Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 21:32:02 +0200, Robert Chung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
> [ snip, earlier comments on Barry Bonds's home runs,
> then at 56, now at 63.]
> >
> > Hmmm. I would have suggested that Pac Bell Park was much more
> > conducive to a power-hitting lefty than Candlestick was, sorta
> > like the short right front porch at Yankee stadium. Matter of
> > fact, if Hank Aaron had played half his games in Candlestick
> > while Willie Mays had played half his in Atlanta...
> >
> > Discussions about regression to the mean (and comments that Bonds
> > has never before hit 50) might be more relevant if all other
> > conditions were constant. They ain't.
>
> I did not know whether there was anything to that, about the
> park, until I read in the paper a week ago --
> When Bonds hit #63, he tied the previous record of Babe Ruth
> and Mark McGwire for hitting 32 homers on the road.
>
> Well, it wasn't a bad idea. Just, wrong.
Oh, I wasn't saying that Bonds wasn't having a great year (though
I *am* saying that I'm glad they didn't play baseball this last
week -- I wasn't much in the mood to follow it). I was saying
that things ain't exactly comparable, and people had been making
much of the fact that he'd never before hit 50. Yes, Bonds has
hit 32 on the road. That means he's hit 31 at Pac Bell, which I
believe is more than he'd ever hit at Candlestick (now called
3Com), or at Three Rivers. It was clearly harder to hit HRs in
Candlestick than in the Bronx, or in Atlanta. Although the Giants
moved into Pac Bell only last year it *appears* that Pac Bell is
easier to hit HRs in than Candlestick, and I certainly don't mean
that to take anything away from Bonds -- I think he may still be
the only player to have hit balls over the stadium and into
McCovey Cove. I don't know how Pac Bell compares to Yankee
stadium, or the stadium in Atlanta that Aaron played in.
My main point was not about baseball or Bonds. It was about the
cavalier way that people toss around the phrase, "regression to
the mean," as if it were an immutable law that trumped all other
differences in conditions.
--Robert Chung
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