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What if Bill Buckner lowered his glove a few inches? If David Tyree didn't make that circus catch? What if Chris Webber didn't call timeout? What if the umpire called Dave Roberts out at second base?
Studies reveal that Olympic bronze medalists tend to be happier than silver medalists. No surprise there – many a silver medalist is left to think that he would have gotten gold if not for a bad bounce, a bad call, a moment of lost focus, or some other nasty fragment of fate.
But sport brings with it a species of pain even greater than near-miss agony: Call it the "never quite got the chance" syndrome. In that poignant scene in On The Waterfront, Marlon Brando's Terry Malloy laments that "I coulda been a contender" – if his brother didn't fix fights and make Malloy take the fall. Malloy didn't say he could have been a champion, only a contender. Lost glory is bad enough; lost opportunity still worse.
Athletes at every level know the feeling. They were injured before the big game. The coach took them out or drew up the last second shot for someone else. There's endless variation on the theme of Never Quite Got The Chance. My personal version is admittedly on the strange side: I almost wrestled Steve Buscemi.
Yes, the scrawny actor who is funny in Fargo, creepy in Reservoir Dogs, and absolutely boss in Boardwalk Empire, wrestled in high school. His high school in Valley Stream (on Long Island) is 10 miles west of mine in Bellmore. He was a senior when I was a sophomore. He wrestled in the 105 pound weight class; I was 98. That lousy 7-pound discrepancy means I never got to grapple with the man who made Tony Soprano's life even more miserable than usual.
As a wrestler, I had my share of success and, of course, agonizing near-misses. If not for a referee's shaky call, or my own mental lapses, I might have been a county champion. Sigh. That's not what keeps me up nights – not anymore. When I saw Fargo shortly after it came out in 1996, the fast-talking, quirky-looking bad guy, Carl Showalter, looked familiar. When the credits ran, I realized why. Ever since, my biggest sports "what if" concerned my weight class. Mom, why didn't you feed me more Wheaties?
Agonizing over a wrestling match that never happened may seem dotty. My father-in-law John played high school basketball against the legendary Jim Brown. John, a very practical man, takes it in stride. Until I gave up, we had a dozen conversations along the following lines:
ME: You were on the same floor with Jim Brown?! ARE YOU KIDDING? You competed against a man who may be the greatest athlete ever!
JOHN: He wasn't as dominant in basketball as in football and lacrosse, but he and his Manhasset team ran over my [Port Washington] school in every sport. It was depressing.
ME: Depressing? You played against Jim Brown! You probably shook his hand after the game! Did you wash that hand?
JOHN: I don't remember whether we shook hands. I may have been in a rush to get to the locker room. Manhasset always clobbered us.
ME: But just to play against him! That's like being in the Student Council with JFK. It's like being Marilyn Monroe's high school boyfriend. It's ...
JOHN: You're getting carried away. He was good, but he wasn't that good. Football was his main sport.
ME: I'll say!
Why, I've wondered, am I so disappointed that I didn't wrestle Steve Buscemi while my father-in-law is so blasé about actually sharing the hardwood with Jim Brown? Maybe it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. If I had actually wrestled Buscemi, would it really be a big deal?
In The Wire, Omar hands toilet paper to his friend, and with it some reassurance: "Whether you squat in an alley or sit on a porcelain throne, don't really change the moment, now, do it." (Michael Kenneth Williams is almost Buscemi's match as an actor.) You can say the same thing about a wrestling match: Whether your opponent is the King of England or Joe Bagofdonuts, it's just a wrestling match. Maybe that's what my father-in-law understands.
There's also a be-careful-what-you-wish-for aspect to the whole thing. My 105-pound teammate who wrestled Buscemi was a county champion, and for most of the match he pounded Buscemi, taking an 8-0 lead. But my teammate made one mistake, Buscemi took advantage and pinned him. Buscemi was a decent wrestler, but probably better in the Drama Club. Whipping our county champion had to be the highlight of his wrestling career, especially since his team won the dual meet by one point.
Maybe it was Buscemi's day, and I would have been the hapless victim if I had been up one weight class. But for the grace of God, I'd be reminded of my most painful wrestling moment during every episode of The Sopranos' fifth season and every single episode of Boardwalk Empire. Maybe it is less painful to sit back and think, "Damn, I almost wrestled Steve Buscemi."
Nah. No amount of rationalizing can change the fact that I wish I had locked horns with the man who would become Nucky Thompson. Terry Malloy would understand.
Alan Hirsch is coauthor of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball".
]]>* Top seed after sharing regular-season chapionship
^ America East championship game to be hosted by higher seed
Made available by PlaceIQ
His comments came on the heels of a New York Times profile of Hall of Famer Rayfield Wright, now enfeebled by post-concussive dementia, headaches, and seizures. Wright's story is sadly common. A federal judge recently expressed skepticism that the NFL's $764 million settlement offer to over 4,500 ex-players is enough to cover their concussion-related damages.
Was playing in the Super Bowl really worth the possibility of permanent brain damage and decades of a vastly diminished life? Welker is near the end of an already fulfilling career: He is a multiple All Pro, holds numerous records, and is a veteran of two Super Bowls. He is just 32 and his previous concussions put him at risk for more. To the average person, it may seem insane for an athlete to risk long-term health over a single football game, even a Super Bowl.
However, elite professional athletes are different from the rest of us. They get where they are in part because they are super-competitive; their perspective on risk and reward differs from that of the armchair quarterback. Many of them cannot restrain their hypercompetitive instincts, particularly when glory beckons.
Think about Ali-Frazier III, the Thrilla in Manila - a stark example of the risk/reward tradeoff. Longtime boxing reporter Ed Schuyler said that he never saw a fight where two boxers took more of a beating. Ali described the fight as "the closest thing to death." As Ali and Frazier suffered almost unimaginable punishment, they lacked the luxury of the calm calculation afforded Wes Welker during the run-up to the Super Bowl.
But, instinctively, they made the same choice as Welker – the hell with worrying about health. This was their Super Bowl and they were going to see it through. They answered the bell, punishing round after round after round after round. Their mutually sadistic battle ended only when Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch, over the protest of his heroic but essentially blinded fighter, threw in the towel after the 14th round.
Ali eventually developed trauma-induced Parkinson's disease, rendering him physically disabled, cognitively slow and, sadly ironic for the Louisville Lip, barely able to speak. He received countless blows throughout his career, but surely the damage in Manila, the worst pounding he ever took (Frazier hit him 440 times), contributed significantly to his decline.
Did Ali ever regret staying the distance? Did he ever stop to think that, if only he called it quits after the eighth or ninth or even 12th round, he might have led a more normal post-boxing life? Very doubtful. Champions don't think that way.
The sporting world is better for it. Sport is at its most compelling when athletes appear to transcend the limits of human capability: Bob Beamon's 29-foot long jump, Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game, Don Larsen's World Series perfect game. This pantheon includes Ali and Frazier mutually testing the limits of athletic courage, endurance, and tolerance of pain.
Futch consoled the defeated Frazier by assuring him that "no one will ever forget what you did here today." Still less will anyone forget what the victorious Ali did.
What price can be put on the achievement that assures immortality? If Ali had quit against Frazier, he might have been able to light the Olympic Torch in 1996 with a steadier hand. But he probably would not have been asked to light the torch in the first place.
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
On paper, the bout appeared to be a mismatch of epic proportions. Liston, the heavyweight champion and a 7-1 favorite, was thought to be unbeatable. Cassius Clay, as he was then known, had yet to fight a top-flight contender and had looked bad in winning his previous two fights against blown-up light heavyweights.
Not one of the 11 living former heavyweight champs gave Clay a chance of winning. Many boxing people sincerely feared for his life. Moreover, Clay's entire Louisville Sponsoring Group, including his trainer Angelo Dundee, was opposed to him fighting Liston at this time.
As it turned out, the 'Louisville Lip' had everybody right where he wanted them.
After much thought, Clay realized that what he did to Liston outside of the ring might be even more important than what he did to him inside of it. Getting the champ to underestimate him was the most important thing.
"I wanted him thinking that all I was some clown, and that he would never have to give a second thought to me being able to put up any real fight when we got to the ring," Ali admitted later. "The more out-of-shape and overconfident I could get him to be, the better."
Equally important was Clay's plan to needle, harass, and humiliate Liston so badly that he'd fight angry. "Any time you lose your head, you're fighting the other guy's fight, and you're in trouble," said former featherweight champ, Willie Pep. "You know what I call an angry boxer?" echoed Jack Dempsey, "I call him a lost-head. He's lost his head and now he's going to lose the match."
Clay relentlessly demeaned Liston whenever he could, attacking his intellect and questioning his blackness. By fight time, Liston's anger had all but consumed him.
Clay's campaign of psychological warfare might be the biggest sting operation in the history of sports. Remarkably, it was devised by a kid who had graduated 376th in a high school class of 391. So much for book smarts.
"Nobody ever could have conned me the way I did him," Ali said. "I'd sit down and give his actions careful examination. Liston didn't never even think about doing that. Neither did nobody around him."
The fight became a primer on how not to prepare for a title defense. Liston truly believed Clay's best weapon was his mouth. He told boxing historian Jimmy Jacobs to bet his life that Cassius wouldn't last three rounds against him, and he trained accordingly.
Sonny wiled away many evenings eating hot dogs, drinking beer and dealing blackjack, and a couple of people claimed he was being supplied with prostitutes by members of his entourage. Judging by the activity at Liston's Miami residence, his victory party began about three weeks before the fight.
But Liston was an old fighter, perhaps twice as old as Ali at the time of their first bout. And a severely injured left shoulder found him secretly spending almost as much time at his physical therapist's office as he did in the gym.
Between March 9, 1961, and Feb. 24, 1964, Liston fought only three times, each of which ended in one-round knockouts. The sum of his ring time was 6 minutes and 14 seconds, which meant that for all practical purposes Sonny was in the midst of a three-year layoff.
"A fighter has to fight regularly to be at his best," said Joe Louis. "Jack Dempsey found that out the hard way and so did I." And so would Sonny. As Ali would later say, Liston was the perfect set-up.
In contrast, Clay trained diligently and led such a chaste life that Angelo Dundee said a lot of people thought his fighter must be gay. The challenger also made sure that nobody but his own people saw his serious workouts. He worried that the press would figure out his strategy, but it never happened.
"Them newspaper people couldn't have been working no better for me if I had been paying them," he said later.
A lot of sportswriters intensely disliked both fighters partly because they thought one had no ability and the other had way too much. They derided Clay's boxing skill because they were too blind to see it and they slandered Liston's character because they wouldn't allow themselves to believe that he had any.
The backdrop for this fight was essentially one of David versus Goliath. It pitted a talented, engaging and good looking kid who thought he was ready to fight the toughest, strongest, and most menacing man that boxing had ever seen. But that story line was about to change in a big way.
Clay had converted to Islam and was so close to Malcolm X that he invited him to his training camp in Miami. When promoter Bill MacDonald learned of this, he threatened to call off the fight unless the challenger publicly renounced his religion. Clay wouldn't, and MacDonald allowed the fight to take place only because Malcolm agreed to leave camp.
According to Malcolm's wife, Betty Shabazz, Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad had cautioned Malcolm not to align himself too closely to Clay, fearing that Muslims would be embarrassed by the fight's outcome. "You will not in any way be representing us, because it's impossible for Cassius Clay to win," said the Nation's leader.
Now the fight had two bad guys and some people thought Liston, an ex-con with mob ties not of his own choosing, was the more sympathetic of the two.
The weigh-in was more memorable than the fight. Clay's carefully rehearsed routine was probably the finest acting performance ever staged by any athlete. His feigned hysterics were so convincing that the boxing commission's lead doctor said Clay was emotionally unbalanced and liable to crack up before he entered the ring. He said the fight would be canceled if Clay's heart rate and blood pressure were still high at fight time.
The spectacle reaffirmed everything that the challenger had wanted Liston to believe about him. "It really got to him," said Sonny's trainer, Willie Reddish. "I could tell by the expression on his face. Clay was acting like a crazy man."
And that was hugely important because as Sonny once said, the worst person in the world to fight is a crazy person. Geraldine Liston said that was exactly what her husband thought of Clay. "You never know what to expect from a man like that," she added. "You never know what to expect from a madman."
Of the 58 sportswriters that were polled, 55 picked Liston to win and most of them predicted an early knockout. As a result, the arena and the country's closed-circuit outlets would be little more than half full. Several sportswriters thought Clay might not even show up.
"The tension was electric," said Clay's physician, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, "but this tension was more like that of an audience at a hanging. They were here to see this kid get his. When he was going to get it was the only question."
Muhammad Ali never denied that he was afraid of Sonny Liston, though he downplayed it. However, in his dressing room, Clay's fear was so palpable that he accused Dundee and Pacheco of being mafia people who bet with gangsters. He trusted no one but his brother, Rudolph.
"You have to remember one thing," Ali's close friend Gene Kilroy said later. "Sonny Liston was a man. At that time, Muhammad Ali was a little boy."
When the opening bell sounded, Liston's pent-up rage caused him to chase the fastest heavyweight in history around the ring. "Man, he meant to kill me. I ain't kidding," remembered Ali. Liston became the bull and Clay happily accepted the role of matador. A 22-year-old kid had baited a trap, and the Bear stepped right into it.
After the third round, Rocky Marciano turned to his radio partner Howard Cosell and said, "Jesus Christ, Howie, he's become an old man." Sonny's close friend, casino executive Ash Resnick, said it looked like Liston had aged 10 years right before his eyes.
The fight was even on the official scorecards after six rounds. But Liston was exhausted, and the painful injury to his left shoulder rendered his left hand – the most potent weapon in boxing history - useless. When his corner stopped the fight, tears trickled down Sonny's cheeks. The eight physicians who examined him concluded that the injury would have prevented him from defending himself.
To underscore the enormity of what had taken place, Joe Louis matter-of-factly stated that Cassius Clay had just beaten the greatest heavyweight champion in history.
The new champ berated reporters and screamed at them to eat their words. "I just beat Sonny Liston," he said. "I must be the greatest!" And he has been ever since.
Asked how he felt about losing his title, Liston said he felt "like when the President got shot."
The outcome was such a shock — and a blow to the wallets of most bettors — that rumors swirled that Liston had thrown the fight. A four-week investigation by the Florida State Attorney revealed no evidence the fight had been fixed, however. The report found no fluctuation in the betting odds anywhere in the country and confirmed the findings of the physicians who examined Liston. Nevertheless, a lot of sports fans still wonder if Liston took a dive.
But what nobody disputes is that Muhammad Ali's victory over Sonny Liston gave birth to a sports icon who would become the most famous athlete of all time.
Paul Gallender is the author of "Sonny Liston – The Real Story Behind the Ali-Liston Fights."
]]>My antiquated guess about ticket prices for that area was 30, 40, maybe 50 bucks. Wrong! Admission, after TicketSlaveMaster tacked on its fees, was $119 a pop. Most Seahawks seats for the same venue are similarly pricey and distant.
Seattle Mariners tickets are cheaper. At Safeco Field, just down the street from CenturyLink, you can buy a 16-game plan for about $300, or $18.75 a pop. But then it's a bit like the airlines these days where they stick you for everything: high parking prices, expensive food, and, worst of all, $8 beers.
Don't misunderstand: I have greatly enjoyed going to Mariners games. One of the best memories of my life was watching the M's win the division series against the Yankees in 1995. Randy Johnson unexpectedly came in as a reliever. Edgar Martinez hit a two-run double for the win in the bottom of the 11th inning. The crowd at the Kingdome almost took the roof off with our roar.
Yet the baseball event I'm most looking forward to this year is not the Mariners' opening game in April, but the first game of the Bellingham Bells' season in June. Playing on the site that used to host a Mariners farm team, Joe Martin Field, the Bells are a collegiate summer-league team of the West Coast League. Student-players are unpaid and billeted at volunteer host homes.
