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What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

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Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

SJHovey said:
I'll be honest, I'm probably going to need a double fault there.
Click to expand...

That's the only way on earth it happens. A game is 48 points. Ask yourself how many points would you to need win one? My guess would be 10,000. That's my guess for how many Jake deGrom pitches I'd need to get a hit.

There's not enough luck involved. If the question is "how many 7-iron shots from 100 yards would you need to get closer to the hole than Tiger" my guess is only about 100. (If it's how many 3-woods from 500 yards the answer is: infinite). Luck would save me. But in these almost completely deterministic cases there's just no room.

My tennis coach was a 20-year old woman who was a star D-III player. I could not return her serves and she was serving at 80%. I asked her if she could ever win a game (not a point) on the pro circuit and her answer was: absolutely not.
 
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Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

When they say game, do they mean actual "game" or "match"? "Game", no way in hell; "match", well maybe you pray she double faults, as others have said. Any point I pick up would be in no way related to me doing squat of course.
 
Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

French Rage said:
When they say game, do they mean actual "game" or "match"? "Game", no way in hell; "match", well maybe you pray she double faults, as others have said. Any point I pick up would be in no way related to me doing squat of course.
Click to expand...

I read "game" as 2 sets (a women's match): 4 x 6 x 2 = 48 points.

If game is just a game, 4 points, then it's even more insane.
 
Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

If I could take games off of David Wheaton...

...yeah I was 16 and he was 14. Now I couldn't pull of 1 point in 1 game against Serena and probably not even at the peak of my game.
 
Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

Kepler said:
That's the only way on earth it happens. A game is 48 points. Ask yourself how many points would you to need win one? My guess would be 10,000. That's my guess for how many Jake deGrom pitches I'd need to get a hit.

There's not enough luck involved. If the question is "how many 7-iron shots from 100 yards would you need to get closer to the hole than Tiger" my guess is only about 100. (If it's how many 3-woods from 500 yards the answer is: infinite). Luck would save me. But in these almost completely deterministic cases there's just no room.

My tennis coach was a 20-year old woman who was a star D-III player. I could not return her serves and she was serving at 80%. I asked her if she could ever win a game (not a point) on the pro circuit and her answer was: absolutely not.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I wouldn't want to bet anything more than about a buck that I'd even get a racket on one of her serves, and I'd only bet that $1 out of pride.

A guy that I work with has a brother who always plays in a noon basketball game in downtown Minneapolis. Back when Jimmy Butler was playing for the T-wolves, Butler showed up to this noon game one day. Everyone was like, "Uh, okaaay?"

The guy told me that Butler didn't take a shot during the entire game, yet utterly dominated it. Guys would think they had an open shot and the ball would disappear two feet out of their hands. Guys would be standing under the basket and the ball would miraculously appear in their hands. He said it was the most astounding thing he'd ever been a part of.
 
Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

I think most people realize how good professional/world class amateur athletes are, but you really don't know until something like SJ referenced happens to you should you ever get the chance. I played hockey with guys that never even made it past the USHL and they were so much better. Even my best athletic attributes if I had to pick them:

1. Curve ball
2. 400m sprint
3. WR in h.s.
4. Return of service

Not a chance. My best 40 time was pretty solid (4.47) and I made state on our 4x400 and Sprint Medley relay teams but even the best Div I guys when I was in college would leave me in their dust.
 
Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

For the record, they didn't say game or match. They said a single solitary point in a single game. Which makes it far more easy than a game and infinitely hard because a game is so short.

There are maybe a couple hundred men in the US who aren't on the pro circuit who could ever hope to take a point from Serena. I work with a guy here who has won the amateur nationals around a 4 rating and been back several times. I know another coworker who is rated at a 4.5 or 5. They've played tennis and he says she's friggin hard to beat. Both would say they couldn't take a point, I'm confident of this.

I played soccer with and against a guy who was invited to try out for three MLS teams. Even him playing at maybe 25% was better than everyone else in the league on offense and defense. He essentially didn't even have to try on defense. He just read people so well they rarely got by him. His shots were so hard I didn't try to catch them, I was mainly focused on extending my life.

I also played soccer with David Backes (NHLer, Olympian) back in high school. The guy was a f-cking beast even back then. Our coach ran a drill where it was 1:1, everything goes except picking up the ball with your hands, and cheap **** like gouging eyes or crotch shots. First person to score won and then had to face the next person in line. Essentially it was a way to help us build our physicality and be more aggressive.

The first six or seven people tried to just push him off the ball and use force. THey lasted at most something like 15-20 seconds. Eventually it resorted to larger guys on the team literally jumping on his back trying to tackle him to the ground. He would essentially just stand up and carry them on his back and dribble the ball across the goal line. He went through our entire team a couple times.

These aren't people, they superhuman.
 
Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

Kepler said:
That's the only way on earth it happens. A game is 48 points. Ask yourself how many points would you to need win one? My guess would be 10,000. That's my guess for how many Jake deGrom pitches I'd need to get a hit.

There's not enough luck involved. If the question is "how many 7-iron shots from 100 yards would you need to get closer to the hole than Tiger" my guess is only about 100. (If it's how many 3-woods from 500 yards the answer is: infinite). Luck would save me. But in these almost completely deterministic cases there's just no room.

My tennis coach was a 20-year old woman who was a star D-III player. I could not return her serves and she was serving at 80%. I asked her if she could ever win a game (not a point) on the pro circuit and her answer was: absolutely not.
Click to expand...

10,000 seems reasonable. Though, the more I think about, the more I think I might put the deGrom number much higher. Getting a hit, not just putting the ball in play, is no easy task. I think 10,000 seems about right for me for ball in play.

The rest of the numbers are dead on as well.
 
Re: What The Fark 5: I Can't Believe This Happened!

dxmnkd316 said:
These aren't people, they superhuman.
Click to expand...

That's the key. It is an amazing experience to meet somebody who is in the top 1/100th of 1% at something; anything. When I was (briefly) in the math department in college I had the privilege of watching a couple award winning mathematicians go at it tooth and nail during office hours in the hemi-demi-semi sub-discipline of their subject in which they were probably 1 and 2 in the world. I understood just enough to understand I was watching Michelangelo fight Rafael to the death (they were screaming at each other). It's not that they skipped steps, they skipped whole papers, maybe whole careers.

Only thing like it I've seen was watching professors at Berklee School of Music critique their students' final symphonic compositions by reading the sheet music and hearing everything in their heads. I've never seen chess players play an empty board but that's what it felt like.

There is no way any man not on the tour or right on the cusp is getting a point from Serena without it being 100% her fault or a Randy Johnson seagull. None.
 
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