More Stories

Here are few stories that surfaced over the past days:

Click here for the article about the two other American pitchers joining the Hawks this season. While it really isn't relevant to Kam Loe, there is a picture of all three pitchers.

Click here to read an article released after the Japanese press met with kameron. He mainly discusses his off season workout and his pitch selection.

Click here to read an article with Koji Akiyama's (the Manager) reaction to the three new American pitchers. There are brief sections on each player with descriptions and quotes.

Click here to watch a video of the three players and the manager during the press conference. While the players talk in English, there is a loud Japanese translation played over them. With that said, the video is still pretty neat to watch. Judging from the reaction of Japanese journalists during the photo op at the end, they seem pretty amused by the three Americans.

-Holly

"I've come to the conclusion that the two most important things in life are good friends and a good bullpen."
-Bob Lemon

Three Foreign Pitchers to Join the Team Today and Spring Training Assignments Released

The three new American Pitchers acquired over the off season will join the rest of the Softbank team today. You can click here for the official article from the Hawks' website in an online translator. The basic idea of the article is easy understand however, there are two quotes, one being from Kameron, that are a little difficult to get.

Also, the group assignments for spring training were also released today. All three of the newly acquired American pitchers were assigned to Group 'A', including Kameron Loe. To see the complete spring training schedule, check out this post I did awhile back.

Spring training officially starts February, 1st in the City of Miyazaki.

-Holly

P.S. Go Steelers!!

"I don't care how long you've been around, you'll never see it all"
-Bob Lemon

To Answer Those Questions From Way Back When...

For those who remember (if you don't, then just scroll down), I opened up the blog to questions a while back. I managed to receive three questions and will answer them now.

Q) As a TCU horned frog, have you ever seen a horned frog? I haven't seen one since I was a kid when my dad was stationed in Texas around 1967 or so. He was in the Air Force and getting his masters degree at Texas A&M. My bothers and I use to catch them all the time. Is the Texas Horned Frog dwindling in numbers and becoming harder and harder to find?
-Craig

A) I see horned frogs all the time, if you count the numerous statues and images around campus! Haha, but really though, I have only seen a real-life horned frog a few times at zoos. Unfortunately, I hear the horned frog population is slowly dwindling down. Right now, I believe they are even on the endangered species list.

Q) Tell them about Wilson.
-Amanda (My best friend)

A) Well that's not really a question. But, because I'm in such a good mood, I'll Answer...uh...tell y'all about Wilson. Wilson is my dearly beloved...glove! Wilson is always by my side through thick and thin, though he doesn't get to play catch all too often these days anymore. I first got him for Christmas around my 7th or 8th grade year and has been with me ever since. He even stuck with me after I left him out on the field overnight my sophomore year in high school. It rained pretty hard that night too. And of course, Wilson hadn't been oiled in quite a while. I was lucky he survived. Though my Wilson isn't a fancy color like C.J. Wilson's blue Wilson and his leather is a little 'soggier' than when I first got him, Wilson is still my best glove.

Q) Who is your favorite Ranger player now?

-Dani and Micah

A) Ya' know, I'm not too sure about this one. I think I will just wait awhile, at least until after spring training to discuss any "favorites".

Well everyone, we have just turned the last corner of the off season and are now headed towards the finish line; Spring training is in the very near future. Until then, I will be merrily sitting at my desk, eating "naturally and [mostly] artificially flavored" Gummy Bears, enjoying a nice room tempurature Gatorade and not enjoying homework. Oh, and a little blogging too.

-Holly

"The trouble with baseball is that it is not played the year round.”

