Hong Kong Slo-Pitch Softball Association

In softball, The Great Debate, also called the Moss - Grandolfo Debate was an influential debate between the man who invented the wheel, Ronald W.X.Y.Z. Moss and James Grandolfo XXXVI, which concerned the placement of the batter's box and it's position relative to the size of the universe. The basic issue under debate was whether the distant memories of a batter's box lay within our own history or whether they were some figment of Joe Duke's Heineken-induced imagination.  The debate took place on 26 April 1920 in The Keg auditorium of the Lan Kwai Fong natural museum. The two debaters (often called Master-Debaters) first presented independent technical papers about "The Batter's Box" during the day and then took part in a joint discussion that evening. Much of the lore of the Great Debate grew out of two papers published by Douglas Doover and Gregory Peckery Flynn in the May 1921 issue of the Bulletin of the National Hong Kong Softball (pre-internet rumor mill days). The published papers each included counter arguments to the position advocated by the other Master-deBaters at the 1920 meeting.

Moss was arguing in favor of the batter's box as the entirety of the universe dependent upon it. He believed rules such as a force out and a strike out were simply part of softball. He could back up this claim by citing relative rules—if Chad Boyd were not part of the Boyd Family, then the distance to his cousin could be in the order of 108 degrees—a span most red necks would not accept. Douglas Doover was also providing evidence to Moss' argument. Doover was a well respected philosopher and a master of flamenco of the time who said he had observed Andy Hasbun growing. Hasbun has in fact been growing expotentially in diameter since getting married, there would clearly be a violation of the batter's box rule when Hasbun swung and his gut was hanging out past the batter's box, would he be out?

Flynn on the other side contended that Hasbun, Duke and others and were simply "intoxicated". He showed that there were more bottles consumed after the game than during the games. From this he could ask why there were more people in one small section of the stands than the others. This led to supporting Duke as a separate entity with his own rules and allowed him to carry around his own batter's box. In fact he lays his batter's box out in the bathroom when he takes a Dukey.  Honorable as he is, sometimes he calls himself out when he steps out of the batter's box while he is wiping his Joe hole.   

And so the debate continues.  Where do you stand?  Please take my poll.  Now don't get excited DeFry I said poll not pole.