. This would likely lead to fewer home runs.
I don’t think it’s crazy to say that weather extremes could lead to changes in player performance.
He even looks stupid.
Is there a bottom to this pit?
Usually (I said “usually”) when Timmy talks baseball he’s fairly knowledgeable. On any other topic he’s a real dunce.
Perhaps he should listen more to Gibson, who regularly told him when he would come out to the mound, to get the hell behind the plate and shut up.
It is possible — is it not? — that McCarver was joking.
While the concept of “GW” may be dubious, we were certainly in the warming portion of the 60 yr weather cycle from ~’75-’05 when HR production was up. Many factors contributed to that: new, smaller parks, lighter bats in use, bigger players, etc. But both theoretical considerations & empirical evidence show that a baseball can be hit significantly farther in warmer, drier, thinner air than in cooler, more humid, thicker air. (Pitched balls don’t break nearly as much either.) Cf: “The Physics of Baseball,” RK Adair,PhD. Pitchers hate playing in Denver. Hitters love it.
Another good McCarver story: in a tight spot in a WS game, McCarver called time to go out to give advice to Gibson. Gibson came toward him scowling and yelled at McCarver, “Get back behind the plate. The only thing you know about pitching is that you can’t hit it!”
Way too simple to blame WEAK PITCHING in the MLB.
Paradoxically, there may be some truth in what he says. Consider the tortoise, it has one of the most efficient wind resistance coefficients in the animal kingdom, it is just built for speed. And yet it is known for its slowness.
Surely an animal that evolved for speed in a thick soupy atmosphere tells us that something has changed, the air has gotten thinner.
And a quick check of the historical records tells us that at one point , in the late aesopolithic, the tortoise was often recorded as being faster than a hare
Better storage, hence dry baseballs being the reason? Stop smirking on the back row!
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode83
He’s obviously very confused. The only place the air is thinner is at higher altitudes, due to the lower air pressure. I guess he thinks that the some 75 ppm that C02 has risen the past 50 years has made the air “thinner”, by displacing oxygen. Come to think of it, as I’ve gotten older, I have noticed that with physical exertion I become out of breath more easily. Perhaps he’s onto something.
Increased home runs probably have nothing to do with building new ballparks with shorter distances to fences. What is known is that when Fenway Park built the sky boxes on top of the stadium behind home plate it changed the wind patterns and home runs at that park decreased.
Someone should tell Albert Pujols. ;->
(A home run hitter with zero home runs, earning $12,000,000/season.)
I would have thought, with global warming’s widely known profound effect on trees, that it would be the wooden bats that have changed to allow more home runs. Seems to me that the thinner air would also mean faster fast balls thus cancelling out the effect on hit balls. Has there been a corresponding increase in pitch speed and strike-outs as well?
Also, we know that the air in a baseball park would obviously have a higher concentration of CO2 because of all the beer. That should mean that the temperature at ball parks would be elevated relative to the surrounding area – I’m going to call this the Beer Heat Island Effect. By closely monitoring BHIE at baseball parks, we’ll be able to see the immediate future effects of higher concentrations f CO2. I’m going to need a grant that includes budgeting for tickets (I’ll need to set up my temperature station somewhere along the 1st baseline), two kosher hotdogs with kraut, a bag of peanuts and, of course, a large test sample of the local beer (unless it’s Busch, this World and everybody in it will burn to a crisp before I drin…. um, test Busch)
Tim McCarver apparently doesn’t know baseball.
It was noted some years ago at Coors field that balls kept in a humidor did not fly as far. Dry balls fly farther. Over time other clubs learned this and now use this as a means of increasing excitement at games.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=13057
For the first seven seasons at Coors, there were 3.20 home runs hit per gamecompared to 1.93 per Rockies away game. However, beginning in 2002 the Colorado Rockies began to store their baseballs in a humidor at a constant 50 percent relative humidity and 700F, as opposed to the more typical 30 percent humidity in Denver. During the period from 2002-2010 the Coors ratio decreased to 2.39, a reduction of 25 percent, while the away game ratio stayed constant at 1.86. Is it plausible that the reduction in home runs can be attributed to the humidor? The primary goal of this article is to answer that question.