Talk:Zeboriah Wilson

Zeb is mentioned in a new IRM for Isaac Rubberman: "Ne developed a friendship with Zeboriah Wilson, who was just as ecologically-minded as Rubberman, and Owen Picklestein, whose input on environmental justice issues was uniquely valuable."

- Removing the mention of growing up in Amish county

- Less focus on him being legally blind

- Adding a mention of disability aids

- Adding more character (training new players, working hard)

- Adding a mention of becoming a batter

The page was (accidentally) edited before posting this so if you want the full text of the update you can find it and the prev version (for comparison) here

Since Zeb was a pitcher once, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the current changes, and while I really like the idea of beeping balls for batting and playing in the outfield, I don't think that this aid would actually do enough to allow Zeb to pitch effectively. As a pitcher, most to all of what Zeb would care about would be outside of the ball itself.

• Positioning on the mound. Pitching effectively means pitching consistently, which means that Zeb would have to be able to place himself on the same place on the mound over and over for each of his different throws. This would be much harder to do in an open space without sight. He could pitch barefoot, but I think that without unusually sensitive feet, even that would be limited.
• The batter. Pitching also requires the pitcher to know where the strike zone is, which is defined as the space over the home plate between the shoulder and the hips. Obviously, this is much looser in Blaseball, but I think that makes it more problematic; because rosters change so easily, to pitch well without sight, Zeb would have to memorize the name, height, body shape, and approximate strike zone range of every single player in Blaseball, not accounting for whether they hit left or right handed (or both, which would be terrible), and where they're currently standing in the batter's box. He'd also have to keep meticulous track of the rotation order of the other teams and if it ever changes midgame. This is just so so much to ask.
• Players stealing bases. Unless someone explicitly shouts to Zeb that someone is leading off of Blase or trying to steal, he has no way of knowing where the players on the bases are at. This would make catching people stealing base very difficult.
• Throwing to teammates. Similarly to above, unless the rest of the team is constantly making noise, Zeb's going to have a hard time throwing a ball to them, which is going to make any sort of play other than a fly out very hard for him to follow.

Now, this is not to say I don't like beeping balls. I think that they're a really interesting and fun idea. I just don't think they're addressing all of the issues Zeb would need them to. I think we need an alternate solution to accommodate for the entirety of Zeb's needs.