Nick Schulz is the Editor of Tech Central Station and has worked in media circles and the ideas industry as a writer, editor, television producer and policy analyst. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The National Post of Canada, The Baltimore Sun, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times, National Review, Reason, Policy Review, and several other publications. He is also, it should be said, a rabid sports fan whose fandom is inversely proportional to his overall athletic ability.
The sports that still experience sporadic bursts of record-breaking are those that can boast improvements in fields and equipment, or because of new entrants into the competition. Running tracks aren't covered with crushed cinders anymore. Swimming pools have wave suppressors. Bicycles are lighter and better balanced.
This idea extends to human beings and performance enhancement. We will be debating the merits of the use of enhancers and drugs for the next few generations at least.
For the ninth straight year, many more people attended interleague games last season than intraleague games. For the fourth straight year, the World Series did not feature teams that had met during the season. And wasn't interleague worth it just to see Kenny Rogers hit a triple?
So many bad arguments, so little time. But the biggest reason interleague play stinks is that it's a goofy half measure. There isn't very much interleague play, so why should anyone care? And if there were more of it, there'd be no need to have leagues. So what is the point? Kenny Rogers triples. Thanks, Bud Selig.
Local golfers longing for spring can choose from 26 premiere courses from around the world — all just two hours away down the New York state Thruway.
The simulators, surprisingly accurate in their reach for reality, supply sound effects as well as course views from various angles. If you're playing the 18th hole at California's Pebble Beach and you hit your ball too far to the left, you may just hear a splash from the Pacific.
The bright, spacious indoor golf arena sits next to the casino complex on the grounds of the 972-acre resort owned by the Oneida Indian Nation. Besides the simulators, you'll find two putting greens, a two-tiered hitting area with 40 stations and an Internet-based swing analysis system.
Much of the work is being done at a world-renowned biomechanics lab at the University of Calgary, where force transducers are the weapons of choice.
Force transducers — devices that measure changes in load — are being developed to study athletes' techniques. Sometimes as small as a postage stamp, they can be put inside speed skates, in ski poles or on skis to measure changes in pressure. A coach can use the data to, say, assess a cross-country skier's form to see how they are using their legs compared to their arms or shoulders.
Sounds pretty cool. More on Canadians, the Olympics and technology here.
He plainly thinks sport’s puritanical approach to performance enhancing drugs is the product of an old-fashioned mindset. “Pharmacology has developed so we can create safe drugs, administer them in safe doses and monitor them in a way we couldn’t in the past,” he says. “The world of sport has not yet caught up with advances in pharmacology in recent years. Very little in the world is as well studied as medicinal substances and drugs. The problem arises when you have backyard preparations that are not subjected to trials.”
But how far could we responsibly go in permitting the use of previously banned substances? Should we allow athletes to take the most demonised of all performance enhancing drugs - anabolic steroids?
He gives a careful reply. “The risks of anabolic steroids - although real - may in some cases have been overstated and in any case have to be put in the context of various aggressive forms of training and the risks we allow people to entertain every day of their lives.” When I raise the subject again, however, he is more forthright. “I would prefer my child take anabolic steroids and growth hormone than play rugby,” he says. “Growth hormone is safer than rugby. At least I don’t know of any cases of quadriplegia caused by growth hormone.”
Readers of this site have long known I am not a fan of instant replay technology, and the Super Blown Calls last night are further evidence in support of my argument (if I do say so). Slate's Robert Weintraub has more.
Make sure you check out the new NYTimes monthly "Play," a magazine dedicated to sports. There is tons of good stuff in it, including a lot on technology and sports.
For instance at the World Series a baseball hit into the third level will be able to be recorded by GPS as to exactly how far it was hit and it’s trajectory to formulate where it would have actually landed had the stadium been flat. Thus we will be able to tell who was the greatest homerun power house of all times, perhaps even who is on steroids based on their body mass, speed of pitch, GPS data and ‘haptics’ (body movement and form).
Wouldn’t it be cool to be watching the World Series on TV and instant information about a homerun appearing on the bottom of the screen? Sounds like a whole new potential betting arena, not only how many homeruns a person will hit, but exactly how far they will hit them?
A football kick would be immediately known the exact yardage, every play near the sidelines would be instantly called in or out of bounds and there would never be any question as to if a football actually broke the goal line. I can hear the referee unions screaming foul already as they will no longer be needed or have jobs? Ouch? Soccer balls, off sides, out of bounds? Yes all possible via GPS data.
With sensors getting smaller and GPS units being used in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles of smaller and smaller size for Micro Air Vehicles and RFID imbedded chips, this technology believe it or not is ready for golf balls as well? All you need is a little imagination. So there you are Tiger Woods with a PDA device in your hands which measures the exactly where the ball is, how far to the next hole, picking up the data from inside the golf ball itself and the flag in the hole. Way-points are displayed also as to where the sand traps are, lakes, edge of fairway and the rough surrounding the green.
My sense is we'll see these things adopted eventually.
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Nick Schulz is the Editor of Tech Central Station and has worked in media circles and the ideas industry as a writer, editor, television producer and policy analyst. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The National Post of Canada, The Baltimore Sun, Investor's Business Daily, The Washington Times, National Review, Reason, Policy Review, and several other publications. He is also, it should be said, a rabid sports fan whose fandom is inversely proportional to his overall athletic ability.
