Category: Sports

Commentary and news about sports and sports teams — and media coverage of them.

‘Basketball’s decision-makers, it seems, are simply irrational.’

More insight via Malcolm Gladwell. An excerpt:

Basketball presents many of the same kinds of problems. The fact that Allen Iverson has been one of the league’s most prolific scorers over the past decade, for instance, could mean that he is a brilliant player. It could mean that he’s selfish and takes shots rather than passing the ball to his teammates. It could mean that he plays for a team that races up and down the court and plays so quickly that he has the opportunity to take many more shots than he would on a team that plays more deliberately. Or he might be the equivalent of an average surgeon with a first-rate I.C.U.: maybe his success reflects the fact that everyone else on his team excels at getting rebounds and forcing the other team to turn over the ball. Nor does the number of points that Iverson scores tell us anything about his tendency to do other things that contribute to winning and losing games; it doesn’t tell us how often he makes a mistake and loses the ball to the other team, or commits a foul, or blocks a shot, or rebounds the ball. Figuring whether one basketball player is better than another is a challenge similar to figuring out whether one heart surgeon is better than another: you have to find a way to interpret someone’s individual statistics in the context of the team that they’re on and the task that they are performing.

In “The Wages of Wins” (Stanford; $29.95), the economists David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt, and Stacey L. Brook set out to solve the Iverson problem. Weighing the relative value of fouls, rebounds, shots taken, turnovers, and the like, they’ve created an algorithm that, they argue, comes closer than any previous statistical measure to capturing the true value of a basketball player. The algorithm yields what they call a Win Score, because it expresses a player’s worth as the number of wins that his contributions bring to his team. According to their analysis, Iverson’s finest season was in 2004-05, when he was worth ten wins, which made him the thirty-sixth-best player in the league. In the season in which he won the Most Valuable Player award, he was the ninety-first-best player in the league. In his worst season (2003-04), he was the two-hundred-and-twenty-seventh-best player in the league. On average, for his career, he has ranked a hundred and sixteenth. In some years, Iverson has not even been the best player on his own team. Looking at the findings that Berri, Schmidt, and Brook present is enough to make one wonder what exactly basketball experts—coaches, managers, sportswriters—know about basketball.

NCAA restricts William and Mary mascot

The NCAA, in a letter to college president Gene Nichol, said it agreed that the nickname “Tribe” wasn’t offensive, but combined with the logo showing two feathers “transforms that use from one associated with ‘togetherness,’ ‘shared idealism,’ and ‘commitment’ to stereotypical reference to Native Americans.”

SI.com

I guess NewMexiKen will have to get rid of my William & Mary logo mousepad. (Both NewMexiKen daughters are graduates of William & Mary.)

The Big Bam

NewMexiKen read Leigh Montville’s new, excellent The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth over the past few days. Recommended for anyone interested in America’s greatest sports legend.

In light of Barry Bonds’ approach to Ruth’s career home run mark (714), two Ruth home run stories. First, the third inning of the first game ever in Yankee Stadium, 1923:

“The fans were on their feet yelling and waving and throwing scorecards and half-consumed frankfurters,” van Loon wrote, “bellowing unto high heaven that the Babe was the greatest man on earth, the the Babe was some kid, and that the Babe could have their last and bottom dollar, together with the mortgage on their house, their wives and furniture.”

The Yankees won the game, 4-1, Ruth’s homer the difference. For the rest of his life, when asked about the home runs he had hit, he always would say this was his favorite. Theater never merged better with sport. He gave ’em exactly what they wanted when they wanted it.

And, his last:

This was homer number 714, the third of the day, the last of a career. The Pittsburgh crowd of 10,000, not knowing the exact implications of what it had seen but knowing this was pretty darn good, applauded as he left the game. He was Babe Ruth, dammit. … He never had another major league hit.

Ruth played over 22 seasons (1914-1935) and appeared in 10 World Series. He was 40 when he retired. He died of cancer at age 53 in 1948. Most of his life he thought he was a year older than he was.

Now pitching, Nolan Ryan

NewMexiKen posted this a year ago today, but it seems timely in light of the new season.

From Science Daily, Slow Balls Take The Swing Out Of Young Ball Players:

Exasperated parents practicing throw-and-connect skills with their young children will be relieved to know that their child’s inability to hit a slow-moving ball has a scientific explanation: Children cannot hit slow balls because their brains are not wired to handle slow motion.

“When you throw something slowly to a child, you think you’re doing them a favour by trying to be helpful,” said Terri Lewis, professor of psychology at McMaster University. “Slow balls actually appear stationary to a child.”