As students, Bells are still learning the game. Only a few of them will ever make it to the majors. So what? It's fun, competitive baseball. Their record was about .500 last year. Team manager Nick Caples has made some off-season moves that fans are hoping will give them more punching power this season. He hired a new head coach and recruited local bats from Washington schools.
Bells home games are within easy driving distance of the populated parts of Whatcom County. Parking is free and plentiful. The really expensive tickets are $8. Beer is $2 on Tuesdays. Yet cost and convenience are secondary considerations for filling those seats. After all, we can watch an awful lot of baseball at home for the price of basic cable. The main draw is that fans can get close to the action and feel like they're a part of something other than a bandwagon.
At most Bells games, the same old season ticket holder with huge suspenders comes out and sings "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," for the seventh-inning stretch. Fans get recruited to take part in the promotions between innings, including having all the kids run across the outfield every game. One slightly deranged regular has launched a one-man campaign to change the "Go Team" call-and-response answer from "Da Da Da Da-ta Da … Charge!" to "Da Da Da Da-ta Da … Kill!"
Maybe the Bells will rise to that blood-curdling challenge this year. If they don't, it'll be a shame but one that all lifelong baseball fans have learned to accept. The chance to go root for the home team, not knowing how the bat will crack, the ball will hop, or the umpire will call it is one of life's great nail-biting pleasures.
And to do it practically in your own backyard, with cheap concessions, on western Washington's scarce-but-amazing summer nights? Even better.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
"I think you definitely have to feel that he's a courageous young man, but my understanding is he's a talented young player... Any player who can come here and be a good teammate and follow the rules of our program, which is, one, be respectful and produce on the football field, we have room for that guy." — Mike McCarthy, Green Bay Packers head coach
"As long as you're a good person and you're respectful in the locker room to each other, then you can help us win on Sundays and are welcome." — Alex Van Pelt, Green Bay Packers assistant coach
"You wanted a football player, you got the football player. I promise you his sexuality has nothing to do with him playing on the football field. He is a completely different person [on the field]. He puts this face on, no smiles, serious business. He's a killer." — Sheldon Richardson, New York Jets defensive end and former roommate of Sam
One Packers blogger wrote that McCarthy's and Van Pelt's quotes are "an impressive moral statement." I think they lack any statement at all. Everything said applies to every single player who passes through Green Bay's locker room. What's more, we know there are already players who have trouble with these basic guidelines yet are still welcome in the NFL.
Likewise, Richardson's assertion that Sam's "sexuality has nothing to do with him playing on the football field" applies equally when discussing straight athletes.
These statements are logical reactions to illogical arguments. Some think homosexuality and athletic ability are mutually exclusive. Some think that Sam will think about his straight male teammates the same way those teammates think about women. McCarthy, Van Pelt and Richardson fail because they don't reject those ideas. The implication is that at any moment Sam could do something so gay that the Packers would have no choice but to cut him. Richardson assures Green Bay that won't happen:
"[Sam] is a completely different person [on the field]." Meaning: He is not gay on the field.
Good, says McCarthy. "We have room for that guy."
The other major failure of these statements is that they focus on Sam's behavior. They say nothing about what the team will do to make Sam welcome. The main reason that Sam's sexual orientation is news is that the NFL (as well as the other major North American sports leagues) has created a culture where openly gay athletes have not been welcome. And it's not because they all have trouble respecting authority and following team rules (they don't).
Given the past and present hostility toward gay athletes, saying Sam's orientation doesn't matter is not enough. The league can't pretend that now, out of nowhere, it is a pure meritocracy when the truth is it's never been about talent alone.
McCarthy opens with: "You definitely have to feel that he's a courageous young man, but my understanding is he's a talented young player."
That "but" is crucial. Sam's not courageous (gay) and a talented young player. He's courageous (gay), but his being a talented young player makes up for it. Shifting the conversation away from sexuality opens the door to easy statements of acceptance. What's accepted, though, is Sam the football player and not Sam the human being.
This reversal, and questions like "why is his sexual orientation news?" neglect the myriad reasons athletes had for not coming out in the past. Apathy and a blind eye can't counteract an ongoing history of hostility.
We already know that there's no difference between gay and straight athletes. We know they're both on the field, and we can't tell the difference. With Sam, we will know. It's crucial that the NFL and the team that drafts Sam take proactive steps to guarantee he is just the first of many out pro athletes.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
There are, of course, solid reasons why a country that is situated mostly north of the 49th parallel because of the agitations of James K. Polk would do better at games involving cold, snow, ice and phlegm. Yet past a certain point the paranoid suspicion seeps in that these things are rigged.
Granted, Canadians are going to dominate at hockey much as America dominates basketball during the Summer Games. It's their country's national sport. Few would begrudge Canadians the goals or argue that hockey doesn't belong in the Winter Games.
And sure, them Canucks are going to have an understandable goose bump-riddled leg up in many of the skiing events, given their nation's abundant snowpack. Also, the nation enjoys a commanding lead in Zamboni technology.
But, those folks who think the current medal standings amount to some kind of bizarre pro-Canadian plot do have one seemingly killer piece of evidence up their sleeve: the existence of curling as an Olympic sport.
Curling is a duckbill platypus of a sport. It looks a bit like shuffleboard on ice, but with circle targets instead of pyramids, a 40-pound "rock" or "stone" instead of a small disk, and a team of "sweepers" who shuffle in front of the stone and go crazy creating a path for it on the ice.
The sport's jargon and its scoring are unfamiliar to most Americans, though curling is popular north of the 49th. I went to college in British Columbia and would see it on TV occasionally, registering at as a quirky Canadian thing.
Like ketchup chips, say, or poutine fries.
It turns out the sport does have a worldwide following. The World Curling Federation website insists on this, and the deafening roar at the Sochi Games confirms it.
Curling's popularity snuck up on many of us. It has been a regular part of the Winter Games since 1998. Now, fans fight over not only which nation is going to win but over which team has the most outrageous pants.
With such sartorial side-bets going on, it's unlikely Olympic curling will go away anytime soon. Americans are going to have to get much better at curling if they want to put down the Northern Menace.
That means developing a fan base here and a general familiarity with how the game works. Given the typical American knowledge of the sport in 2014, it might as well be cricket.
It shouldn't be that difficult to pick up. For instance, that target that curlers are sliding the stone toward? It's called the house.
The bulls'-eye in the middle of the house is called the button. The team with the stone on or closest to the button at the end of the end (rounds are called "ends," which admittedly can be confusing, but think of it as innings in baseball) wins that round.
Our winning team scores one point for the stone on the button and more points for every stone in the house at the end of the end that's closer than any of the opposing team's stones.
OK, it's complicated. But Americans can follow it with just a little effort. And if that sounds confusing, just try explaining baseball to the uninitiated. With only three strikes, you're a goner.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
The upper hand fluctuated during their playing careers: Mays grabbed the initial edge with monster seasons in 1954 and 1955; Mantle surpassed him with a Triple Crown (for both leagues) in 1956, was equally outstanding in 1957, hit 54 home runs in 1961, and won the MVP award in 1962. Mays answered with a string of outstanding seasons culminating in a 52-home run MVP year in 1965. Mantle slowed down first, retiring after the 1968 season, while Mays continued playing through 1973.
Mays' more sustained excellence resulted in greater career numbers in traditional measurements (base hits, runs, RBIs, home runs). As the final numbers came in, the comparison of the players turned clearly in Mays' favor, and Mays' higher ranking persisted for decades.
Mays drew stronger support for his Hall of Fame induction (Mantle, in 1974, 88 percent of votes; Mays, in 1979, 95 percent) and by 1999, prominent end-of-the-century player rankings all favored Mays, generally by significant margins: The Sporting News (Mays 2nd, Mantle 17th), The Society for American Baseball Research (Mays 8th, Mantle 12th), the Major League Baseball All-Century Team (fan vote: Mays 1,115,896, Mantle 988,168) and ESPN Sport Century (Mays 8th, Mantle 37th, of all athletes).
But in 2012, ESPN's "MLB Hall of 100" rated Mantle higher (9th, with Mays 2nd) than previous polls, and in two recent well-received books, Jane Leavy's "The Last Boy" and Allen Barra's "Mickey and Willie," the authors argued for Mantle's supremacy over Mays. After all this time, how was Mantle improving?
Leavy's and Barra's endorsements of Mantle over Mays largely derived from recent statistical insights; most importantly, the increased valuation of avoiding outs. Mantle's greater ability to draw walks and reach base safely was probably the single largest distinction between the two players. Mantle's lifetime on-base percentage was .421; Mays .384. This translated into a higher career OPS (on base plus slugging percentage) and superior "linear weights" assessments of overall offensive performance (linear weights formulas include relative valuations of walks, different base hits, and other plays). Mantle's superiority in these measures increases as we select out smaller prime periods (e.g., 10 best years, five best years).
The simplest way to illustrate Mantle's advantage is to count the outs from at-bats. Mays averaged 34 more outs per season (adjusted for plate appearances) than Mantle. During their five best seasons, Mays averaged 54 more outs per year (adjusted for plate appearances) - the equivalent of about 12 games of failed at-bats each year. (The difference in the number of outs increases if double plays are included - Mantle hit into remarkably few, 113 vs. Mays' 251).
Of course, Mays was greater on the bases and, especially, in the field. However, these aspects of the game are more difficult to measure accurately than hitting, even with advanced statistics. Mays' baserunning advantage was probably small, as Mantle was widely known as the fastest runner in baseball early in his career and was a terrific base stealer (80 percent career success rate, Mays 77 percent - though the Yankees called upon Mantle to steal less often).
Frank Crosetti, the long-time Yankees coach, commented that "Mantle could see better than his coaches exactly when to move from first to third or to score from second on a single, or to stretch doubles into triples. He had a kind of perfect baseball sense." In addition, his contemporaries considered Mantle a good outfielder; he won a Gold Glove award in 1962. Later on, Bill James estimated that Mays' defense saved only 5-6 runs per year (translating into winning one game every two years) as compared with Mantle's.
Mays conceivably was equal to or greater than Mantle as an all-around player, but the argument for Mays requires his baserunning and defensive superiority to counter Mantle's demonstrably superior performance at the plate. It is especially difficult to claim Mays' overall superiority when comparing peak performances. James argues that "Mickey Mantle was, at his peak in 1956-57 and again in 1961-62 clearly a greater player than Willie Mays - and it is not a close or difficult decision."
Player evaluations logically change as statistics accumulate and their interpretations evolve. But there may be more to Mantle's initial post-retirement decline (relative to Mays and others) than just numbers, rooted in something that should not be relevant: The public unveiling of his sordid off-the-field life.
For most of his career, Mantle symbolized greatness. In the 1960s, he was probably American sports' most venerated figure, "The Last Hero" per biographer David Faulkner; the only athlete of his era to regularly receive standing ovations in visiting ballparks.
One important aspect of his popularity was his valor in the face of injury. Mantle essentially played his career on one leg (per Leavy, Mantle's torn ACL in 1951 was never reconstructed); for the latter half, with only one good arm as well (per Barra, he never recovered from a 1957 shoulder injury), and even though no one knew these details at the time, the manner in which Mantle persevered in pain, seemed epic.
But the details of Mantle's alcoholism and boorish behavior that emerged post-retirement tainted his public image. As we learned that he preferred drinking to rehabilitation and training, Mantle's playing with injuries seemed less heroic and more self-perpetuated. To many, he was no longer a hero or even a decent person.
The alcohol saga (superimposed on the injuries) also fueled a "what might have been" meme, in part energized by Mantle's public lamenting that he had wasted his immense talent. Mantle's name became associated as much with failure as success. It would not be surprising if this increasingly critical perspective - Mantle's own perspective - affected the evaluation of his play.
That would be unfortunate. Alcohol and what might have been are important to the Mantle biography, but they are not relevant to judging what actually happened on the field. The record is the record, whether generated sober or not, injury-free or not, with maximal or minimal rehabilitation, with or without other impediments.
As the late Stephen Jay Gould wrote, in pointed response to those preoccupied with alternative histories: "To hell with what might have been. … What happened is all we have. By this absolute and irrefragable standard, Mantle was the greatest ballplayer of his time."
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
Nintendo's earnings have dived, the stock has tanked, the CEO has slashed his own pay, and Hiroshi Yamauchi's heirs have so little confidence in the future of the enterprise that they just sold their stock back to the company.
Nintendo will be looking for ways to shave cost and grow revenue. The company's oddball stake in the Mariners will surely be one of the things disposed of in the barber's chair.
Yamauchi's purchase of the franchise in 1992 is a bit of a head scratcher. He was reputed to have done it simply as a nice gesture to the folks of Washington state. Apparently, he never came to a game.
Not that locals have much to complain about. Yamauchi's gift kept the Mariners from moving to Florida and enabled such things as the Mariners' first playoff victory in 1995 and their record-setting winningest season in 2001.
It also formed a bridge between Japanese and American baseball. The Mariners had on their roster Kazuhiro Sasaki, Shigetoshi Hasegawa and the mighty Ichiro Suzuki, among others.
Yamauchi's ownership made that measure of success possible. But it didn't get the Mariners to a World Series. And over the last several years, the direction-less team has slumped back to its former mediocrity.
Every year between seasons, the M's front office has made a series of deals and trades and predicted that this year it's going to be different.
So far, no dice. Yet the answer to Nintendo's problem and the Mariners' problem may be right next door.
To hush any question about Seahawks envy, the Mariners did something unusual this year. The M's took out a full page ad just before the Super Bowl that posed top Mariners in their jerseys. Their usual numbers were all changed to 12, a reference to the Seahawks fans, the "12th Man."
"Bring it home, Hawks," the ad read.
Ownership of the Mariners ought to be brought home as well.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has proven to be an ideal owner of both the Seahawks and the NBA's Portland Trailblazers and he owns a stake in the tremendously popular Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer as well. Why not add the Mariners to his holdings?
Time and again, Allen has demonstrated that he cares about his hometown. He also clearly enjoys the challenge and excitement that comes along with owning major league sports teams. So why not one more?
That he'd do well by the Mariners is almost a foregone conclusion. Allen has a good sense of what fans want because he is one himself. He is willing to try new things, to persevere, to inch his team ever closer to the goal line, the goal, the basket or, hopefully, the home plate.
In the wonderfully superstitious world of fandom, Allen is also a good luck charm.
Put yourself in the head of an M's fan for a minute, if you do not already enjoy that blessed disposition. Now try to imagine any single deal or trade that would make you more excited than news that Paul Allen had just bought the team.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
RealClearSports: How big is the Super Bowl?
Daniel J. Flynn: The Super Bowl is bigger than The Beatles, Monty Python, and beer. Combined.
RCS: Who are you rooting for on Sunday?
Flynn: I'm rooting for a good game. In observing the two teams close up this week, I've discovered that they are reflections of their coaches. The Seahawks appear loose and without nerves. Pete Carroll, in explaining away the absences of Marshawn Lynch from media obligations, said on Wednesday that he celebrated the "uniqueness" and "individuality" of his players. John Fox redundantly explained that his team wasn't staying in Jersey City for fun: "This is a business trip."
If you view the Super Bowl as so important as to require an all-business devotion to victory, then Denver embraces the right approach. If you view the Super Bowl as a game not worth psyching yourself out over, then Seattle holds an advantage. The Broncos are serious. The Seahawks have swagger.
RCS: Let's talk about a few team-specific controversies. Is Richard Sherman a thug?
Flynn: Richard Sherman isn't a thug. The salient fact isn't that he grew up in Watts and Compton but that he graduated from Stanford. It's about where you finish, not where you start. Nevertheless, the talented cornerback summed himself up in a few minutes' span at the end of the NFC Championship Game. He knows how to play football. He doesn't necessarily know how to behave.
I got a chance to talk with Richard Sherman on a couple of occasions this week and observe him interact with others. He's a people person. He loves to talk and smile. He loves the media and the media loves him.
