Austin Hays: On The Mend!

[weams]

2 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

Unfortunately for Hays he's an Oriole...he will probably lose the hand. 

I think a loss is too severe. Maybe just a joint fusion experimental surgery. 

[weams]

I remember how his ankle injury was discussed last season. 

[Ohfan67]

49 minutes ago, weams said:

I think a loss is too severe. Maybe just a joint fusion experimental surgery. 

I suck at inserting photos: Woody Harrelson as Roy Munson in Kingpin. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

1 hour ago, weams said:

I remember how his ankle injury was discussed last season. 

I think that one was a small issue that went undetected and then blew up into what it was.

[weams]

Just now, Legend_Of_Joey said:

I think that one was a small issue that went undetected and then blew up into what it was.

Or it was underplayed.

[Legend_Of_Joey]

1 minute ago, weams said:

Or it was underplayed.

If I remember correctly, it was a sprain and he was too aggressive coming back, which led to the cyst and the fracture.

[spiritof66]

19 hours ago, Luke-OH said:

His tweets are quite dramatic.

The opening lyrics:

    "I've been hurt (hurt) hurt (hurt) hurt (hurt)
     Yes I've been hurt
     I've been hurt like I've never been before."

[Sessh]

On 3/23/2019 at 7:56 PM, Can_of_corn said:

Or just slide feet first.

Also no low leverage stolen bases.

Harder to avoid tags that way. I didn't suggest that because it's not reasonable to expect that to happen IMO. There is obviously a perceived advantage to sliding head first or players wouldn't do it most of the time, so maybe it's worth the risk to them. I'm sure they know the risk. Personally, I don't agree with any restrictions at all on this.

Besides, why wouldn't it be reasonable to expect more ankle injuries with more feet first slides and more injuries to players covering the base due to accidental spikings (as pictured above) since you would be sliding into the base with what is essentially a bunch of little knives facing the player. I don't see why there wouldn't be just as many injuries only in different locations. Sliding into a base in any way isn't really safe.

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Glad to hear about Hays. Hopefully this is isn't something that lingers though and bothers him. The thumb can be tricky sometimes.

He needs to avoid the temptation to rush back.    Hopefully last year’s experience will have taught him that.  

[OsEatAlEast]

9 hours ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

The "oven mitt" device seems to help reduce it.

Just like the "granny shot" worked for high free throw percentage. Most guys would never use it because "It doesn't look cool".

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

13 minutes ago, OsEatAlEast said:

Just like the "granny shot" worked for high free throw percentage. Most guys would never use it because "It doesn't look cool".

 

[spiritof66]

1 hour ago, OsEatAlEast said:

Just like the "granny shot" worked for high free throw percentage. Most guys would never use it because "It doesn't look cool".

Thanks for the reminder of why I gave up following anything about pro basketball, other than watching the games themselves, around the time Magic Johnson and Larry Bird left the game.

When I started following basketball in the late 50s and early 60s, there were still some underhand free throw shooters in college and high school basketball. (And my father in our driveway.) But they had pretty much disappeared from the NBA, the most prominent being Dave Gambee, a 1960s journeyman forward and lousy shooter who hit over 82 percent of his FTs with his own unique version of underhand shooting, and then Rick Barry, a great shooter in the 70s who led the league in FT percentage in six of his eight years in the NBA. In the 60s, as I recall it, it was pretty much accepted that, in the abstract, the underhand free throw is the more logical way to get the ball into the basket from the FT line and requires a much simpler motion. That was pretty much proven, I understood, through experiments with groups of kids, some conducted by perhaps the greatest free thrower of all time, Bunny Levitt of the Globetrotters, as well as by the few prominent players who tried underhand FTing after putting in some practice time. 