This explains why a young child holding a bat or a catcher’s mitt will often not react to a ball thrown toward her, prompting flummoxed parents to continue throwing the ball even slower. By adding a little speed to the pitch, Lewis and her team found that children were able to judge speed more accurately. There are several reasons for the phenomenon.

How we misunderstand the Kentucky Derby

Somewhere along the line, the Kentucky Derby became known as “America’s Race,” which seems a bit of a misnomer given that the Derby is not a) America’s best race, b) America’s oldest race, c) the Daytona 500. But so it is with the relentlessly hyped Derby, where undeniable bunkum runs stride for stride with quaint nostalgia and willful anachronism. You can see all of that in the name alone. Since 1896, when the mile-and-a-half race was shrunk to a mile-and-a-quarter, the Derby hasn’t been, strictly speaking, a derby.

Read what else Tommy Craggs has to say about How we misunderstand the Kentucky Derby.

The greatest living ballplayer

Mays card

… is 75 today. That’s Willie Mays.

When Joe DiMaggio died in 1999, baseball luminaries were asked who inherited the title of greatest living player. NewMexiKen had a different assumption. I thought Willie Mays became the greatest living ballplayer when Ty Cobb died in 1961.

Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid,” played with enthusiasm and exuberance while excelling in all phases of the game – hitting for average and power, fielding, throwing and baserunning. His staggering career statistics include 3,283 hits and 660 home runs. The Giants’ superstar earned National League Rookie of the Year honors in 1951 and two MVP awards. He accumulated 12 Gold Gloves, played in a record-tying 24 All-Star games and participated in four World Series. His catch of Vic Wertz’s deep fly in the ’54 Series remains one of baseball’s most memorable moments.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Two quotes about Mays:

Ted Williams: “They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays.”

Manager Leo Durocher, who must have been from Deadwood, once recalled a remarkable home run by Mays: “I never saw a f—ing ball go out of a f—ing park so f—ing fast in my f—ing life!”

Four-minute mile

First among the Forbes.com list of 20 greatest individual athletic achievements is Roger Bannister’s four-minute mile on this date in 1954.

In 1954 it seemed unlikely–maybe even impossible–that anyone could run a mile in less than four minutes. Several runners had come close–Sweden’s Gunder Haess had run the mile in four minutes and 1.4 seconds nine years previously–but no one could break through the four-minute barrier. People began to believe that it couldn’t be done. Until Britain’s Roger Bannister, that is. Competing at Oxford’s Iffley Road track on May 6, 1954, the 25-year-old medical student wowed some 3,000 spectators when he crossed the finish line in three minutes and 59.4 seconds. Once the psychological barrier had been broken, mile times kept falling. Bannister’s record stood a scant six weeks before John Landy of Australia ran the mile in three minutes and 58 seconds. The current world record is three minutes and 43.1 seconds.

USATODAY.com brought us up to date on Bannister two years ago on the 50th anniversary of his famous race:

Bannister’s is the story of a well-lived life. He is as proud of his distinguished medical and academic careers as he is of those celebrated four minutes, less six-tenths of a second. Bannister’s second act in a distinctly British life is in some respects as astonishing as his athletic feats: neurologist, author, and master of Pembroke College, one of 30 colleges that make up his beloved Oxford University.

Big loser

John Daly says he has lost between $50 million and $60 million during 12 years of heavy gambling, and that it has become a problem that could “flat-out ruin me” if he doesn’t bring it under control.

Daly discussed his addiction to gambling in the final chapter of his autobiography, John Daly: My Life In and Out of the Rough, to be released next Monday.

He told one story of earning $750,000 when he lost in a playoff to Tiger Woods last fall in San Francisco at a World Golf Championship. Instead of going home, he drove to Las Vegas and says he lost $1.65 million in five hours playing mostly $5,000 slot machines.

SI.com

That’s losing $5,000 every 55 seconds (not counting any winnings along the way).

Abstinence update

21 days without television for NewMexiKen — 3 weeks. None. Total abstinence.

It started by accident. I just wasn’t around TV for a few days while traveling. Then, when I got home I didn’t even turn the surge protector back on for more than a week. Now, I don’t even think of it much.

Other habits should be this easy to kick.

Among other things instead over the weekend, I read Buzz Bissinger’s Three Nights in August. The book is subtitled — “Strategy, Heartbreak, And Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager.” The manager in this case is Tony LaRussa and the three nights in August were in August 2003 when LaRussa’s Cardinals played a pivotal series against the Chicago Cubs.