Sherman observed at Super Bowl Media Day that never has a defensive player received so much attention since Deion Sanders. Richard Sherman isn't Aaron Hernandez. He's Deion Sanders, a player we'll despise for most of his playing career but grow to love during his more lucrative career as a product endorser and pre-game banterer.
It's telling that he repeatedly named Muhammad Ali as the figure he'd most like to meet. Sherman told the 49ers and the world through his frightened intermediary Erin Andrews, "Don't you ever talk about me." The master of reverse psychology meant don't you never not talk about me. So far, America remains compliant.
RCS: What would a win do for Peyton Manning's standing among quarterbacks?
Flynn: If winning isn't everything but the only thing, then Peyton Manning has to triumph Sunday if he wants to hear his name in the conversation as the best ever. Fantasy football enthusiasts might already consider him that. But statistics are for baseball. Peyton Manning still remains a top-five quarterback should the Broncos lose. But my sense is that Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, and his nemesis in New England would surely find their names more associated with lower numbers on all-time lists.
Should Manning win, the sky's the limit. He could retire (to Omaha, presumably) on a high note leaving fans wanting more. Or, given his record-breaking 2013 season, he could build on his gaudy numbers and ring collection. Winning's a winning move for his legacy.
RCS: What was the best Super Bowl ever?
Flynn: The Patriots' victory over the Rams ranks as my favorite because of the last-second nature of the victory, the extreme underdog status of the victors, and the proximity of my home to their home stadium. We had great teams in the '80s but horrible Super Bowls. Anyone coming of age over the past 15 or so years could point to any of nearly a half-dozen Super Bowls as the "best" ever.
RCS: Your latest book The War on Football predicts the decline of football in America. How can a sport this popular be tackled?
Flynn: The football that is watched by most Americans is doing fine. The NFL approaches $10 billion in revenue. I'm doing my best to eat into that largesse by removing as many free Gatorades from the media lounge at the Sheraton Times Square as possible. A league that sells game-day parking spots for $50 can afford to pay out $765 million to retired players and not feel the pain.
But the leagues that sell candy bars to pay for pads and referees can't afford the propaganda assault on the game as a result of that lawsuit. Youth football was down 7 percent last year. Teams are disappearing and fall practice fields appear as ghost towns. So, if you think of football primarily as a spectator sport, it's doing fine. If you think of it as a participatory sport, it's enduring an existential crisis.
RCS: Don't you worry about having your own kids play football, given how dangerous it can be?
Flynn: Football is good for you. My son - he's 7 - plays flag football. He loves it but he's probably a few years away from the genuine article.
I talked to Dana White today. The UFC honcho mentioned that he never played football but that he's grown to love the game through the passion of his boys playing it. He called attempts to ban the game for kids in New York "ridiculous" and "insane." He put the hysteria over football in the context of larger cultural trends: "I used to not wear seatbelts in the car. I used to sleep in the back window on long trips. I rode my bike without a helmet. I made it! I'm alive!"
RCS: Surely there are some health concerns?
Flynn: The most dangerous activity is inactivity. The people most likely to suffer adverse health consequences as a result of the game of football are eating hot dogs in the stands, not playing on the field. We need to do a better job encouraging sports, not slobs.
When the feds looked at almost 3,500 pension-vested NFL retirees who played from 1959 to 1988, they shocked a lot of people by discovering that professional football players enjoy longer lifespans. In the 17 health categories examined, football players outperformed men outside of the game in 14 categories, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, respiratory illness, and suicide.
Duh! Running, jumping, blocking, and tackling is good for you.
RCS: What about concussions?
Flynn: We know not much more about concussions now than we did when doctors attached to the Harvard football team kept a diary on injuries to their charges during the 1905 season. Back then, they diagnosed the mild traumatic brain injury clinically and prescribed bed rest. We do the same today.
When the Mayo Clinic compared hundreds of mid-century high school football players to members of the glee club, choir, and band, they expected to find higher rates of neurological diseases among the athletes. It turned out there wasn't any discernable difference. The 2012 study discovered that the musical students actually displayed worse rates for Parkinson's and Lou Gehrig's disease. Is playing the trombone bad for the brain?
The federal study I mentioned earlier expected 10 deaths from neurological diseases based on prevailing societal rates among the 3,500 or so NFL veterans. Instead, they found 12. So, it appears that brain disease rates for players who compete for a long time at elite levels in certain positions tend to be elevated. It's also the case that the extent to which they are elevated is wildly overstated.
What's the long-term damage that a concussion leaves the brain with? Harvard's team doctors didn't know in 1905 and the Harvard doctors receiving a $100 million grant from the NFL Players Association last year don't know now.
RCS: What sport might rise to take football's place, soccer?
Flynn: The annual Harris poll on sports preferences released this month revealed that 2 percent of spectators name soccer as their favorite sport, down 1 percent from where it stood nearly 30 years ago.
Americans have been told that soccer is the next big thing for my entire life. As far as kids participating, it's not "next" - just "big." But even after soccer missionaries Pele and Beckham failed to convert us to their sports religion, true believers continue to tell us soccer is the next big thing. More than the Segway, soccer has staying power as the "next big thing."
Americans aren't Europeans, and the fact that the first intercollegiate "football" game between Princeton and Rutgers employed a round ball to kick beneath a goal post demonstrates that the early development of the gridiron game represents a rebellion against Europe and their sports by American college kids. It is as it was.
RCS: This is Super Bowl XLVIII, or 48. Why does the NFL insist on Roman numerals?
Flynn: In theory, "Super Bowl" and Roman numerals go together as well as pizza and Thanksgiving. The name is a corruption of "super ball." A children's bouncy toy doesn't really lend itself to the grandiose status that Roman numerals bestow. But when we see "Super Bowl 48" instead of "Super Bowl "XLVIII" it irritates the eye ever so slightly. The fancy symbols provide football a sort of gravitas numerically the way John Facenda's voice provided it aurally.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
]]>The bias against quarterbacks of normal human height was so pervasive that Wilson wasn't chosen until late in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft. He had put up spectacular numbers for the University of Wisconsin, yet if the Seahawks hadn't taken him it is possible he would not have been drafted at all.
Wilson beat out two taller, well-compensated QBs to start. Now he is leading his team into the Super Bowl. A drive-thru espresso stand in Whatcom County, Wash., has an illuminated sign that reads "Hustle Like Russell and Try Our Bash the Broncos Mocha."
The other side of the same sign reads, "R U Ready for the Super Bowl? Try Our Beast Quake Skittle Shake." Running back Marshawn Lynch is as tall as Wilson but much larger, a sort of brick wall with arms, legs and a torso. When he goes into "Beast Mode," his nickname, it can take five players to drag him down to earth.
And if Lynch breaks into open field, game over. In 2011, he scored on a 67-yard run against the New Orleans Saints, breaking one tackle after another before reaching the end zone. Seattle fans were so ecstatic that their celebration shook the earth. "Beast Quake" registered as a minor event on the Richter scale with a nearby seismometer.
Lynch celebrated by eating Skittles, which he calls his "magic pills." The running back's devotion to the sweet was so well-known that candy maker Wrigley finally signed him up as a sponsor this week. People will soon be able to buy a special "Seattle Mix" with Seahawks colors.
I was going to tell readers about this cornerback named Richard Sherman, but that seems almost redundant at this point. By and large, people from the Evergreen State love him. Where out-of-state critics see a ranting, egotistical thug, Washingtonians see a driven, educated man who wears huge bowties and got a little carried away after a game-saving tip two weeks ago.
Sports sites and social media lately have been cluttered with outlandish stories of Seattle Seahawks fans, the so-called "12th man." One guy got a premature Seahawks Super Bowl championship tattoo! Doesn't he know that doesn't come off?! New parents named Mann decided to add "12th" for a newborn's birth certificate! How will she ever live that oddball second middle name down?!
Focusing on the outliers may not be the best way to understand homo duodecimus, a subspecies that makes up a large chunk of the local population. Any winning team is going to have a fair number of fair-weather fans cheering for it. This is different. From dozens of conversations with Washington residents over the last few months, I have got some idea why the Seahawks are so popular here.
The popularity isn't about "the Seahawks" generically, but this particular group of exceptional players and their canny coach. It's not only because they are winners, though that helps. Nor is it because they are "underdogs," a term so widely abused as to be almost useless. It's because they are unlikely, unpredictable, and above all, interesting.
These Seahawks have quirks, flaws, setbacks, stories that Washingtonians are interested in hearing and retelling. The ending fans are looking for, the perfect bow to tie all of these stories together, is, "… and this exceptional group of men came together and sent the mighty Peyton Manning back to Denver without a ring."
According to bettors, the odds do not favor that ending. Yet the numbers are guesses that can tell you only so much. Nothing about Seattle's success so far was foreordained. Indeed, the sheer nose-thumbing improbability of it all is one reason the 12th man is so happy.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
]]>Wawrinka thoroughly earned his first Slam title – and he actually "won" this championship several days ago, his newfound prowess and determination in evidence in his defeat of Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals. It was clear during that match – and in his ensuing, easier victory over Tomas Berdych in the semifinals - that Wawrinka has finally arrived to at least scare the Big Two of Nadal and Djokovic (and let's face it – there really is no "Big Four," with Roger Federer's age catching up to him and Andy Murray having been AWOL since Wimbledon and his also having had the luxury of not having faced Nadal in nearly three years).
And, for the first time in 20 years, since Sergi Brugera won the French Open in 1993 and knocking off Jim Courier and Pete Sampras along the way, a player has defeated the top two seeds (Nadal and Djokovic) in a Slam tournament – this is an extraordinary achievement by Wawrinka.
Wawrinka's emergence from a perennial top-15 player to a Slam contender for the first time at the relatively "advanced" age of 28 has been inspiring. And there's no reason to think the very likeable Swiss can't threaten at a Slam on a couple of more occasions. Even if he doesn't, it's refreshing to watch a talented, all-court player emerge to interrupt the glorious – if monotonous – domination of the game by the top players. What's most surprising is that it was Wawrinka and not one of the younger players, like Grigor Dmitrov or Milos Raonic, who ended up with the trophy.
And from this point forward this form will likely hold in the next couple of years as this golden age in tennis starts its slow but inexorable exit. Nadal and Djokovic will continue to compete for the most Slam titles, with Murray, Wawrinka, Juan Martin Del Potro and perhaps Dmitrov sneaking a major victory or two along the way. Indeed, the creeping transition has commenced.
While Wawrinka started the match blasting Nadal off the court in the first set, with his brutal-yet-somehow-balletic groundstrokes penetrating the court with great depth and precision, it was also obvious that something was amiss with Nadal's game. And we have since learned that Nadal's back began to bother him during the warmups.
It would be one thing if it was just Wawrinka out-hitting Nadal with flat balls that move through the court at a quicker rate. But Nadal was uncharacteristically missing easy second-serve returns; consider, in two games of the opening set Wawrinka managed only one first serve yet Nadal didn't take advantage, and he frequently hit balls that landed in mid-court that gave Wawrinka easy chances to take control of the points.
But it is what it is. Nadal was hurt and Wawrinka maintained his stellar level of play that was on display the entire fortnight. There's no use saying. "even if Nadal were healthy, Wawrinka would have won," or "no way Wawrinka beats a healthy Nadal." It's just, as they say, a shame it happened this way.
And what is it with the Australian Open and Nadal – in the last nine Opens, Nadal has missed the event twice because of injury and has been injured mid-match (including on Sunday) on three other occasions. It must be especially painful this year since Nadal was trying to accomplish that rare feat of winning each Slam at least twice (only Rod Laver and Roy Emerson have done it). And how cruel it is that it's a freaky back strain that gets Nadal and not the painful blister that was problematic during the second half of the week.
What was also truly a shame was the reaction by some boorish spectators at Rod Laver Arena who loudly booed Nadal after he returned from a seven-minute injury timeout, after receiving treatment on his aching back. For the crowd to react like that against perhaps the all-time tennis fighter was both ignorant and entirely insulting. After all, this is a man who just two years ago left every ounce of his body on the court after his five hour, 43-minute loss to Djokovic in the final.
For his part, Nadal, as usual, took the high road in the post-match press conference: "Sometimes is tough for the crowd to understand. The crowd, only thing wants to do is enjoy great match. They paid ticket to watch the best match possible, and I was not able to offer that to them for moments. I wanted to try my best until the end. But I can understand very well the reaction. The crowd was great with me during both weeks; support has been enormous, more than ever. You never will hear me talk badly about the crowd here."
In yet more words of wisdom from the 27-year-old Spaniard, Nadal also put his loss in proper perspective by framing his loss in an entirely unselfish way:
"Yeah, [this] is a tournament that I really had some troubles physically in my career and is something that is painful for me. But that's part of life. That's part of sport. [It] is not the end of the world. [It] is just another tough moment. [It] is not the first. I feel very lucky that I was able to enjoy much more happy moments than tough moments. At the end is a sport of victories. People remember the victories. They don't remember the losses.
"For me, [it] is a tough one tonight because I felt I was ready to compete well. But in a few weeks that's going to pass. I'm going to keep playing, going to keep training hard, and I'm going to keep enjoying the world of tennis. I feel very lucky to be able to work in something that I really love to do. Not everybody's able to do that. Nothing wrong. Just bad day, tough day. But [a] lot of people in the world have a lot of very tough days."
I immediately commented to several people afterward that I wished my 4-year-old son was just a little bit older to appreciate such class in this decidedly classless age we inhabit – in the sports world and otherwise.
So, despite the depressing late-night (or early morning in America) Australian happenings, tennis is better off: the sport has an appealing new champion in Wawrinka and will hopefully continue to have a healthier Rafael Nadal for several more years.
Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides occasional commentary for RealClearSports. Email: email@example.com
For the 23rd time in the 33rd edition of their rivalry, Roger Federer came up short again as Rafael Nadal played a near-perfect match, blisters and all, to defeat his longtime foil, 7-6, 6-3, 6-3, Friday in the semifinals of the Australian Open. Nadal will play Federer's countryman Stan Wawrinka in the final on Sunday.
It's all the more amazing since a year ago, when Nadal had to sit out the Australian Open in the midst of his seven-month injury hiatus and many thought he'd never play at a high level again.
After playing his best and most inspired tennis in more than a year in defeating Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the previous rounds, many thought that Federer was primed to upset Nadal and add to his legend and win an 18th Slam crown. But the great Federer was reminded – yet again, and painfully – that playing Nadal is an altogether different assignment.
Much had been made in the lead-up to the match that Federer's new choice of coach, the Hall of Famer and serve-and-volley genius Stefan Edberg, had seemed to bring life back to the Federer forecourt game. Until Friday's match Federer had turned back the clock, playing aggressively, taking full advantage of his preternatural court positioning and movement, and seizing opportunities to control the match at the net. And it was obvious that Federer would try to attempt to disrupt Nadal's confounding baseline rhythms by forcing the matter.
And for nearly an entire set it was working – until the first-set tiebreaker when Federer got a little tight and his serve betrayed him just enough for Nadal to seize an opening and take the opening stanza. And this has been a frequent pattern when these two play: Nadal wins a tight and well-played first set and then relaxes even more and the match resets itself back to the usual pattern of Nadal relentlessly wearing Federer down, causing Federer's errors to increase dramatically.
But the problem on this humid Melbourne evening was not Federer's game plan and execution thereof; it was Nadal playing at a level that was once thought impossible for him on hard courts. He simply refused to ever let Federer feel like he had a chance. Most tellingly, Nadal felt free to hit out with his flat backhand and the number of winners he generated on that side were an indication of the confidence he was feeling throughout the anticlimactic encounter.
Perhaps most illustrative of the frustration Federer must have felt came near the conclusion of the second set. Down a break at 3-5 but with Nadal serving at 15-30, Federer was still in the match and possibly on the verge of breaking back and knotting the set. Standing inside the baseline, Federer ripped a perfect, 94 mph backhand right at Nadal's feet but Nadal somehow managed to hit the ball on the rise and send it screaming down the line for a clean winner. There was a tangible sense that this was Federer's last, best shot to plant at least a seed of doubt in Nadal's impenetrable psyche.
