TB Suspension: Cheater free to play again

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
SoSH Member
Oct 1, 2015
24,369
Ah, I did not know who Pierce was. I just saw that it was in a national article, not a local Boston or New England one.
 

Harry Hooper

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 4, 2002
34,367
Pierce is also inaccurate about the final act given that the lost 4th round pick is still pending.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
SoSH Member
Oct 1, 2015
24,369
Another good piece for SI here by MIT professor John Leonard.

At the end...

"However, based solely on the information that has been made public so far, as an engineer I am compelled to rely on the principle of Occam’s Razor, which asserts that given multiple competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be preferred. The case for tampering simply makes too many assumptions, given the excellent agreement of the Logo Gauge measurements with the predictions from the basic physics and from the simulations published in Table 14. It is not credible to posit an illicit scheme to remove 1% of the air from the footballs, resulting in a reduction in pressure of 0.3 psi. This increment is nearly impossible to detect in practice and is dwarfed by the drops in pressure that occur naturally in all NFL games played in cold weather (as described in our amicus curiae).

And by an astounding coincidence, 0.3 psi happens to also be the difference in the calibration of the two gauges that Anderson carried in his equipment bag. What are the odds that the Patriots ran an illegal scheme to remove 1% of the air from their footballs, achieving an average reduction in psi that serendipitously matches the difference between Walt Anderson’s two inexpensive pressure gauges?"

Compelling read, even for non-science types.
 

Byrdbrain

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
8,588
This guy has a youtube video of a lecture he gave that crushes the science, I'm not going to link it because I assume most people who care have seen it. If you haven't seen it you can find it easily enough.
He's an Eagles fan by the way.
 

Bergs

funky and cold
SoSH Member
Jul 22, 2005
21,612
At some point, someone is gonna do a "Making a Murder" style documentary on this, and it will be glorious