Bissinger, who wrote the outstading Friday Night Lights, sees Three Nights as somewhat of an antithesis to Michael Lewis’ Moneyball; the humanists vs. the statisticians. Whatever, it is a good story (if you like inside baseball) very, well told.

“[A]s so much of pitching, like love, is about feel and as elusive as it is beautiful.”

“In his multiple roles of Doctor Phil, Doctor Ruth, and Doctor Seuss, La Russa wondered ….”

“A pitcher’s head is far more precious than his arm and far more inscrutable.”

“Lofton nails it. He tags it, drills it, creams it, drives it, powers it, powders it, smokes it, kills it, commits every baseball cliché of hitting and then some.”

Someone I’ll miss

Keith Jackson, the storied voice of college football, is calling it quits, declining offers from ESPN officials to keep him at ABC Sports.

“I’m finished with play-by-play forever,” Jackson said yesterday by telephone from his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. “I’m going out to learn to be a senior citizen and find a president I can vote for and believe in.” He added, “I’m not angry, I’m just going off like an old man and sitting by the creek.”

The New York Times

Jackson is 77. He said, “I don’t want to die in a stadium parking lot.”

Neanderthal of the day

Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez’s comments that women “don’t belong in the dugout” drew criticism Sunday from Padres manager Bruce Bochy, who supported the female member of his training staff and said he was surprised it even came up.

Hernandez made the remarks during the second inning of New York’s 8-1 victory in San Diego on Saturday night. Mike Piazza homered for the Padres and exchanged a high-five in the dugout with Kelly Calabrese, a full-time massage therapist for San Diego.

“Who is the girl in the dugout, with the long hair?” Hernandez said during the broadcast. “What’s going on here? You have got to be kidding me. Only player personnel in the dugout.”

…

“I didn’t think gender was even an issue anymore,” Bochy said.

SI.com

Random thoughts

The price of gasoline is going up so fast around here they’re going to have to post some guy fulltime on the price signs. You know, give him a headset so he can keep up with the rise. Well over $3 most places for mid-grade or premium (and our regular is just 86 octane).

The cottonwood trees have unleashed their annual crop of cotton. It’s like snow falling at times, especially near the Rio Grande (the banks are lined with cottonwoods). At a winery/restaurant near Old Town last evening with the doors open to the patio, the barroom floor was covered. Ah Choo!

The Rio Grande Cottonwood reproduces by seeding, unlike many other flood-plain trees which regenerate by sprouting. It flowers in the spring, before it leafs out. It releases its seeds, each carried by downy white tuft, or “parachute,” in anticipation of traditional spring floods and winds, the principal mechanisms for dispersion. A mature Rio Grande Cottonwood can produce as many as 25 million seeds in a season, covering wide areas with a blanket of “cotton.” (Rio Grande Cottonwood – DesertUSA)

NewMexiKen hasn’t watched TV in nearly two weeks — at least 11-12 days. None. Nada. Don’t miss it.

T-shirt in winery: “Men are like grapes. You crush them, keep them in the dark and wait until they mature. Then they might be worth having with dinner.”

At a semi-pro soccer match last evening (Albuquerque Asylum vs. San Diego Fusion), a 9 or 10-year-old girl insisted on reading (a major novel, no less), rather than watching the game. As the night progressed the mother and father increased the pressure on the daughter to watch the game. It started out with “Honey, do you see what’s happening? It’s a corner kick.” Progressed to “You should watch the game.” Ended up with “Put the book down and watch the game.” NewMexiKen is happy to report she kept on reading. I mean, come on parents, yes it would be nice if she took in the game and shared the moment with her family, but what’s the point of demanding it? Leave her alone.

Albuquerque won 2-1. It was a warm, beautiful snow-filled night (see cottonwood item above).

‘Rounders’

ESPN’s Bill Simmons has a Curious Guy exchange with “screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien, or as [he likes] to call them, ‘The Guys Who Wrote Rounders.'” Link is to the second of two-parts, the part that deals primarily with the movie.

Forensic analysis redux

Malcolm Gladwell has more on the need to analyze the validity of sports records (cf. Bonds) before accepting them. An excerpt:

Second–and here I strongly disagree with some readers–peformance enhancing drugs work. They confer an enormous advantage. They allow an athlete to train so much harder than he or she otherwise could that they can turn mediocre athletes into very good athletes, and very good athletes into legends. “Game of Shadows” makes, I think, an overwhelming case that drugs allowed Bonds to essentially double his annual home run output, and turned Tim Montomgery from an also-ran into a world record holder.