The fact remains thus: Federer can't beat Nadal in the majors. He hasn't done so since eking out a five-set triumph over Nadal in the 2007 Wimbledon final. The problem is clearly both physical and mental. Federer doesn't have the strength and stamina – who does? – to stay with Nadal over a five-set match and therefore his strategy must be slightly reckless and aggressive in order to have a chance at victory. And he needs to serve flawlessly in order to get an early lead to keep the pressure on.
Knowing this fact, knowing that "I can't play my usual game, I need to move out of my comfort zone at all times and rush things and go for broke more than I want" is ultimately too taxing a thought process and it will inevitably lead to increased errors, decreased confidence and a return to the familiar pattern of Nadal extending points and overwhelming Federer from the baseline.
Having said that, there's no question that Federer showed flashes of his former self in the prior rounds. But for his legions of fans who yearn for that one last major, it's becoming increasingly unlikely as long as Nadal is around. Federer's best chance for Slam glory will always be at Wimbledon where he will remain a more legitimate threat.
So what can Nadal improve upon after his demolition of Federer? Very little, if anything. He didn't utilize his inside-out forehand nearly as often as he would have against Novak Djokovic, but that's more due to the fact that the cross-court pattern he uses against Federer continues to work. Nadal will likely vary his baseline game when he takes on Wawrinka in the final.
Nadal also didn't face a break point until the third set. While his serve speed was still slightly slower due to the stubborn and painful blister on his left hand (which he got brief medical treatment for after the first set), he won a stunning 73 percent of second-serve points. And this was ultimately the key stat; for Federer to succeed on an aggressive, forecourt strategy it was imperative to take advantage of second-serve points. And on too many occasions Friday he approached weakly off of second offerings and too often directed his approaches to Nadal's forehand.
Does Wawrinka have a chance? Well … he has yet to win a set, let alone a match, against Nadal in their 12 meetings. You can never discount any player at this level but there's a 99.9 percent certainty that Nadal will emerge victorious on Sunday, clutching his 14th Slam trophy and further solidifying his status as the best player in the world.
Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides occasional commentary for RealClearSports. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Neither Le Batard nor the BBWAA got this right.
An anti-steroids stance need not involve controversial moral judgments, much less sanctimony. Users risk major health problems and even death. If steroids were allowed, all players would be confronted with the choice of taking life-threatening substances or losing competitive ground (perhaps not even having a major league career). This situation would be intolerable.
The serious health risks distinguish anabolic steroid use (and growth hormone, which, in excess, causes acromegaly) from amphetamines, plasma or platelet infusions, creatine, protein or other supplements, and the like — steroid use cannot be justified as being no different from other means athletes have used to enhance performance. Nor should we excuse steroid use prior to baseball's formal testing and penalties. Federal law proscribed nonprescription use of anabolic steroids in 1991. Baseball does not need a formal penal code that specifically lists all banned behavior. It should be obvious that illegal activity is unacceptable.
We do not want a baseball culture that condones illegal substances, and we do not want to commemorate performances that required them.
But while this principle should be unobjectionable, particular cases present difficulties. We don't always know for sure which players used steroids or for how long. Because of that uncertainty, some argue that no one should be penalized in the balloting. Others argue the opposite: all suspected steroid-users from this era should be denied induction. Neither extreme is justified.
The demand for certainty and direct evidence belies the world around us. Civil law cases are decided by the "preponderance of the evidence" — something must only be more likely than not. Circumstantial evidence is accepted in all courts and puts many criminals behind bars. We all make important decisions based on uncertain evidence: whom to marry, what job to take, where to live, etc. We do the best we can based on the evidence at hand and accept that errors are inevitable. There is no reason that HOF voting should be held to a standard of certainty not required with other important decisions. We can and should assess HOF candidates via the available evidence.
McGwire, Sosa, and Palmeiro are fairly easy cases. The evidence suggests that they lack a steroid-unaided body of work worthy of induction. Bonds and Clemens are different. Their late-career statistical surges, along with obvious changes in their physiques, indicate that they began using steroids after they had already amassed careers that easily established their HOF credentials.
Inducting Bonds and Clemons would not condone their steroid use. Rather, we can commemorate the steroid-free part of their careers but not the latter steroid-fueled parts. Their plaques should avoid mentioning career totals or the MVPs, Cy Young awards, and other achievements that were aided by steroids. Bonds' plaque, for example, should make no mention of his record-breaking 73 home run season. (HOF plaques are not intended as a complete history of the player. For that, we have biographies and other HOF exhibits.)
Piazza presents a different situation. We can't be certain he used steroids at all, though that is not to say there is zero evidence. Piazza's back acne, scoffed at by some, matters. Physicians consider de novo adult acne as a symptom of androgen excess that might prompt an evaluation for various diseases. If it's a significant symptom to physicians, why should HOF voters ignore it?
Of course, voters should be mindful of the presumption of innocence. According to the oft-cited maxim in the criminal law, it is better to acquit many guilty people than to convict any who are innocent. While excluding someone from the HOF is not the same as convicting him of a crime, some asymmetry between false positives and false negatives makes sense in the HOF context. Inducting a few players who were actually users would hardly be catastrophic, but excluding players who were entirely innocent would be a grave injustice. Accordingly, writers should resolve doubts about steroids in favor of players. Bagwell should get in, as there is no specific evidence against him.
Looking forward, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, and Manny Ramirez should be excluded, as each of them either reportedly failed a drug test in 2003 and/or were admitted users (Rodriguez as of 2001, Sheffield as of 2002). Unlike Bonds and Clemens, they lack a clear HOF record prior to the onset of steroid use (particularly since use might have antedated their failed test or self-admission). David Ortiz had a single allegedly failed test that remains disputed, which falls short of the evidence needed to justify exclusion. Ivan Rodriguez seems like Piazza – some incriminating evidence (for Rodriguez, marked waxing and waning musculature corresponding to vacillations in performance) but no positive tests. Another difficult case. Jim Thome and Albert Pujols are more like Bagwell - no evidence of steroid use - and should be inducted.
Readers will, of course, disagree with some of our particular assessments. HOF determinations are complex and subjective. How much should voters value different statistics, postseason play, peak years versus longevity, intangibles, etc? Numerous issues germane to HOF induction always have and always will produce a range of opinions. It is regrettable that voters must assess possible steroid use, but doing so simply adds another subjective assessment to the process.
Making informed judgments on a case-by-case basis using the available evidence beats an all-or-nothing approach.
Alan Hirsch and Sheldon Hirsch are co-authors of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
]]>The loss ended an incredible 28-match winning streak for Djokovic, as well as a streak of reaching at least the semifinals in 14 consecutive majors. He hadn't lost since he was defeated by Rafael Nadal at the US Open in September. The loss will definitely cost Djokovic in the rankings as he was the defending champion.
It's funny how things work out sometimes. When the men's draw was posted for the Australian Open at the start of the event, almost everyone bemoaned the fact that the draw was so lopsided with Nadal, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Juan Martin Del Potro all residing on one side and Djokovic seemingly all on his own in the other half.
But we all should have been on notice that Wawrinka had the goods to win on this day – after all, in 2013, he took Djokovic to 10-8 in the fifth set of last year's Australian Open and nearly defeated Djokovic in the quarterfinals of the US Open in September as well.
Wawrinka, who is known as that "other player from Switzerland not named Federer" maintained his clear game plan of aggressive play throughout. While he committed more errors than winners – 60 to 51 – Wawrinka knew that he had to play a brand of relentlessly powerful tennis from the baseline.
And even though Djokovic also had more unforced errors than winners, it was less an indication of how sloppy he was playing than proof that both players were refusing to yield in going for their shots. For lack of better phrasing, it was one of the finest error-filled matches one will likely see.
In addition, Wawrinka took a page out of Nadal's recent playbook in how to play Djokovic; namely, Wawrinka often used angled, slice shots to open up the court and also fired forehands down the middle at Djokovic's body, not allowing Djokovic to employ his great strength of finding unplayable angles.
Just as importantly, Wawrinka's body language was confident throughout the tussle. Too often, players who are in a tight encounter with Djokovic will eventually get worn down and become too tentative. But Wawrinka never let up and it was clear that Djokovic was not able to handle the pace of Wawrinka's shots late in the fifth set. In a telling statistic, Wawrinka's serves were faster in the final set than they were in the first stanza.
For his part Djokovic did not play a poor match. In fact, his serving was extraordinary in the fifth set while serving from behind. But the pressure was too much for him as the match wore on. This was evidenced by Djokovic's decision to serve-and-volley on the final point of the match, the first time he had done so all evening – and he missed an easy volley to give Wawrinka the victory.
But Djokovic could not shake Wawrinka's all-court game and was incredibly frustrated by the fact that Wawrinka was equally effective from both the forehand and backhand wings.
After the match Djokovic and Warinka embraced and exchanged nice words; Djokovic, who often gets derided for his sometimes borderline-humor and antics, is vastly underrated as a true gentleman and it was apparent at the end of the match how much respect he has for Wawrinka's game.
Next up for Wawrinka is Tomas Berdych, who defeated David Ferrer in his quarterfinal match. This will be a golden opportunity for Wawrinka to reach his first Slam final. Meanwhile, Wednesday should provide more thrills as Federer and Murray will meet in a quarterfinal encounter. Rafa meets the possible future of the sport, Grigor Dmitrov, in the remaining quarterfinal match.
Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides occasional commentary for RealClearSports. Email: email@example.com
At the end of a hard-fought NFC Championship Game, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman kept the ball out of the hands of San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree in the end zone, saving the game. If not for Sherman, Seattle likely would not be going to the Super Bowl.
Sherman and Crabtree traded words. Crabtree shoved Sherman, who ended up drawing a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Minutes later, Fox Sports reporter Erin Andrews put a microphone in Sherman's face and asked, "Richard, let me ask you, the final play: take me through it."
Rather than narrate the play, he looked into the camera and raised his voice: "I'm the best corner in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that's the result you goin' get. Don't you ever talk about me!"
Andrews seemed a little bit shocked. "Who was talking about you?" she asked, backing away.
"Crabtree," Sherman clarified, before returning to rant. "Don't you open your mouth about the best!" he yelled, "or I'm gonna shut it for you real quick!"
"It's been a long time since Super Bowl week has had a villain," wrote USA Today's Chris Chase. He thought Sherman would be "all too happy to play that role."
Within seconds, folks on Twitter, Facebook, etc. were calling Sherman "a fool, a thug, a classless jerk and many worse things," observed Tommy Tomlinson on a Forbes blog, "Sherman is black, and so of course there was an undercurrent of race to some - OK, a lot - of the discussion."
Andrews' well-known sex appeal didn't help. To rant in the face of a male reporter like that would be one thing. Sherman seemed to be towering over and frightening a woman. The exchange, stripped of any context, went viral, cementing unfortunate impressions.
Several defenses have been offered for Sherman. He was amped up after the game; he had offered a hand to Crabtree only to be shoved so of course he was going to be upset; he is highly educated (at Stanford) and normally well spoken; he didn't swear - he wears bowties, for God's sake!
All those defenses have some merit, but one Seahawk let it be known on Sunday night that he was definitely not OK with Richard Sherman's rant.
The name of the objecting Seahawk was Richard Sherman.
Sherman apologized to Andrews and dialed back his ego after the interview. He insisted that, sure, he had done his job, but so had his teammates, including the fans, Seattle's renowned "12th Man." He jumped up into the stands to celebrate with them.
Rather than a candidly wild moment, what Andrews likely caught with her question was Sherman still in game mode. He has proven himself a fierce competitor who is willing to press every advantage against his opponents, including messing with their heads.
That's one reason why the Seattle cornerback wears a black headsock that covers his mouth during play. He means to taunt opposing players, not the rest of us.
Behind that headsock, he's not likely to let up. Sherman's success at undermining the other team will likely play a much bigger role in the Super Bowl than Russell Wilson's arm.
If that makes him a villain, Sherman will be happy to play the part.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
]]>We practically have evolved to make our glowing screens an appendage, brighter and clearer every year, created to display the spectacle of pads crashing against pads, appease short attention spans, and deliver advertising space. Our glowing screens made "instant replay" a human reflex, and this past Thursday — mark it down, Jan. 16, 2014 — our beloved baseball sold its soul to the glowing screen. Instant replay reviews in all their jarring, litigious interruptions are now a part of every night at the ballpark.
To sell your soul, you have to have one first, so we might as well talk about the soul — the essence — of baseball.
Baseball establishes a world devoted to reason but celebrates that which goes beyond reason. The ballpark is limited in size and shape, governed by walls and order. Yet the most exciting and most valuable play in the game is when a hit leaves the park, going beyond the confines of that order — a home run. Baseball is the only professional sport played without a clock. Though each game has the same rules, no two games are the same length. They can last for eight hours (or more) or can finish in 50 minutes (or less). (How inconvenient for the master planners of our glowing screens!)
Baseball refuses to accept the reasonable notion that a game can be effectively over. Either baseball games are over or they're not — a glaringly true statement but in defiance of that modern adherence to "effectual truth." Whereas in hockey, for example, if you're down five goals with two minutes left, it is a physical certitude that you cannot win. In baseball, up until the last out — the end — it is possible to erase any deficit. Baseball showcases the rational origins of man's impulse to have faith.
Much has been said about the aesthetics of baseball and I cannot top Marvin Cohen, who writes in Baseball the Beautiful about baseball's majestic cadence in space and time:
The structure of baseball is its art. It's a structure that admits of infinitely complicated possibilities and combinations, within the rigid framework of rules in common, of distances to fences, of worked-out angles, of human proportions. Man is the measure of all things. ... Like literature, music, opera, theater, and the dance, baseball takes place in time. ... A rhythm, of sorts, weaves its way through the "accidents" on the playing field. The game in progress is a structure-in-the-becoming; if you see it, through time, as a whole, all the separate episodes can come flashing together, and interlock, to shower aesthetic illumination on a drama of its own devising.
In its decision last week, MLB disgraced baseball's cadence in space and time. Now, the rhythm of the game is subject to constant objection, as if the diamond were a courtroom. At least in a courtroom a judge usually rules on evidentiary objections immediately. Now, to determine whether a run scored before the third out was recorded, umpires will make a call to the MLB central government in Gotham — wise overlords will confer in their infinite wisdom — and then tell everyone in Kansas City or Cleveland what they just saw with their own eyes. The sense of the familiar — of being home in a hometown ballpark — is ruined. The game's "structure-in-the-becoming" collapses with revision after revision.
Meanwhile, the hordes huddled alone before their glowing screens silently debate — at 1,000 percent magnification — whether Hanley Ramirez tagged out Mike Trout in his attempt to steal second. The thrill of base stealing (like a home run, a permitted defiance of the rules) is softened as the viewer expects any close call will be subject to review. The rush is transferred, fittingly for our litigious culture, to the high court for its hyperanalysis of a replay on a glowing screen in New York.
By this new rule, we also stamp out some of the glory in man's imperfection. In our demand to "get it right," we end the natural practice of learning to cope with results which are unfair. In 1977, Davey Lopes made what would have been the final out in Game 3 of the NLCS, with the Phillies beating the Dodgers 5-3, but the umpire called Lopes safe and the Dodgers took the lead shortly thereafter. Phillies pitcher Gene Garber says today about the controversial call: "You ask yourself why those things happened. You just think, that's the way baseball is."
Not any more. Sanitizing baseball, we don't get manhood right. The game is no longer about accepting a proud regret or lamenting misfortune with honor — it's about whining to a faraway body of judges who will "get it right."