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1999-07-18-9907160604-story.html

But the rest of the conventional wisdom, again as I recall it, was that perfecting that simpler motion required many, many hours of practice -- and more hours the later you started -- in large part since it differs so much from everything else you would do in practicing and playing basketball. (There was also an oft-repeated belief that underhand FT shooting would hamper a player's jump-shooting ability, though I doubt anyone ever proved or tried to prove that.) Therefore the method would work (or at least would work best) for those who could and would spent hundreds if not thousands of hours in the gym doing something that would not hone their general basketball skills, even though it would make them better, more productive players, and it might erode your shooting skills. 

I just assumed, I guess, that underhand FTing had pretty much disappeared because there'd been a "group-think" decision that the dedication of practice time to it would divert resources better used in teaching and practicing other skills. Though I haven't studied it, it seemed to me that the FTing of a "typical" NBA or big-time college player has improved significantly over time, and there's a faith that their overhand FTing can be improved through practice, so that the potential gain in improving FT percentages by resorting to a different method is less than it used to be. I guess I just assumed that there had developed over time an attitude among players and coaches that it wasn't worth the time to devote to practicing that method rather than other facets of the game. 

I had missed, or ignored, or forgotten reading that modern NBA (and I guess high-level college) players refuse to develop and make use of a skill that would make them more valuable to their teams (and in some cases keep them on the floor late in close games) just because they've decided it doesn't look cool. Do they think it looks cool to miss over half of their free throws, take points away from your team, and have opponents foul you intentionally because they know you're inept at this phase of the game? 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

2 hours ago, Frobby said:

He needs to avoid the temptation to rush back.    Hopefully last year’s experience will have taught him that.  

Orioles also need to make Austin sit if that is what’s best. The team could have ordered him last year to sit out longer. 

I’m still convinced Tillman was hurt and the Orioles never forced him to get properly treated. 

[DrungoHazewood]

9 hours ago, spiritof66 said:

When I started following basketball in the late 50s and early 60s, there were still some underhand free throw shooters in college and high school basketball. (And my father in our driveway.) But they had pretty much disappeared from the NBA, the most prominent being Dave Gambee, a 1960s journeyman forward and lousy shooter who hit over 82 percent of his FTs with his own unique version of underhand shooting, and then Rick Barry, a great shooter in the 70s who led the league in FT percentage in six of his eight years in the NBA. In the 60s, as I recall it, it was pretty much accepted that, in the abstract, the underhand free throw is the more logical way to get the ball into the basket from the FT line and requires a much simpler motion. That was pretty much proven, I understood, through experiments with groups of kids, some conducted by perhaps the greatest free thrower of all time, Bunny Levitt of the Globetrotters, as well as by the few prominent players who tried underhand FTing after putting in some practice time. 

My mostly uneducated guess is that underhand free throws might be better for some people, but only with a lot of practice.  But it might not be for others.  And there's no way to tell except by having younger players put in a lot of time practicing each and then comparing results.  That's not really feasible.  It's like... I don't know... the idea that a 95 mph submarine pitcher might be more effective than throwing overhand.  You have to convince a high-level pitcher who's already successful, or on the way to being successful conventionally, to completely change a fundamental part of what's made him successful on the off chance that this will make him even better.  It'll never happen.  What happens is marginal players might try it, and then you only get data from marginal players.

[Frobby]

31 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

My mostly uneducated guess is that underhand free throws might be better for some people, but only with a lot of practice.  But it might not be for others.  And there's no way to tell except by having younger players put in a lot of time practicing each and then comparing results.  That's not really feasible.  It's like... I don't know... the idea that a 95 mph submarine pitcher might be more effective than throwing overhand.  You have to convince a high-level pitcher who's already successful, or on the way to being successful conventionally, to completely change a fundamental part of what's made him successful on the off chance that this will make him even better.  It'll never happen.  What happens is marginal players might try it, and then you only get data from marginal players.

The NBA set its all time best free throw percentage in the 2016-17 season (.772).    So it’s not like free throw success has been going backwards with underhanded free throws being out of favor.    There might be some bad free throwers who would be helped by switching to shooting underhand, but I agree it’s not that easy to learn it.