As Yasiel Puig and Josh Hamilton recently found out, sliding into first base is a dumb idea. It is, first, a good way to get hurt, and also everyone knows that it doesn't get you to the bag any faster, because the gains you make by getting closer to the bag are canceled out by negative acceleration and friction. What Harold Reynolds proposes, though, is that everyone is wrong. He's so sure of this that he went on TV last night and attempted to revolutionize man's understanding of the physical universe.


Reynolds began by explaining that a runner diving into first is just like an Olympic sprinter leaning forward at the finish line, because leaning through a near-frictionless plane in order to cross an imaginary line is exactly the same as diving through dirt in an attempt to reach a stationary object. Reynolds then showed us a split-screen video of Brett Gardner running to first on two separate occasions, in one of which he slides, on the other he doesn't. He reaches the bag faster in the video in which he slides, quod erat demonstrandum.

Having argued that friction and acceleration have no effect on a body in motion—claims which will, once he provides proof, win him a well-deserved Nobel Prize—Reynolds finished up by saying some really dumb shit about Michael Phelps. I don't know either, man.