Instant replay in baseball may prevent a few incorrect calls. Congratulations to the teams that randomly benefit from that. But it will stain the game until it is repealed. Long ago, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that democracies like the United States would push for human perfection "beyond reason." What a brilliant observation in its irony. A total devotion to reason, the attempt to control everything (the "tyranny of reason" as Yuval Levin calls it) actually is irrational. The founders of baseball — whose game is about order and the occasional celebration of worthy disorder — would have understood this fundamental truth.
Baseball is not selling its soul for money or power. No, baseball is selling its soul for the illusion of perfection. Baseball got it wrong.
Jordan D. Teti is an attorney living in Los Angeles. He holds an A.B. from Harvard and while earning a J.D. at Stanford he was a play-by-play announcer for Stanford baseball on KZSU 90.1 FM.
]]>When the 'Skins faced the Philadelphia Eagles or the Pittsburgh Steelers, as many as a third of attendees at FedEx Field came from out-of-town. They weren't segregated by section but spread out throughout the stadium, where they could taunt long-suffering Redskins fans more effectively.
This led to countless fights and enhanced security. One game, after the Eagles had scored four touchdowns in the first quarter and an additional TD at the opening of the second quarter, things were starting to get ugly in the stands. I dragged my 6-foot-something season ticket-holding Redskins fan friend out of the stadium to keep him out of jail that night.
Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen is taking a different approach. Plenty of San Francisco 49ers fans would like to come to the game Sunday to see if their team or the Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl. The Seahawks, instead, have told TicketMaster not to sell to folks with a California billing address.
Everyone I've talked to Washington state is pleased as punch about that. True, the Denver Broncos are also trying to keep out New England Patriots boosters, yet Sunday's game seems to matter a whole lot more to the state of Washington than to Colorado.
There is a sense that this is "our team" and "our year" and the local economy is feeling the Beast Quake-like results. Restaurants are reporting sales well above average, and thus coming up with ever more specials to tempt more patrons out or snatch them away from culinary rivals.
Seahawks merchandise is selling at a rapid clip, as I can personally attest. Trying to find a boys' medium Seahawks T-shirt at Christmas time was a special form of torture.
According to Tacoma's News Tribune, even airlines are in a "go team" arms race: "Alaska has anointed Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson as its 'chief football officer,' and Delta has become 'the official airline of the Seahawks.' "
During the playoffs, Alaska is even giving passengers wearing Wilson's No. 3 jersey in Seattle "the same boarding priority as our highest level frequent flier members," said Alaska spokeswoman Marianne Lindsey.
Seattle fans, the so-called 12th Man, have been given an effective monopoly on the bleachers for the final home game. They are louder than a jet plane. Their commotion has more than once registered on the Richter scale.
San Francisco will have one leg up on Seattle when the two meet at CenturyLink Field. That leg belongs to Phil Dawson, San Francisco's freakishly accurate kicker, though Seahawks kicker Steven Hauschka is no slouch. Otherwise, the field is tilted against the visitors.
On the field, the Seahawks' defense is a buzzsaw. The offense is a mix of brain, brawn, speed, guts and dumb luck.
Off the field, the crowd commotion will make hard counts for the 49ers impossible, leading to delays of game and lost yards. The weather will be cloudy, cold and possibly rainy, favoring those acclimated to that sort of thing – i.e., a team and fans based by the Puget Sound, not one out of the Bay Area.
That massive advantage should be enough to send the Seahawks to the Super Bowl. Bettors currently agree, giving Seattle a slight edge. Oddsmakers may take a different view of the big game in New York, however. After all, Pete Carroll will only have 11 men to work with on every play.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
]]>The one constant over these years, of course, has been Rafael Nadal. While his main foe has changed guises – it's been Novak Djokovic for going on four years now, not Roger Federer – Nadal has been remarkably consistent and durable, adjectives that many would not have ascribed to the 27-year-old Spaniard at the start of his career. In 2013 he became the first man to win at least one Grand Slam event in nine consecutive years, and this was after an eight-month layoff, recovering from what many had thought was a career-ending knee issue. Nadal stormed back in 2013, winning two Slams (the French Open and US Open) and, more stunningly, winning every match he played on outdoor hard courts.
Yet, even with Nadal's magical 2013, the narrative would have changed markedly had Djokovic not missed an easy overhead against Nadal in the semifinals of the French Open. Had Djokovic not stumbled at that crucial moment – he actually bumped into the net while hitting the overhead - 2013 would have most decidedly been his year. If he had taken out a healthy Nadal in Paris it would have been a career-defining moment.
But Nadal had the better of Djokovic throughout most of 2013, flipping the script again in their riveting, back-and-forth rivalry that surely ranks as one of the greatest rivalries in the sport's history. The key to Nadal's gaining the upper hand against his foe was his decision to hit his inside-out forehand, redirecting shots back to Djokovic's forehand, instead of following the usual crosscourt pattern – a pattern that works brilliantly against other players but not against Djokovic.
Djokovic did get a measure of, if not revenge, then a confidence boost late in the year when he defeated Nadal twice in the indoor season. Djokovic ended the year on a 24-match winning streak and he seems primed in his attempt to secure his fourth consecutive Australian Open title.
Unless there's a seismic event in the sport or Nadal has a miserable clay court season, he and Djokovic will be ranked first and second all year. Nadal's hold on the top spot is iron clad until the US Open as he doesn't have any points to defend at the Australian Open or Wimbledon (whereas Djokovic is the defending champion Down Under and was a finalist at Wimbledon).
The Australian Open starts in one week and there's no question that Nadal and Djokovic will be the overwhelming favorites. After all, who else is there to challenge them for the crown? Andy Murray has been AWOL, mentally and physically, since his stirring Wimbledon victory. One gets a sense that, in addition to Murray's chronic back issues, he did relax a bit after his win for all of the UK in July, and one could hardly blame him for feeling the joys of a massive burden being lifted from his shoulders.
Roger Federer has had enormous struggles, and is quickly running out of opportunities to threaten at the majors. The great Federer has recently switched to a larger racquet but in order for him to win another major title he'd have to not play Nadal and catch Djokovic on an off day. Having said that, if somehow Federer were to win another Slam it would further cement his legend and give his legions of admirers more evidence to boast that he is the greatest player of all time.
So, in effect, though the term Big Four – comprising of Nadal, Djokovic, Federer and Murray – has been tossed around, in reality there is the Big Two of Nadal and Djokovic and then Murray and then … well, the next real threat is Juan Martin del Potro.
Del Potro came achingly close to his long-awaited reappearance in a Grand Slam final when he seemed to have Djokovic on the ropes in the semifinals of Wimbledon. It's truly a shame del Potro injured himself in 2010 and was set back several years after his inspiring US Open victory in 2009. He possesses undoubtedly the most lethal forehand in the sport but his inability to be more creative in shot selection, combined with a tendency to be inconsistent in his return games prevents him from making that extra push in the Slams.
So who is next up? After all, Nadal and Djokovic can't continue for too many more years, right? The two upcoming players most frequently mentioned are Milos Raonic of Canada and Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria. While Dimitrov is the more complete and fluid player, he is prone to youthful mental lapses and his work ethic has ben questioned by some. And though he owns wins over several top players, including Djokovic, he has yet to take a giant step forward in the Slams – he failed to get past the third round in any Slam in 2013.
Raonic, though, has made significant strides and he reached the top 10 for the first time in 2013. His major weapon is his Pete Sampras-like serve that he routinely hits near 140 mph. But his gangly body type has made it harder for Raonic to maintain the aggression that should come naturally. If Raonic can further improve his footwork and become adept at approaching the net at opportune occasions, he is likely the one younger player who has a chance to reach a Slam final in 2014.
So will anyone else aside from Djokovic and Nadal claim a major title? I'd be surprised if these two don't win three of the four, and maybe all of them this year. It's just foolhardy to suggest otherwise.
Perhaps the most intriguing off-season news – if one can consider tennis's seven-week respite from competition a true off-season – was the coaching changes for both Federer and Djokovic. In a fascinating series of maneuvers, Djokovic hired Boris Becker to be his nearly full-time "head" coach. And just a week later, Federer hired Becker's great foil, Stefan Edberg to be his coach, at least in several events to start 2014.
The hiring of the two Hall of Fame players seems entirely appropriate for each respective player. Federer has always stated that Edeberg was his hero growing up and indeed, the two share a similar style, with both being aggressively elegant players. And for Djokovic, Becker has the outgoing presence that his current pupil is also imbued with. It will surely make viewing any matches between Federer and Djokovic more interesting, especially if each player adopts a few of their new coach's signature game plans.
Both coaches will likely attempt the same thing – make each player more aggressive. Edberg will likely plead with Federer to utilize his still near-perfect court positioning and movement to attack relentlessly and Becker will surely request that Djokovic take a more commanding presence in the forecourt.
Almost as irritating as the GOAT arguments is the speculation on how many Slam titles Nadal will collect before his career is finished. Or, more accurately, will Nadal catch Federer's seemingly out-of-reach number of 17 Slams?
While Nadal is surely within striking distance, sitting at 13 to start 2014, for him to win an additional five Slams to overtake Federer is a very tough task. Nearly an impossible one I'd suggest. While he's still in his late prime, it's ridiculous to assume that he's capable of winning up to five more French Opens as has been suggested. He will slow down some time, even if his knees stay healthy.
Just consider – Federer has played nearly injury-free his whole career and his Slam victory count after turning 29? One. If I were a betting man I'd put the limit on Nadal's career Slam count at 16, maybe 17.
Award-winning columnist Tim Joyce provides occasional commentary for RealClearSports. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
And for that, college football is grateful.
Jameis Winston's 2-yard TD pass to Kelvin Benjamin with 13 seconds remaining capped the biggest comeback in the history of BCS's 16 championship games. On the same Rose Bowl field and in the same south end zone where Vince Young made his epic dash to immortality in 2006, Florida State's precocious Heisman- winning quarterback claimed his own place in college football lore - on his 20th birthday, no less.
Florida State's 34-31 victory over Auburn brought down the curtain on the BCS era, which began in the 1998 season when an SEC team (Tennessee) defeated the Seminoles for the first crystal ball. FSU would lose two of the first three BCS title games, but gained more than a measure of redemption Monday night for the rest of college football universe by ending the SEC's seven-year championship dominance.
It was fitting that the BCS era - and the SEC's reign - ended in the spiritual home of college football. In a brilliant evening at the Rose Bowl - home of the Granddaddy of 'Em All - the much-maligned BCS had the ultimate setting, with game-time temperature of 69 degrees, against the backdrop of San Gabriel Mountains at dusk, and a packed house of 94,208.
Early on, though, the game threatened to be a runaway and another SEC romp. Auburn took a 21-3 lead with five minutes left in the first half and was on the verge to break it open as a flustered Winston was unable to move the ball. Florida State's defense also had trouble with Auburn's no-huddle pace, giving up eight of 12 third-down conversion opportunities.
But as FSU's defense stiffened in the second half, Winston and the Seminoles clawed back. After cutting Auburn's lead to 21-20 early in the fourth quarter, the game reached a glorious crescendo in the final five minutes. The teams traded four scores in the final 4:42, featuring a 105-yard kickoff return by FSU's Kermit Whitfield and a 37-yard scamper by Auburn's Tre Mason that looked like the game-winner before Winston led the Noles' actual winning drive in a mere 58 seconds.
FSU's victory is a vindication that there is more to college football than the SEC. But ironically, it was the vision that came from the SEC helped forge the BCS and remake college football into the spectacle it is today.
Before the BCS, college football was mostly a regional affair, with each major conference having its respective bowl tie-ins. Media members and coaches would vote on the national champion at the end of each season, divining the superiority of one team over another purely on speculation, since many of the top contenders never met each other on the field. From the end of World War II until the advent of the BCS in 1998, the Rose Bowl never featured a team not coming from either the Big Ten or Pac-10 conference.
It took former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, the godfather of the BCS, to finally persuade the Big Ten, Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl - the most venerable and prestigious bowl game - to loosen their alliance to allow the top two ranked teams to play for the title annually. In the 1998 Rose Bowl, the final one played before the BCS's creation, Michigan won a split national championship, the fourth consecutive split winner produced in Pasadena. After the advent of the BCS, there had been just one split championship, in 2003, when USC won the Rose Bowl and the AP title while LSU took the BCS title at the Sugar Bowl.
In the 2006 Rose Bowl, which remains the highest-rated game in college football history, Texas ended two-time defending champion USC's dynasty when it overcame a 12-point deficit as Vince Young scored from 5 yards out with 19 second remaining to snap the Trojans' 34-game winning streak. Eight years later, the Seminoles dug themselves out of an 18-point hole and broke the SEC's seven-year stranglehold - and the state of Alabama's four-year ownership - on the crystal ball.
"The ACC is good football, folks," Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher spoke up for his conference in particular and non-SEC football in general after the game. "It's a great football conference. We have a great commissioner, we have great coaches, we've got great players. We had 11 teams in bowl games. The SEC is great football, I coached in that league for 13 years, I respect every bit of it. But there's some other folks in this country that can play some football, too."
That sentiment will be put to test again next year when college football moves into the next phase with the four-team College Football Playoff. The two semifinal games will be played at the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, with the winners advancing to the championship game at the Dallas Cowboys' palace in Arlington, Texas.
But thank heavens there was no need for another game this year. The season ended in spectacular fashion and in the right place. The BCS might be dead, but it bequeathed college football an unforgettable parting gift.
Samuel Chi is Editor of RealClearSports. He may be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @BCSGuru.
And back then, he never expected that we'd be at the precipice of a new age eight years later. Monday's BCS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl will mark the final game of the 16-year BCS era.
"We didn't envision how big the BCS would grow and all the great things it'd do for the regular season," Hancock, the BCS's executive director, told RealClearSports during the BCS National Championship Game media day on Saturday. "And for the conferences that didn't have a contract with big bowl games. We really thought the BCS would just be a refined bowl-selection process. We didn't dream what it's become."
The BCS had become a fact of life for college football, but not without some growing pains. As we chronicled during the past few weeks, criticism of the BCS reached a crescendo in the mid-2000s as the standings were constantly tweaked. A bestseller, written by three Yahoo! Sports reporters—Death to the BCS—was published in 2010.
But under the stewardship of Hancock, who took on the title of executive director in 2009, the BCS has survived and thrived.
"In the beginning the BCS was extremely popular and well received," Hancock said. "And people were thrilled with that, because it's what they wanted, having No. 1 playing No. 2 every year. But then it became de rigueur to criticize the BCS, when in fact it's done a lot of really good things. I'm not hearing the criticism now—it could be because the playoff is starting, or it could be that we've been getting it right."
The BCS will give way to the College Football Playoff starting next season. Instead of two teams vying for the national championship, there will be four. The roster of top-tier bowls will increase from four to six, with the Cotton Bowl and Chick-fil-A Bowl joining the Rose, Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls to host the most lucrative games, including two national semifinals.
The new era comes with much uncertainty. The BCS standings, the formula for which remained unchanged for the last eight years of BCS's existence, will be discarded, with a 13-person committee taking over the duties of selecting the teams for not just the playoff but also the matchups for other major bowls.
Fans will miss the transparency and predictability of the BCS standings, as the committee will be the sole source of determining the four participants in the playoff. While four standings will be revealed during the season (presumably every other week starting at midseason, but still to be determined), the final picks will be completely at the discretion of the committee members.
Hancock said that members of the committee will be available to the media to discuss their participation throughout the season but that only he and chair Jeff Long—Arkansas' athletic director—will speak on the "actions and decisions" of the committee. He dismissed the idea that the committee should've revealed its picks for 2013, saying that it would have been a distraction to this year's proceedings.
While there's much unknown going into the 2014 postseason, there is one certainty, according to Hancock. The College Football Playoff, which will be in place for 12 years after signing a $7.3 billion deal to have all its games aired on ESPN, will remain a four-team format for its duration, even if there's a clamoring for an eight-team or even a 16-team playoff.
"We're committed to these four for the next 12 years, and it would be inappropriate for anyone to speculate what might happen after that," he said. "The things people don't realize and so many people misunderstand about the BCS is that we believe the postseason and regular season are intrinsically linked.