Monopoly is as monopoly does

The Sports Economist finds irony in the Baltimore Orioles-Washington Nationals TV deals:

Major League Baseball negotiated with Peter Angelos, owner of the Orioles, and granted him the broadcast rights for the region. Angelos created the Mid Atlantic Sports Network, MASN, to broadcast Orioles’ and Nationals’ games, witht the Orioles getting 90% of the revenues. The Nationals get a $20 million licensing fee. Eventually the Nationals are to become a 1/3 owner of MASN.

Comcast, the cable broadcaster, and the Orioles are now in a legal battle as Comcast refuses to air Nationals’ games via the MASN. Comcast is staking out territory as the protector of consumers against the monopoly on rights granted the Orioles by Major League Baseball. Anyone who has ever dealt with Comcast will see the irony in Comcast’s position.

Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter

… should have been 60 years old today.

The bigger the game, the better he pitched. Jim “Catfish” Hunter, with his pinpoint control, epitomized smart pitching at its finest. He pitched a perfect game in 1968, won 21 or more games five times in a row, and claimed the American League Cy Young Award in 1974. Arm trouble ended his career at age 33, but he still won 224 games and five World Series rings. The likable pitching ace died in 1999 at age 53 – a victim of ALS, the same disease that cut short the life of Lou Gehrig.

— National Baseball Hall of Fame

Game of Shadows

Malcolm Gladwell thinks we should “require that athletes pass a statistical plausibility in the wake of their achievements.”

“Game of Shadows” points out that Bonds had the second, ninth and tenth greatest offensive season in baseball history at the ages of 36, 37, and 39 respectively—and the average age of everyone else on that list (Gehrig, Foxx, Ruth and Hornsby) is 27. No one—no one—turns himself into one of the greatest hitters of all time in his late 30’s. His home run record should have been denied as statistically implausible.

Live blogging the NCAA championship

NewMexiKen likes Clark Kellogg but hasn’t anyone told him he has a microphone and need not shout. (7:12 PM)

Everyone is picking Florida. Not NewMexiKen. (7:14 PM)

The High Definition picture from the RCA Dome is awesome, but why not introduce the starters from each team all at once rather than this first one from Florida, then one from UCLA silliness? It’s a team sport. (7:20 PM)

I guess UCLA realizes this won’t be another LSU game. (7:29 PM — Florida 11 UCLA 6)

Watching that dunk and hearing that Hollins is 21 of 23 for the tournament reminds me of Bill Walton’s great performance when he went 21 of 22 for the championship game. Dunks were not allowed at that time! (7:40 PM)

Vintage Billy Packer, talking about UCLA’s foul shooting percentage while a Florida player shoots. (7:42 PM)

General Motors seems more intent on saving jobs in the advertising industry than the jobs of the men and women who build their automobiles. (7:47 PM)

UCLA’s Lorenzo Mata: If two wrongs don’t make a right, try three — blown layup, blown shot, stupid foul. (7:55 PM)

Nance and Packer: “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” Endless blather. [You’d think they were bloggers.] (7:56 PM)

The reason it’s just Poseidon this time and not the Poseidon Adventure is because Shelley Winters isn’t in the remake. Rest in Peace Mrs. Rosen. (8:06 PM)

Do any of these Florida players with famous fathers also have mothers? (8:11 PM)

Half time. (8:16 PM)

A close friend has Florida in her office brackets, so I’ve decided I really should root for the Gators. (8:40 PM — Florida 39 UCLA 25)

45 seconds of basketball. 120 seconds of commercials. Wonderful. (9:15 PM)

Cool cap on Bill Russell (he wore number 6 with the Boston Celtics). (9:20 PM)

Holy crap. He didn’t just walk, he ran the Marathon. (9:28 PM)

1:17 left and Nance and Packer are still talking trivia. Shut up and savor guys, savor. (9:30 PM)

Congratulations to Florida. Great performance. (9:34 PM)

What he said

Nice to read some other Pac 10 fans out there, like this by Bob Somerby:

Let’s face it. It will be plenty hard for Coach Howland tonight—hard to get his UCLA kids “up” for another SEC foe. Let’s face it—the NCAA tournament has clearly shown that Washington and UCLA were America’s top teams, followed closely by Arizona, which was eliminated when, for the second straight year, it narrowly lost a road game against a Number 1 seed. (This year, against Villanova, on one of Nova’s home courts. Last year, against Illinois, in Chicago.) And yes, when a team has played in the PAC-10 all year, it’s hard to get them “up” to play an endless string of SEC foes. (UCLA has already defeated Alabama and LSU in the tourney.) For that reason, we give Florida a chance tonight, although order has clearly been restored on the court. Despite the tourney’s scheduling machinations, it’s already clear who’s Number 1—despite what may happen tonight.