okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Friday, June 20, 2003
Baseball and orienteering?
I was watching a baseball game on TV tonight when Mary suggested I could write about whether there was anything in common between baseball and orienteering. I wasn't having any luck coming up with a topic today, so I'll write a few words about baseball and orienteering.
Are baseball and O' alike?
The short answer is "no."
The biggest and most obvious differences are: baseball is a team sport, O' is individual; baseball isn't an endurance sport, O' is; and baseball is a hugely popular spectator sport, O' is a minor sport that isn't much to watch.
But, I can think of at least one similarity.
In baseball the pitcher tends to start out well and then get tired. As the pitcher gets tired, he is more likely to make a bad pitch, to make a mistake.
Orienteering is a bit like that. Costly mistakes - big booms - are more likely when you get tired. (Actually, I'm not certain that is true. I think it is. It makes intuitive sense. I've seen some evidence that it is true. But, I haven't really studied a bunch of splits to see if it is true).
There are probably some other similarities, but none come to mind immediately.
As an orienteer, there probably isn't much to learn from baseball. It'd be much more useful to spend your time thinking about golf or auto racing!