"The people who say 'give us 16 teams' forget how important the regular season is. But those of us in the decision-making position can't forget that. We cannot and must not jeopardize the regular season, because it is the best regular season in sports."
Samuel Chi is Editor of RealClearSports. He may be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @BCSGuru.
Well, I was wrong. All five of last week's top five teams won, but apparently a 34-14 win over the 4-11 (now 4-12) Oakland Raiders is better than a 27-9 win over the 10-5 (10-6 now) Arizona Cardinals. At least, that's what Brian Billick at FOX Sports thinks. Billick is the only of our seven sources to change his ranking for Seattle, dropping it from No. 1 to No. 4, behind San Francisco, Denver and Carolina. The result: the Broncos edged the Seahawks for the top spot in the final rankings, 1.71 to 2.00.
Last week, I also touched on the fact that four of the top five teams were members of the preseason top five. The fifth team, Carolina, made a meteoric climb to No. 4 that mirrored their rival Atlanta's plunge from No. 4 to the bottom.
Atlanta and Carolina, unsurprisingly, are also two of the five biggest movers over the course of the season. The Falcons' drop of 22 spots and the Panthers' climb of 17 are the second- and fifth-biggest difference from preseason to Week 17. Just ahead of the Panthers are the Cardinals, which climbed 18 spots to end at No. 10, and the Redskins, which dropped 19 to finish 31st. The Texans take the top spot with a plunge from No. 8 all the way to dead last at No. 32, a difference of 24.
Another thing I was wrong about last week: that we might see more teams finish at most one spot away from where they opened the season. After this week's action, just six teams fit the criteria. Among those six are the No. 2 Seahawks, No. 1 Broncos and No. 16 Cowboys, who are three-fifths of the five most consistent teams over the course of the season, judging by the standard deviation of their 18 weekly rankings. They scored 0.52, 0.69 and 1.97, respectively. The most consistent team of the year is No. 29 Jacksonville, with a 0.30, having spent a huge chunk of the season at No. 32, and the group is rounded out by No. 7 Cincinnati with a 1.92.
Ranking the rankers: The initial inspiration for calling this series Ranking Bad was the impression that no one really has any idea what they're doing. With that in mind, let's give out some grades to our sources. To get a general sense of performance, we took the absolute value of the differences between the Week 17 and Preseason rankings, then took the average of those values.
1. SB Nation: With a score of 6.62, Jason Chilton proved most accurate of our seven sources. Chilton got the Steelers (14) and Bears (15) right, and was off by one for the Browns, Broncos, Lions, Jaguars, Patriots and Seahawks.
2. (Tie) CBS Sports & ESPN: Both scoring 7.25, CBS and ESPN combined for six correct rankings and six predictions off by one; four of the former and five of the latter belong to ESPN, giving it the tiebreaker.
4. ProFootballTalk.com: Mike Florio scored a 7.75, getting just Chicago correct and coming within one for the Broncos.
5. NFL.com: Elliot Harrison scored a 7.88, with none of his preseason rankings correct; he was off by just one for the Seahawks, Colts and Broncos.
6. FOX Sports: Brian Billick scored 8.31, had the Broncos and 49ers correct, and came within one for the Seahawks and Patriots.
7. Jeff Sagarin: Sagarin has the distinct disadvantage of being the only computer rankings among our selections. For example, Sagarin has the Packers No. 21 this week, while most of the other rankings have them around No. 12. His rankings only take past performance into account, whereas the rest at least somewhat judge future potential with Aaron Rodgers back at quarterback. All things considered, his score of 9.13 isn't that bad.
Check out the full rankings to see how things stand going into the playoffs.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
As Ichiro Suzuki's career winds down, his historical standing and Hall of Fame credentials will be closely examined, with traditional and newer analytics heading for a noteworthy clash.
Ichiro is a 10-time MLB All-Star, 10-time Gold Glove winner, the all-time record holder for hits in a season (a ridiculously high 262 in 2004) and has a sparkling .319 career batting average. Accordingly, most fans regard him as a certain Hall of Famer, possibly a first-ballot inductee.
Modern analytics (sabermetrics), however, show a completely different picture: a marginal candidate for the HOF. Ichiro ranks 629th lifetime in career on-base percentage plus slugging percentage (OPS) and 1,095th (over the last 100 years) in fangraph.com's weighted on-base average (wOBA is a derivative of OPS, which applies fractional valuations to walks and every type of base hit). That bears repeating: In a representative sabermetric batting valuation, Ichiro ranks 1,095th.
His best seasons weren't much better by the newer criteria; his highest single-season OPS is not close to the top 500 of all time.
The challenge to Ichiro's HOF credentials may seem absurd to his many fans but OPS is widely accepted as a valid statistic and wOBA just tweaks it. These statistics suggest that hitters with high batting averages but limited power and modest propensity to draw bases on balls (such as HOFers Wade Boggs, Rod Carew, and Tony Gwynn, as well as Pete Rose) have been overrated. These players best illustrate the difference between traditional (emphasizing base hits and batting average) and modern thinking (emphasizing reaching base safely and on-base percentage) about batting.
But there's more to baseball than hitting. Ichiro was inarguably outstanding on the bases and in the field, and greatly admired for his all-around play.
Sabermetricians gauge overall performance with the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) statistic, which combines measures of hitting, baserunning and defense to yield a single cumulative value. WAR is not particularly reliable, but in this instance it tracks OPS. Ichiro ranked in the top 10 in baseball in WAR for a season (third in 2004) only once. His career WAR value ranks 124th for position players. This is much better than 629th or 1,095th, but there are more than 20 players significantly ahead of Ichiro in career WAR who have fared poorly in HOF voting and have no significant support for induction (e.g., Willie Randolph, Willie Davis, Sal Bando, Reggie Smith and Buddy Bell). Thus, a discrepancy remains between traditional and sabermetric evaluations of Ichiro.
We should also consider factors in HOF evaluations emphasized by Bill James: performances in pennant races and post-season play; comparisons with other HOFers or candidates; MVP and All-Star voting; significant intangibles; and notable contributions to the game.
Some of these criteria do not advance Ichiro's candidacy. His rookie season MVP was his only year in the top five, and he was in the top 10 in MVP voting only three times — overall, an unspectacular MVP record. In addition, his post-season performance was brief (only two seasons and no World Series games) and lacks any memorable moments.
Jacoby Ellsbury and Kenny Lofton are close comparisons to Ichiro, and neither are serious HOF candidates (Lofton was named on a paltry 3.2% of HOF ballots last year). They were as fast and as accomplished base-stealers as Ichiro, and their slugging percentage, on-base percentage and OPS (Lofton .794, Ellsbury .789, Ichiro .775) are essentially the same. Ichiro had the strongest throwing arm but Ellsbury and Lofton were both solid fielders who played center field, a more important position than Ichiro's right field. Ellsbury has a superior post-season record, including outstanding performances in two World Series and in the 2013 ALDS. All things considered, not enough separates the three players to advance Ichiro's case.
Other considerations do support Ichiro. His unique style as a slap-hitter and his grace and élan captivated many fans. His courage in leaving Japan and his success in MLB accelerated the movement of talented players like Yu Darvish, Koji Uehara and more to come. He was an ambassador for the game. Perhaps he should also receive some credit for his play in Japan.
All of these factors, alas, do not seem definitive in either direction. In contrast, breaking the seemingly unassailable, all-time single season hit record seems the stuff of legend, the sort of rare accomplishment and contribution to the game's history that should make a HOFer out of a borderline candidate.
But not so fast — from the sabermetric perspective, the same reservations that pertain to Ichiro's entire career hold for the record-breaking 2004 season: few extra base hits (only 37), few walks (only 49), and a large number of outs (464). His 262 hits in a season is undoubtedly impressive, but had it occurred in 2013 when sabermetrics was more entrenched, it would have seemed less significant in the eyes of many.
Thus, Ichiro's evaluation returns us to an elementary issue raised by sabermetricians: Were singles and batting average traditionally overrated?
The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), which votes on the HOF, clearly embraces traditional thinking, having twice voted Miguel Cabrera MVP over the sabermetric-favored Mike Trout. That suggests the writers will not pay heed to the re-evaluation of Ichiro's numerous singles, and will induct him into the HOF.
However, sabermetrics continues to gain sway among managers, front offices, media and fans. Ichiro is at least six years away from formal consideration, during which time sabermetrics might yet infiltrate the BBWAA and regulate access to baseball's Mecca. If that takes place, Ichiro's induction, contrary to popular perception, might actually be in jeopardy. If he is denied induction, this would mark an important expansion of sabermetric influence and portend a change in future MVP and HOF voting.
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
The outcome was a convincing 27-9 win by the Seahawks, giving them a necessary victory after an embarrassing 17-10 home loss to the Arizona Cardinals last Sunday, an extra week to practice, and an important advantage.
The Seahawks will have a very loud, earthshaking 12th man along on every play of the playoffs until the Super Bowl. The refs won't be able to penalize them for it.
ESPN published a cartoon on Facebook with the playoffs recast as the Wizard of Oz. Drew Brees was Dorothy, Colin Kaepernick the cowardly lion, LeSean McCoy the scarecrow and Cam Newton the tin woodsman. Flying monkeys/Seahawks circled overhead along with wicked witch Pete Carroll on his broom, telling them to attack the players on the yellow brick road.
ESPN's Emerald City in the background was the real one, complete with clouds, rain and a Space Needle. The caption warned, "The NFC's road to the Super Bowl goes through Seattle. There's no place like home."
Other teams should blame Rams coach Jeff Fisher for that unfortunate terrain. The game was a heated contest. One play alone drew four penalties - three for the Rams, one for the Seahawks. Refs struggled most of the game to keep order. But Carroll ultimately controlled his players where Fisher did not.
Last time the two teams met, in October in St. Louis, the Seahawks narrowly squeaked by, 14-9. Wide receiver Golden Tate scored the winning touchdown but drew a penalty and a fine for taunting the Rams. This time Tate took a lot of abuse and scored a touchdown, but he behaved himself.
The same can't be said for Rams defensive tackle Kendall Langford. He was arguing with an official and inadvertently knocked another ref's hat off in the third quarter. This led to his ejection from the game and yet another penalty for the Rams.
Rams fans complained about the Langford penalty. After all, they pointed out, he was essentially penalized for being too Italian. He was gesticulating, not aiming at the ref's head.
True, but that defense ignores context. Officials were struggling to get control of the game in the third quarter. The Seahawks mostly behaved themselves, heeding Carroll's sideline orders to disengage and huddle up.
The Rams, on the other cleat, kept at it. They managed to rack up six personal fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in just over a minute, putting the ball ever closer to the goal line.
The Rams had made Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch earn every yard to that point. He was able to practically walk the ball into the end zone after penaltypalooza.
When the Rams were busy misbehaving, the Seahawks enjoyed a lead but hardly a commanding one. It was 13-3 in the third quarter with plenty of time left to catch up. Rather than working hard to stop the drive, the Rams threw a tantrum and threw the game in the process.
On his way out of the stadium, Langford made a lot of noise. He threw his helmet and exchanged words with Seahawks fans. This managed to torch any sympathy we might have had for him and gave sportswriters the perfect metaphor to describe his team's deep dysfunction.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
]]>No, my amazement did not stem from Georgetown's Patriot League football team somehow defeating the storied SEC school on the gridiron. It was because 37-36 was the final score of a Division I men's college basketball game played between two competent teams.
"Played" is probably the wrong word to characterize what transpired at Washington's Verizon Center that night. "Slopped," "trudged" and "blundered" all would be better ways to describe how both teams waged a battle of offensive futility that ended with neither side scoring a single point during the final four minutes.
That game was an extreme example of a trend that plagued the 2012-2013 season, in which an increasingly physical style of play was a key factor in reducing the scoring average to its lowest level in more than three decades.
In an attempt to better showcase the actual basketball skills of its players, the NCAA's rules panel last spring tilted the balance of power toward the team with the ball in two key circumstances.
First, the so-called "hand check" rule would be strictly enforced, meaning that defensive players can no longer lay more than a fingertip on the ball handler.
And second, a change in the blocking/charging rule makes it significantly more difficult for defensive players to plant their feet at the last second to draw what had become nearly automatic whistles for offensive fouls.
If the primary goal of these alterations was to make the college game look more like the pretty, sharp-shooting seasons of years past, the gambit is already playing off: Overall scoring and shooting percentages were up in the first month of this season, while turnovers were down.
Initially, however, the changes have had one significant, and undesirable, effect on the fan experience: There have been, on average, five more free throws taken each game, and some contests have degenerated into seemingly endless funeral marches to the foul line.
From holiday tournaments featuring top-caliber programs to the unbridled joy (or crushing misery, in the case of Georgetown fans) of March Madness, there are many reasons why college basketball has become the most compelling American spectator sport.
Not among those reasons: more foul shots.
Common sense suggests that the players eventually will adjust to the new officiating. (If not, they'll end up spending less time on the floor and more on the bench.) Meanwhile, there are other adjustments the NCAA could take to improve an already stellar sport.
Passionate fans, fewer and shorter games, and the "survive and advance" single-elimination playoff system all make college hoops, in general, a superior product to professional basketball. Still, there are at least three NBA rules that the college game should adopt without delay. (And, no - raising the rims to 11 feet, in an effort to return the game to its "proper form" of layups, set shots and crisp bounce-passing, are not among the changes that would make the college game even better.)
Replace the Possession Arrow With a Jump Ball
A debate about what should happen after two opposing players control the ball simultaneously is roughly equivalent to contemplating whether to install broadband or dial-up Internet in your home in 2014.
I'm not even sure what the argument is in favor of the rotating possession arrow.
Is it that the jump ball favors taller, more athletic players?
Well, you know what else does that? Basketball does.
Jump balls, which is the way tie-ups were resolved before 1981, are exciting and equitable, in that they give both teams a chance to win possession in key situations. The possession arrow, by contrast, is dull and maddening in its arbitrariness masked as fair play.
This is the rule, after all, that denied Wichita State its last opportunity to upset mighty Louisville during last year's Final Four.
Maintaining the possession arrow is not much better than using a coin flip to determine the outcome of a key game. (Oh, sorry, NFL. I didn't see you standing there.) Never again should a fan's cheers for a great tie-up play descend into immediate sighs upon noticing the direction in which that infernal red arrow is pointing.
Disqualify Players on Their Sixth Foul, Not the Fifth
This one may sound counterintuitive, given my previous screed against the ills of too many fouls being called. "What? You want to give them even more opportunities to hack away? But I thought you loved freedom!"
It's true. Allowing players to stay on the floor with five fouls allows them another chance to, well, foul again. But especially in light of the new rules, giving players only five fouls to work with is no longer optimal.
To get a sense of why that is, consider that most coaches will bench their big men for the rest of the first half after they are whistled for their second foul, out of fear that the player is just one inadvertent bump away from the brink of disqualification, all before the halftime buzzer sounds.
College basketball has for years been a guards' game, as the relatively close 3-point line gives a key advantage to the little guys. Isn't it about time we throw a bone to the big men who are posting up and fighting for position in the paint?
In this "one and done" era, where the best college players stay in school only for their freshman year, NCAA hoops fans and analysts have complained about an overall diminished level of play. So doesn't it make sense to keep the starting players on the floor longer?
Let Teams Inbound the Ball at Half-Court After a Basket Is Made
My last proposed rule change is a relatively minor modification that won't much impact the vast majority of games but would make the NCAA Tournament even more thrilling than it already is.
After a timeout following a made shot in college basketball, the team with the ball must inbound it under its own hoop and go the length of the court to score. Not so in the NBA, where in the game's final two minutes teams have the option of inbounding the ball at half-court, allowing them to make up valuable territory when tied or behind in late-game situations, without taking much time off the clock.
This may well be "the craziest rule in all of sport," since it's not based on any discernible logic regarding acquired position, but it's a great rule nonetheless.
