the springiness of corked bats

[Cindy C.]

Joy wrote:

> In answer to Cindy's question, there is no such thing, in physics, 
> as "springiness."  

I'm sorry, but in my scientific opinion, there is such a thing 
as "springiness."

My mattress is springy.

My desk is not springy.

My backside was not springy 20 years ago, but it has gradually become 
springy. 

So there!


Joy:

>The writer may have been confusing it with the 
>concept of potential energy, which is stored in a compressed object 
>such as a spring or maybe cork, but that would be irrelevant in the 
>case of a corked bat, since it is the wood that is hitting the ball 
>and not any sort of matter that compresses.

<grumbles>

Show off!  ;-)

Haggrid wrote:

> Well, there is the matter of elastic collisions, which isn't 
> operating here with ash or maple bats and a regultion hardball, 
> anyway, but one could interpret "springiness" in that fashion.  
>Cork would modify that property anyway.

<nods vigorously>

Yeah.  That's what I meant.


Haggridd:

> Because Sammy was LYING.  

Yeah.  He was.  And he didn't even bother to think up a *good* lie.  

As Martha Stewart demonstrated, when you lie, you really want to put 
some effort into it.  She had a meeting with a broker to get their 
stories straight and invented entire phone conversations and tampered 
with documents.  She always was a perfectionist, though, wasn't she?

Next time, Sammy, you might go with "My bat was corked without my 
knowledge!  I knew it felt a bit lighter, but I figured this must 
have just been all of the lethal supplements that are illegal in 
virtually all other sports that I've been taking!"

Cindy