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352 Chapter 15
data is poured into algorithms that spew out probabilities generally borne
out in reality. Remember probabilities are statistical averages: However,
if an algorithm supported by the evidence and the probabilities tells you a
left-handed batter virtually never hits to the left and opposite side of the
field, then you would do well to shift your fielders predominantly to the
right side. (The ‘shift’ works – though not all the time.) War games offer a
similar opportunity to test a battlefield strategy before a war has begun – to
see how it will play out. (Politicians – unlike military officers – often ignore
the war game’s tested exit strategy, given that it was not the reason for
military action in the first place and (generally) has no effect on their
subsequent attempts at re-election.) Baseball coaches who similarly ignore
algorithms and continually forget to form a viable exit strategy are invariably
fired.
I have, in passing, mentioned the huge amount of film that coaches and
players watch in order to form an accurate picture of what they are about to
confront. To suggest that the manner in which information is organised and
hypothesised about – as Fish does – is not ‘a set of theories’ suggests a vexed
philosopher and not an avid baseball fan. Fish is certainly correct in
suggesting that Dworkin is rather clueless about baseball. No batter goes up to
the plate with a theory of everything, let alone a theory before each pitch.
However, batters have spent inordinate amounts of time watching pitchers
(pitches are even charted as the game occurs in real time to tell future batters
what to expect), and they go up to the plate with pre-dispositions based upon
their own strengths and the perceived weaknesses of the pitchers on the other
team. A batter might think: ‘He can’t get his curveball in for a strike, I will
wait on his fastball’. Or a team might think, ‘his split-finger fast ball’ (a
slightly slower pitch with lots of movement) is ‘falling off the table tonight’.
(That’s a good thing for the pitcher because it completely fools the batter. The
batter ‘sees’ a straight hard pitch aimed around his belt only to have it arrive
at the plate more slowly and dive down around his ankles.) The batter has a
response, since the split-finger change-up is often not a strike (though it may
initially look like it will be one). The batter (and his teammates and coaches)
may think – theorise – that since this effective pitch is not going to be a strike,
‘I’ll wait on a fastball’. (Of course, that is extremely hard to do. The pitch is
designed to look like a fastball as the pitcher releases it, and as we have shall
see in a moment, no time exists in which to make conscious adaptations.)
These theories – based on past and immediate experience – the batter takes
with him to the plate.
Fish overplayed his hand.
Fish would have been well-served by stopping his argument after
catching Dworkin out in the beginning. But, again, he makes a gamelosing
error by continuing his attack in this game of GOTCHA. Ty Cobb
did not understand that the time between the release of the ball by the pitcher
and its arrival at home plate (.45 seconds) is faster than the conscious