How many NBA games feature a big last-second shot, followed immediately by an even bigger last tenth-of-a-second buzer beater? It happens fairly regularly and always provides for a fun morning of "SportsCenter" viewing the next day.
But when was the last time you witnessed a similar occurrence in college basketball? If you're like most people, the first case that comes to mind is Christian Laettner's legendary Hail Mary catch-and-shoot game-winner against Kentucky in the 1992 Elite Eight - one of the most famous shots in the history of sports.
True, that magical moment never would've happened had Duke been granted the option of inbounding the ball at half-court, but the reason why "the shot" remains so memorable is because the situation in which it happened is so exceedingly rare.
Too rare, if you ask me - and who can argue against encouraging more buzzer beaters?
All in all, college basketball is doing fine. But before we get into another ill-advised debate about whether to again expand the quite-large-enough NCAA tournament field, let's first tackle some rule changes that would instantly improve the sport.
Scott Conroy is a National Political Reporter for RealClearPolitics.
]]>A couple of weeks ago it seemed the Seahawks were a lock to finish the season ranked No. 1, and despite doing just about everything they could to drop, it still looks that way as we head into the final week of the regular season. It helps that while the Broncos won, they beat the 2-13 Texans, whereas Seattle fell 17-10 to the steadily climbing Arizona Cardinals (No. 7 this week).
It's unlikely that the Broncos or Panthers could leapfrog to the top spot, as both play 4-11 opponents this week (Oakland and Atlanta, respectively), as long as Seattle wins. Denver averaged a 1.86, just barely behind Seattle's 1.57, but if both teams are victorious any change would seem to lean in the Seahawks' favor. The Patriots, who averaged exactly 5.00, aren't a threat either. And if Seattle loses, the odds are a bit better for Denver, but it's likely a San Francisco, with a win over Arizona, will jumps the Broncos no matter what.
There's a distinct possibility in Week 17 that the top five could shuffle right back into (almost) what it was to start the season. The graph above shows the preseason-to-today progress of the current top five, and two of them are exactly where they started the season. Denver began the year ranked No. 2, and New England No. 5. If San Francisco and Seattle swap places, the only difference will be the Panthers at No. 4 instead of Atlanta - although it's still an NFC South team.
As it stands, four teams total are right back to their preseason ranking, and another four are within one. Five are just two spots away. Thirteen of 32 predicted nearly right isn't a bad track record for the anything-goes NFL, and it could get better after next week.
This week's biggest movers: The Lions, who were eliminated from playoff contention, dropped four spots from No. 16 to No. 20. Their conference rival Green Bay also dropped to No. 19, though it has a shot at the playoffs in a do-or-die game against No. 15 Chicago. With Aaron Rodgers coming back from injury, the Pack's chances seem good. With no NFC divisions won and four playoff spots open across both conferences, Sunday should be quite the day of football.
Until then, check out the full power rankings averages to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
What was a top eight last week condensed down to a top seven, as the Bengals dropped down to No. 9, with a low of 11 at Pro Football Talk, after a 30-20 loss to the Steelers. From the Seahawks, who reclaimed the top spot by unanimous decision, to the No. 7 Patriots, the mean gap between each team's average ranking is 0.83. Though ranked seventh, the Patriots actually averaged exactly 6.00 this week. It's a relatively massive drop from there to the No. 8 Cardinals' average of 8.57.
Interestingly, while the Broncos and Saints both lost this past week, the Kansas City Chiefs, who posted their second big win in a row, seem unable to break back into the top five. At 11-3, the Chiefs equal the Broncos for the best record in the AFC and are one game behind the Seahawks' league-best 12-2. Two of their three losses were to the Broncos, and the other was to the Chargers, who just beat Denver 27-20 this week. Only Elliot Harrison at NFL.com thought Kansas City's resume deserved better than a 5: He put the Chiefs at No. 3.
The Chiefs have their best opportunity to regain ground this week, as they take on the Indianapolis Colts. And since the Saints and Panthers have a rematch of their Week 14 battle, one of those teams is guaranteed to come out with a 10-5 record, and a victorious Kansas City would be 12-3 and hard to deny at least a No. 5 ranking. Even in the unlikely event that the Broncos lose to Houston, Kansas City would also stay in the running for the AFC's No. 1 seed until the final week of the season.
This week's biggest movers: Of teams still in contention, the Dolphins jumped from No. 15 to No. 12 after beating New England, but still need to beat Buffalo and have both Baltimore and Cincinnati lose to clinch a playoff spot this week. Detroit, which last week led the NFC North and with it held the NFC's No. 4 seed, dropped four spots from No. 12 to No. 16, and momentarily out of the playoff picture, after a loss to the Ravens. The Lions need to beat the Giants this week just to stay alive.
Check out the full power rankings averages to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
NBA players are now generally bigger, faster and more athletic, so one might suspect that no player from 50 years ago would succeed in the modern era. By objective measures, however, the NBA has hardly matched Wilt's particular combination of size and athleticism, much less passed him by. Wilt stood 7-foot-1, weighed from 250 to 300 pounds over the course of his career, and was a sensational athlete — in college, he approached the world record in both the high jump (over 6-foot-6 with old-style technique) and triple jump (over 50 feet) and ran the 100-yard dash in 10.9 seconds. No current NBA player can match that.
The modern analog for Wilt is Shaquille O'Neal. Shaq was listed at 7-foot-1 and 325 pounds and his athleticism and skills were akin to Wilt's. Wilt may have jumped higher and been more agile; Shaq was slightly bigger and probably stronger. One or the other might have had a slightly better drop step or bank shot, but overall, their physical gifts (at least when Shaq was in shape) and skill set were quite similar — free throw woes included.
Declaring the two roughly equal may seem unfair to Wilt, whose point and rebound averages easily exceeded Shaq's. For example, Wilt scored an unfathomable 50.4 points per game in the 1961-1962 season, whereas Shaq's best was 29.7. Doesn't that alone suggest Wilt's superiority?
No, because something odd was going on in 1961-1962. Elgin Baylor (38.3 ppg) and Walt Bellamy (31.6) also scored career-highs surprisingly early in their days as pros (Baylor in his fourth year and Bellamy as a rookie). That single season produced the three highest scorers in NBA history up to that point. Each player then experienced yearly decreases in scoring.
Wilt, though still in his prime, was already down to Shaq-type numbers by 1965 (33.5 ppg) and 1966 (24.1 ppg); Baylor dropped to 27.1 ppg in 1964 (after which he injured his knee); and Bellamy fell to 19 ppg by 1966. This pattern — early career high followed by sharp descent — differs markedly from the usual career arc in which players improve on (or at least maintain) their early performance as their career unfolds. What was going on?
Chamberlain, Baylor and Bellamy ushered in a new wave of athletes. They were far more athletic in the low post and driving to the basket than previous NBA players, and could not be handled by the customary passive one-on-one defense of the time. Films show the early Chamberlain posting up with ease, without defenses fronting or double-teaming, and receiving uncontested entry passes. Wilt would then hook, finger-roll or even dunk against the overmatched lone defender.
Opposing coaches then responded to the uber-athletes' scoring surge. Defenses against them became more aggressive and sophisticated, and their scoring decreased. Wilt's 50.4 ppg, incredible as it was, must be seen in context: He dominated relatively primitive opposition, and in subsequent seasons his dominance decreased as defenses improved.
This sequence is part of a broader phenomenon common to competitive sports: Dominance occurs more easily when sports are in their infancy. As a sport evolves, strategic advances and an expanding pool of athletes (along with an occasional rule change, e.g., widening the three-second lane in 1964) reduce the disparity of talents between the top and bottom. Better overall competition hinders individual domination.
Thus, for example, as the talent pool increased in Major League Baseball, the variation around the mean batting average of hitters continually decreased. Over time, both the lowest and highest batting averages moved closer toward the mean. The decrease in the higher averages reflects some neutralization of the greatest hitters by improved pitching. Nobody has hit .400 in over seven decades.
Similarly, with the continued influx of African-Americans and foreigners into the NBA (as well as improved scouting, coaching and training) the overall play improved so much that nobody — not even Michael Jordan, widely considered the game's greatest offensive force — has averaged more than 37 points per game since 1962-1963. This says nothing about the quality of the top modern players. It speaks to improved competition blunting the ability of the best athletes to dominate.
Which brings us back to Wilt. Even though he played 50 years ago, it is hard to imagine anyone coming along with a much more impressive combination of size, speed, agility and leaping ability. But even Wilt would not have averaged 40 points per game in the modern NBA, not against sophisticated defenses and globalized competition. He would, however, have been as good or even slightly better than Shaq, the dominant center of the modern era. Such an assessment by no means sells Wilt short. Rather, it recognizes the reality of how sports evolve.
Alan Hirsch and Sheldon Hirsch are co-authors of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
]]>For just the fourth time since the season started, the preseason No. 1 San Francisco 49ers are back in the top five, and that by dint of having drawn level with Carolina at an average of 5.71. They join all the same players from last week's top five, with minor alterations.
The Seahawks, which the 49ers defeated 19-17 on Sunday, remain No. 1 with a 1.43 average, dragged down by a 3 from Pete Prisco at CBS and a 2 from Jason Chilton at SB Nation. Chilton and Prisco both picked Denver for No. 1, which now shares the best record in the league with Seattle at 11-2. While New England stayed constant at No. 4, the Saints and Panthers swapped places, New Orleans jumping up to No. 3 after beating Carolina 31-13.
Just outside the top five is another tie, this one between Kansas City and Cincinnati for No. 7. Both teams averaged exactly 7, and both collected a miscellaneous top-five vote. Prisco and Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk have the Bengals at No. 5, and Elliot Harrison at NFL.com was the sole source who chose the Chiefs for No. 5. With Kansas City's 45-10 drubbing of the Redskins and Cincinnati's 42-28 beatdown of the Colts, Week 14 highlighted what is essentially an eight-team cadre at the top.
Looking at the rankings details confirms it. Every team inside the top eight received at least one ranking of five or higher, and only one of those top eight teams received a ranking lower than eight, and it was a No. 9 for Cincinnati from Jeff Sagarin's computers. Instead, Sagarin had Arizona (No. 9 overall) at No. 7 and New England at No. 8. Aside from that lone anomaly, the Cardinals and the No. 10 Eagles form a clear demarcation of where things begin to drop off.
This week's biggest movers: This Jacksonville Jaguars broke out of the 30s for the first time all season, leaping up to No. 25 with a 27-20 win over the Houston Texans, who succeeded Jax as the league's worst team. Oakland made way for the Jags, dropping from No. 24 to No. 29 after falling 37-27 against the New York Jets. It's not quite too early to write off either team, though, as the AFC wild-card spot is still within their grasp, however unlikely that result actually is.
The Packers, who eked out a 22-21 win against Atlanta, jumped four spots to No. 18 and are somehow still in the hunt for the NFC North title. Green Bay will be praying it isn't eliminated before Aaron Rodgers comes back from injury.
While you wait for Rodgers' status to be decided, check out the full power rankings averages to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
The Washington Post's Tom Boswell posed the central question: "Are there degrees of rule bending — including some that add flavor and debate to sports while others simply degrade it and deserve condemnation?" But he, like most commentators, failed to supply an answer. "Our feelings about those ethical gray areas tell us a good deal about each other and, sometimes, ourselves," Boswell punted.
Perhaps we can come up with guidelines to the ethical gray areas that most reasonable people will find convincing. I propose a two-part approach. Part one is straight-forward: Don't break the rules. That's why Kidd and Tomlin were rightly punished and why steroid use and spying on opponents cannot be defended.
Yet each of these actions has defenders. Jacoby Jones, the Ravens player affected by Tomlin's trespass, declared, "If I was him, I'd do the same thing." The idea is that sports rules are arbitrary and therefore made to be broken. You get away with what you can and pay the price if caught.
It's true that sports rules are arbitrary. Why four balls and three strikes? Why a basket ten feet high? No rules were handed down at Sinai. They could easily be different. But they are all we have, and they define the sport. If we can't count on respect for the rules, competition becomes hopelessly compromised. Those willing to break the rules, or most adept at doing so, will thrive and those who play by the rules will suffer. Such a result cannot be reconciled with the very idea of sports: competitions designed to determine a legitimate winner. Jacoby Jones and other sports anarchists notwithstanding, I suspect that few will disagree with Rule No. 1: Follow the rules.
What about the harder cases where no clear rule is broken but sportsmanship and gamesmanship seem in tension? Consider two examples each from baseball and basketball: 1) the batter, not touched by a pitch, acts as if he were – as Derek Jeter famously and successfully did in 2010; 2) the hidden ball trick; 3) the basketball team sends the wrong player to the free throw line; 4) the basketball player flops in order to draw a foul. All of these could be seen as creative ways to help one's team or as inappropriate efforts to game the system.
Let us start with the easiest case, the hidden ball trick. One could say it's inappropriate because the player seeks an advantage unrelated to any real part of the game such as hitting, fielding, or pitching. But that isn't quite right: base-running is part of the game, and wandering off a base at the wrong time amounts to clueless base-running. If you're not convinced, consider a related play we see more often: an outfielder bluffs base-runners by pretending he will catch a ball that in fact he knows will hit the wall. No one would suggest that is anything other than a clever play. Yet there is no meaningful difference between the outfielder's bluff and the hidden ball trick. The lesson is: base-runner beware. The base-runner who fails to heed this rule has no one to blame but himself. His opponent took advantage of his folly, which may seem sleazy but actually exemplifies the definition of competition: adversaries trying to outdo one another.
All the other examples listed above differ from the hidden ball trick. Pretending to be hit by a pitch, sending the wrong player to the free throw line, and flopping involve trying to fool the officials, not the opposing team. For that reason, they fall on the wrong side of the line separating cheating from creatively seeking an advantage.
Officials aren't competitors. They exist to make possible a fair competition. No one (except the cheater) wants them to decide the outcome. When you fool an official, you gain an advantage even though you have done nothing vis-a-vis your opponent to earn it. Of course, whenever an official makes a bad call, an innocent party is harmed and another benefits. But there is all the difference in the world between an accident and a crime. Bad calls can't be avoided. Deliberately inducing a bad call can't be defended.
The proposed standard resolves most cases of gamesmanship: fooling an opponent is OK, fooling the officials is not. To be sure, a categorical rule against tricking officials may produce counterintuitive results. When an outfielder dives for a ball, and traps it rather than making the catch, is he obliged to acknowledge what happened? Is it really wrong for him to hold the ball aloft and pretend to have made the catch? No and yes. At least in our culture, it is asking too much to expect anyone in that position to fess up. But to go out of your way to fool the umpire into thinking you caught the ball is no different from a basketball team sending the wrong player to the free throw line. Each amounts to lying to the officials, and contradicts the proper spirit of athletic competition.
If you don't buy the proposed approach, here's a simpler one that may be easier to accept and yet could go even further in discouraging gamesmanship: If you have to ask, don't do it.
Alan Hirsch is co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball" (McFarland, 2011).
]]>Not much needs to be said about the Seahawks' beatdown of the Saints on Monday night this week, other than the final score: 34-7. With the win, Seattle stayed on top as unanimous No. 1, while New Orleans slipped down to fifth. The Broncos beat the Chiefs for the second time in three weeks and moved back up to second; the Panthers cruised past Tampa Bay and jumped to third; New England narrowly edged cellar-dwellar Houston yet still climbed as well, to fourth.
It's going to be a challenge for any of those teams to claim the No. 1 spot from Seattle. If all current top five teams win all four of their remaining games, the one-loss Seahawks will have the edge. They've already clinched a playoff spot and seem likely to capture home-field advantage in the NFC as well. Seattle just has to beat San Francisco, ranked as high as fourth (Sagarin) this week, and then it's the Giants (21), Cardinals (10) and Rams (18). The Cardinals aren't a pushover, but the Seahawks at home will be heavy favorites.