-Gaylord Perry

A Statistics Lesson

I am always the first one at school to throw out the "I will never use this outside of school" complaint to teachers. Math class was always the first class I criticized because it didn't take me but two seconds of Algebra my freshman year to realize that math was not my expertise. Some of my arguments were as followed:

• Algebra I: "When will I ever have to solve for 'x' as a History major?" (I had considered majoring in History...that is until I heard the words "History Paper")
• Geometry: "Do veterinarians really need to have the formula for the area of an octagon memorized?" (I wanted to be a vet...then I watch an episode of emergency vets and nearly got sick)
• Algebra II: "Factorization? I'm pretty sure music majors don't need to know the factors of 71. What? It's a prime number? See!" (Of course I went through the whole music major phase...that is until the dreaded music theory class I took my senior year.)
• Pre-Calculus: "I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure journalists don't need to know how to find the missing side of a triangle by using Sin, Co sin or Tangent." (I'm happy to say the whole journalism thing is still accurate.)
  

I would have put down my argument for my recent statistics class, but I didn't have too. I actually used something I learned from that class in a real-life problem. Yeah!

So, what did I do? I found out the Mean (average) height of all the players on the Softbank Roster (as of 1/22/2008), found the Standard Deviation of the data and used it see exactly where the heights of the American Players fit with the rest of the squad.

The mean height of all 74 players on the roster:

• 181.6cm or approximately 6 feet.

The Standard Deviation for all 74 players on the roster:

• 5.5 cm or approximately 2 inches.
  

Without going into too much detail, Standard Deviation is the measure of the dispersion the data set is from the mean. Basically, it tells you how far a particular number is from 'normal' in a data set. Doctors often use it to track the heights of children to make sure they grow at a normal rate. Most data (99.7%) falls within three standard deviation of the mean. If a particular number is not within three standard deviations, it is usually labeled an outlier. A scientist running an experiment with an outlier may suspect an error or a child's height that is considered an outlier can alert a doctor of a disorder.

On the chart above, the center dash in the mean. The rest of the marks are the +/- Standard deviations up to three. As you can see, the third + standard deviation is 198.1cm. Kameron Loe's height is 201cm. This means that Kameron's height is outside of the third standard deviation, thus putting him in the .3% of data that lies outside the third. Luckily though, he is not alone. His fellow American teammate Brian Falkenborg is listed as 200cm., which also puts him past the third standard deviation. The rest of the Americans' heights fall within the third standard deviation.

Basically, I just proved mathematically that Kameron will be a lot taller than his teammates. Haha. Hey, it was a good way to pass the time. This long off season continues...but not for too long!

-Holly

"Baseball is a habit. The slowly rising crescendo of each game, the rhythm of the long season-These are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions can that be said?"

-George Will

Back in Business

Now that the Holiday season has passed and 2009 has replaced 2008, it is time to get back to business. Over the Holidays, there was not much news on the Softbank site however, they did announce the Jersey Numbers of their Foreign Players:


Chris Aguila - Outfielder - 04

Kameron Loe - Pitcher - 00

Brian Falkenborg - Pitcher - 25

Justin Germano - Pitcher - 34

D.J. Houlton - Pitcher - 54 (Previously 00)


All of the Players are new and were acquired during the off season except for D.J. Houlton who is the foreign player returning from last season.

The Hawks also have the profiles of the new players up. Click here to see Kameron's profile. Obviously, there is not a picture yet. I expect that to appear sometime in late January. At the bottom there is, what I believe to be, a career achievements list, however, I wouldn't even suggest trying to read/understand it. It's not impossible to get some of it, it's just a little very mind boggling. Plus, it says the same thing for every pitcher.

I will now leave you with an interesting bunch of statistics (Wow! I am actually finding use to something I've learned....)

Heights of 10 randomly* selected players from the Softbank Hawk's Roster (In CM):

189, 174, 180, 189, 179, 201, 178, 178, 179, 193

*Except for one...I have a feeling you will know which one it is after one glance at the numbers. Haha! When I get back to Ft. Worth I will go through an actual random selection of heights and put them through a little test I learned in Statistics. What I find should show us just how "far out" Kameron's height will be from the rest of the team. Too bad I didn't think about this sometime last semester; I could have got some extra credit...

Wow. Kameron should be really, really proud of himself: He has me reading for fun and doing math in my spare time.

-Holly

"Baseball is the only game left for people. To play basketball, you have to be 7 feet 6 inches. To play football, you have to be the same width."
-Bill Veeck