The Hardest Thing to Do In Sports

[pismonque]

Yeah. I think that is where the "hardest thing to do in sports" thing comes from. Getting a base hit is something so integral to the game as a hitter, and the most successful hitters in any given year will fail to do so in roughly 70% of their at-bats.

Good QBs will fail to complete only 30-40% of their passes. A good shooter in basketball will fail to make about only 50-55% of their shots (although a good 3-point shooter will fail about 70% of the time, kind of like a good hitter in baseball). A good tackler in football is not missing something like 30% of their tackles.

Shooting percentages in hockey (and probably soccer) are lower than 30%, but there is also more to that guy's job than scoring goals.

lol What does it say about us that our national pastime is so inherently steeped in failure?

 

[bag12day]

Yeah. I think that is where the "hardest thing to do in sports" thing comes from. Getting a base hit is something so integral to the game as a hitter, and the most successful hitters in any given year will fail to do so in roughly 70% of their at-bats.

Good QBs will fail to complete only 30-40% of their passes. A good shooter in basketball will fail to make about only 50-55% of their shots (although a good 3-point shooter will fail about 70% of the time, kind of like a good hitter in baseball). A good tackler in football is not missing something like 30% of their tackles.

Shooting percentages in hockey (and probably soccer) are lower than 30%, but there is also more to that guy's job than scoring goals.

A good Goalie in the NHL will have a Save Percentage of something in the .920 area on shots that they faced on net.
Flipping that to the shooters side less than 10% of shots at the net will go in. There are some other metrics that figure in but less than 10% success for even strength goals would be about right.

 

[bag12day]

So this got me thinking about a few events I had participated in and watched as well. I have played in some charity/fun events with some pro hockey players and other athletes as well. I have seen European players from Sweden, Latvia, Russia that came over here and had never played golf before and in a couple of months become respectable players ( better than my 15 handicap).
I have seen some of these same guys take BP at AAA baseball team here and crank out an HR or long ball just because of the hand eye coordination.
Side bet I will take one NHL caliber Hockey player who has never played baseball and he will hit a HR off of a 90+ MPH fastball and you take a Major league player from Dom Rep or Cuba and put him on skates and he has to score on a pro goalie. Whoever is successful first wins. I will take your lunch money! I will take the same bet for golf but not sure who is gonna guard the flagstick/hole.

 

[volfanbill]

What is another professional sport activity, along the same regularity as hitting a baseball, that has a lower percentage than 27% success rate? And batting average measures base hits. If the saying is "hitting a baseball" and not "getting a base hit", that's a big difference. Lots of ground-outs/pop-outs/etc.

I know nothing about soccer. Is 3 goals out of 10 tries good?

I’ve always found it rather logical that the meaning is getting a base hit, with regularity, against top opponents. I think you’re just fishing for arguments

 

[1972 Grad]

So this got me thinking about a few events I had participated in and watched as well. I have played in some charity/fun events with some pro hockey players and other athletes as well. I have seen European players from Sweden, Latvia, Russia that came over here and had never played golf before and in a couple of months become respectable players ( better than my 15 handicap).
I have seen some of these same guys take BP at AAA baseball team here and crank out an HR or long ball just because of the hand eye coordination.
Side bet I will take one NHL caliber Hockey player who has never played baseball and he will hit a HR off of a 90+ MPH fastball and you take a Major league player from Dom Rep or Cuba and put him on skates and he has to score on a pro goalie. Whoever is successful first wins. I will take your lunch money! I will take the same bet for golf but not sure who is gonna guard the flagstick/hole.

I will take an NHL hockey player, put him on the golf course, and bet on him against any the players of any other sport who have never played golf. I will take them off the bat, after a month of practice, or a year, or whenever. They take to golf better than the others.

 

[bag12day]

I will take an NHL hockey player, put him on the golf course, and bet on him against any the players of any other sport who have never played golf. I will take them off the bat, after a month of practice, or a year, or whenever. They take to golf better than the others.

Find your own stooge to take lunch money from, this is my bet! I guess you get what Im saying if you are able to run on slivers of metal on frozen water with a stick pushing a flat rubber pancake while not getting your head taken off or run into a hard wooden wall, takes some good hand, foot, eye coordination.

 

[1972 Grad]

Find your own stooge to take lunch money from, this is my bet! I guess you get what Im saying if you are able to run on slivers of metal on frozen water with a stick pushing a flat rubber pancake while not getting your head taken off or run into a hard wooden wall, takes some good hand, foot, eye coordination.

Something like that, I think.