The Broncos and Patriots have relatively smooth sailing, too. Denver faces Tennessee (19), San Diego (16), Houston (32) and Oakland (24), while New England takes on Cleveland (28), Miami (15), Baltimore (14) and Buffalo (25).
The Saints and Panthers, both 9-3, play each other twice in the last four games of the season. The first matchup is next Sunday in the Superdome and the hosts will be looking to end their division rival's eight-game win streak and restart their offense after Seattle smashed it to bits. If the Saints win and Dallas, Philadelphia or Arizona loses, New Orleans clinches a playoff spot. The scenario is almost identical for Carolina; they additionally would benefit from a San Francisco loss.
This week's biggest movers: Very little movement this week. The Miami Dolphins climbed from 21st to 15th after beating the Jets, 23-3, and the Packers dropped five spots from 17th to 22nd after losing 40-10 to the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. Green Bay also holds this week's title for Most Confused Ranking. Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk has the Packers at 15, dependent on the possible return of Aaron Rodgers. On the other hand, SB Nation has no such hope: Its Jason Chilton ranked Green Bay 30th, wondering if Rodgers might sit out the rest of the season if the team judges it a year already lost.
Check out the full power rankings averages to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
On Monday night, the great mass of Seahawks fans, the celebrated '12th Man' with a sea of jerseys, body paint and signs, tried to take the world record back for the loudest noise at a public outdoor sporting event from Kansas City Chiefs fans. This they managed easily enough, cheering on their team to a 34-7 stomping of the New Orleans Saints to post an NFL-best 11-1 record.
"Oh when the Saints / go limping home!" surely someone sang. Loudly.
While those 12th Men were intentionally taking their noise record back with a 137.6 decibel cacophony, they also accidentally caused an earthquake.
Yes, you read that right, an earthquake. A seismometer operated by the University of Washington near the field registered a shock of between 1 and 2 on the Richter scale.
What happened was, almost all the Seahawks fans jumped to their feet in unison to watch defensive lineman Michael Bennett recover a fumble and return it 22 yards for a surprise touchdown. When they jumped up and down and yelled and sat down quickly, the tremors registered.
"They're louder than a jet on takeoff and they make the earth tremble," reported NPR.
It wasn't the first time that happened at a Seahawks game. In a January 2011 game against the Saints, the 12th Man caused the first recorded football-related earthquake while watching running back Marshawn Lynch's 67-yard game winning touchdown run.
That one was known as the Beast Quake, after Lynch's fearsome nickname. Monday's tremor is going down in the annals of sports fandom as Beast Quake 2.0 or just "the aftershock," which I think is a little unfair to Bennett.
The earthquake didn't come as an aftershock to me. Watching the game from New York Pizza & Bar in Bellingham, which according to Google Maps is 89.8 miles up the I-5 corridor from the Seahawks' stadium, I half expected the roaring bar boosters to bring the roof down.
One female fan wearing a 'Hawks jersey (along with all the barkeeps and waitresses) was a student at Western Washington University. She professed pique at how close she had to cut it because of classes. If school had made her late, she joked, she would have dropped out.
At least, I think she was joking. Seahawks fans are enthusiastic and crazy, and plenty of Washingtonians are egging them on. Seattle investor Chris Hansen recently climbed Mount Everest just so he could wave a 12th Man flag there.
Before the game Monday, the local news had a segment on the 12th Man, Junior Princess Division. A young girl barely older than a toddler had been trained by her father, a King County cop, to know the Seahawks' starting lineup by name. We were all supposed to find this terribly cute.
Cute but potentially deadly. Take the explosive enthusiasm of Seahawks fandom, with two noise records shattered so far this year and one bona fide earthquake. Add to it the banner run the team is having. And? Well, let's all just hope that structural engineers are taking a close look at CenturyLink Field to keep the 12th Man standing.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
]]>Whatever Arseneault's motivation, certainly he and Grinnell made a mockery of basketball. Taylor rarely crossed half-court, instead cherry-picking for uncontested baskets – a sham style of play that could succeed only against a wildly overmatched opponent. There's a terribly sad irony: Arseneault gets the most attention when he does something outrageous, while the sports world overlooks the main virtue of Arseneault's exemplary system.
Arseneault didn't invent the style of ball Grinnell plays. Paul Westhead, fired by the Lakers in 1981 for failure to run the fast-break offense demanded by Magic Johnson, landed at Loyola Marymount University determined to show that he actually loves fast-paced basketball. Westhead went to an extreme to make the point, introducing an unprecedented style that treated college's 45-second shot clock as the "4 or 5" second clock. His teams pressed full-court and, as soon as they got the ball, raced down-court to launch the first available shot, preferably from 3-point range. The system worked - the team was nationally ranked for several years and in 1990 advanced to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament while playing without superstar Hank Gathers (who tragically passed away shortly before the tournament).
Although "Paul-Ball" has its critics, it isn't hard to understand why it succeeded. Every game featured a style with which LMU was accustomed and opponents unaccustomed. Other teams found themselves confused and eventually exhausted by the frenetic pace.
Eventually a number of coaches adopted some variation of Westhead's approach, including Arseneault, who brought the wild style to Grinnell. This was a welcome development for several reasons. First, it made basketball more fun for Grinnell's players and fans. Second, variety is nice – and, all too often in sports, lacking. These days, most college teams employ roughly the same offensive principles, some variation of the "motion offense" made famous by Princeton. It is good to see the occasional team do something completely different.
But something much more important has received little attention. (Even ESPN's Rick Reilly, in the course of a full-throated defense of Arsenault against his critics, barely touched on the main virtue of Grinnell's system.) Arseneault recognized a special benefit of introducing Paul-Ball to Division III. Because of the breathtaking pace, this style requires a deep bench. Arseneault substitutes in constant waves, bringing in several new players every minute or two. As a result, numerous players receive substantial playing time. Last year, 13 Grinnell players averaged double figures in minutes played and 16 averaged seven minutes or more.
This is not some fortuitous byproduct of Grinnell's system. Rather, from the beginning Arseneault emphasized the D-III ideal of promoting participation. Good for him. College athletics exists mostly for the athletes – not for coaches' sneaker contracts, boosters' egos, or schools' coffers. Think about it: If 20 more schools played like Grinnell, 100 additional kids would get meaningful playing time.
Arseneault's players appreciate the fact that he brings more kids onto the court. John Grotberg, who starred for Grinnell from 2006-2009, says the team enjoyed terrific camaraderie "because 17 guys have the opportunity to contribute in any given game. It absolutely builds chemistry and is perceived in a positive light by the players."
Of course, kids also like to win and therein lies the full beauty of what has come to be called "The System": It offers more playing time for more kids without sacrificing competitiveness. Grinnell finishes near the top of its conference nearly every year and Arseneault has been selected conference coach of the year multiple times. Fun, variety, widespread participation, success. Win-win-win-win.
Yet for some reason all that wasn't enough for Arseneault. In Grinnell's first two games this year he perverted the usual system to create The Jack Taylor Show. Taylor took 122 shots while his nearest teammate took 14. The team received another wave of publicity, but much of it was negative.
Fortunately, Grinnell quickly reverted to "normal" System ball. In fact, in the team's next game (an 89-79 victory), Taylor scored just three points. Let's hope we've seen the last of Taylor's contrived 100-point games, the last of critics blasting The System without acknowledging that, apart from the rare deviations, it represents the very best in collegiate sports.
That's the point that's been missed. Grinnell's usual mode of play deserves not just praise but emulation. High school and college coaches alike should strongly consider taking a page from Grinnell's book. What could be better than a system that allows more kids the opportunity to get on the floor, is great fun for them and spectators, and still produces victories?
Alan Hirsch and Sheldon Hirsch are co-authors of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
]]>Last week, I wrote that the Seahawks would likely remain No. 2 with their bye week happening this past Sunday. Wrong. The Broncos lost to the Patriots 34-31 in overtime after surrendering a 24-0 halftime lead by allowing New England to score 31 in the second half. The loss knocked Denver to 9-2, meaning Seattle alone possesses the best record in the NFL: 10-1. That makes the Seahawks the fourth No. 1 (second consensus top pick) we've had this season.
And you might think an overtime loss by a team that's been in the top five all season might not be worth a two-spot drop to No. 3, but that's exactly where ESPN and NFL.com have Peyton Manning & Associates. In fact, FOX Sports and Pro Football Talk went even further, placing Denver fifth. CBS said fourth and both Jeff Sagarin's computers and SB Nation think third, giving the Broncos an average just 0.4 points better than the fourth-place Carolina Panthers.
The other erstwhile No. 1, Kansas City (which faces Denver again this week), plummeted out of the top five. The Chiefs fell to the Chargers, and for that received rankings of only sixth and seventh. SB Nation and FOX Sports actually placed the Cincinnati Bengals higher. It's not surprising how quickly we've lost faith in the 9-2 Chiefs, given all the talk of "worst unbeaten team ever;" another loss (completely possible against Denver again this week) and they could find themselves out of the top 10.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Jaguars took one small step that to them must feel a giant leap. Jacksonville moved up to No. 31 this week after its second win in the last three weeks. Taking over the bottom spot is the hapless Houston Texans, who lost to the Jags 13-6, with Case Keenum at the helm. If it weren't for Sagarin's computers, which still have faith that Jacksonville is this year's least excellent football team, Houston's humiliation would have been unanimous.
This week's biggest movers: The Jets, who had been holding steady in the middle of the pack for a few weeks, took a 19-3 loss to Baltimore and plunged six spots to No. 23 (where they're united with crosstown rival, the No. 22 Giants). St. Louis got a big 42-21 win against Chicago (which dropped four) and climbed to 18 from 23, making the NFC West the best division by far with a combined average of 8.86. Miami matched the Rams with a five-spot swing, albeit in the other direction, after a loss to the Carolina Panthers. Arizona, San Diego and Baltimore moved up four, the Cardinals into the top 10 at No. 9.
There's another subtle move at the top: the Saints jumped to No. 2, setting up an epic showdown in Seattle that will almost certainly decide next week's top team. If it's the Saints, chances are it won't be unanimous. Kansas City and Denver have a rematch, and the winner will equal the theoretically victorious New Orleans at 10-2 (which would also be Seattle's record).
Until then, check out this week's full power rankings averages to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
However, observations alone do not justify cause-and-effect conclusions. Leaving college early may have nothing to do with subsequent poor play and/or poor behavior.
To establish whether remaining in college helps basketball prodigies, ideally we would allow some qualified players to enter the NBA after one year in college, keep an equal number of similar players in college, and compare the results of the two groups. While we obviously can't do that, we can at least analyze the major differences between the two pathways in terms of developing basketball skills:
- A college coaching staff vs. an NBA coaching staff
- Ancillary staff: nutritionists, fitness trainers, and doctors
- Competition: college teammates (in practice) and opponents vs. NBA teammates and opponents
- Proximal role models: older, more experienced NBA players vs. fellow callow collegians
- Game experience: ~35-game seasons vs. 82 (or more, with playoffs)
- Practice time: NCAA off-season restrictions vs. unfettered NBA access
Let's consider the specific choice one player faced. After completing his freshman year in college, Marquis Teague could have stayed at Kentucky under the tutelage of the failed-NBA coach John Calipari, best known for his recruiting, or (as it turned out) he could play in the NBA for the Chicago Bulls' outstanding head coach Tom Thibodeau. He could practice daily against Kentucky's backup point guard or against Derrick Rose; hone his skills in games against college players or NBA players. He could play a shorter season with NCAA restrictions on practice time, or a much longer season with unlimited practice time and supervised summer training. All of these factors favor Teague choosing the NBA.
Of course, there is variation among college and NBA teams. There are some very good college coaches and some poor NBA coaches. Some players in particularly good programs, or for other idiosyncratic reasons, might prosper by remaining in school. But as a general rule, there is no reason why basketball should be different from tennis, golf, gymnastics, soccer, figure skating, chess, music, singing, or acting. Prodigies commonly leave the standard school system early for superior professional training, and eventually the professional circuit.
Marquis Teague is well served by joining Thibodeau and Rose sooner rather than later. And that's even apart from the $2 million he's earning over his first two pro seasons.
That's in basketball terms. But what about the argument that leaving college early contributes to immaturity or bad judgment? We do know that college serves many students well. But the more one group differs from another group, the more extrapolating results from one to the other fails. Students who benefit from college are typically those who enter voluntarily and are prepared for and interested in academic study. By contrast, "one and done" players who never return to school are a self-selected group uninterested in college, different in many ways from the typical student. The idea that they will benefit from staying in college against their will involves a wild and unjustified extrapolation. College is not for everyone.
There is no good reason to legislate college as a paternalistic "one size fits all" mandate, rather than to allow all players, with input from their families, advisors, college coaches and NBA scouts, to make their own decisions.
In reality, the "one and done" rule has little to do with the players. It was a sop from the NBA to pacify those concerned that too many players skipping college was harming the college game, particularly economically. This alleged effect was exaggerated (college basketball did fine when player could go straight to the pros, before "one and done") but, more importantly, the solution involved the tail wagging the dog. College athletics is meant to serve the athletes, not vice versa. We should not sacrifice athletes at the altar of NCAA coffers.
Freedom of opportunity should govern unless trumped by some compelling purpose. Since many players do not reliably benefit from attending college, we should allow qualified high school players to jump immediately to the NBA. There is no compelling reason why players like LeBron James and Kevin Garnett should be required to remain in poverty (and risk an injury that would prevent them from ever playing in the NBA) for one or more years. There is no compelling reason why young adults should cede their autonomy in this manner.
The notion that college provides better basketball training and instills wisdom into those held captive is a rhetorical air ball.
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
Another week, another guest star in the top five. In Week 5 it was the Colts; in Week 6 the Patriots. Then the Colts came back for a three-week stint, actually playing co-host when the 49ers dropped by in Week 9. In week 10 it was New England again. This Monday, the Patriots and Panthers battled to the final, controversial play, where Carolina emerged victorious. The win propelled Cam Newton's squad into this week's top five.
So how good are the Panthers? Well, at 7-3 they're second in the NFC South, behind the 8-2 Saints, whom they'll face twice in the last four weeks of the season. One of their three losses was a scrappy 12-7 affair against Seattle, which sits solidly at No. 2 in this week's rankings. The Panthers' defense has given up just 135 points in 10 games, best in the league by three (Kansas City is second), 40 points better than the third-place 49ers and 120 points better than the Broncos' D, which ranks 21st.
That Denver defense, however, has looked much better recently. Since conceding 39 points in their loss to Indianapolis, the Broncos have held their next three opponents to 21, 20 and 17 points. This week's 17 was the most important performance of their season thus far, as it came against previously unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs. Denver's potent offense dropped 27 to end the Chiefs' unbeaten streak and knock them down to fourth in this week, and kept the Broncos No. 1 for the third consecutive week.
Having knocked off the undefeated Chiefs, it wouldn't have been surprising to see the Broncos take home the top spot unanimously, but that didn't happen. Both CBS Sports and Pro Football Talk picked the Seahawks No. 1. They're the first team to win 10 games, thanks to the fact that they haven't had a bye yet, and their only loss, like the Broncos, was to Indianapolis. With Seattle's bye coming up in Week 12, they'll most likely remain No. 2, but after that things could change. Seattle heads to New Orleans to face the Saints, the same weekend that the Chiefs and Broncos have their rematch in K.C. A win over the Saints and Seattle could claim No. 1 for the first time this season.
This week's biggest movers: Things were reasonably steady, with the Browns' drop from 19th to 24th registering the largest change. After them, the Dolphins, Eagles and Giants all improved four spots, and five teams shifted up or down by three. Let's talk about those Giants, though. Having plummeted from preseason 10th to 31st in Weeks 5 and 6, the Big Blue have begun to climb, coming in at 19th after beating the Packers 27-13. In three weeks, they could actually be tied for the lead in the NFC East.
With the Seahawks, Saints and Panthers hanging around in the NFC, it's hard to see the Giants having much success in the postseason, but if it does happen they'll be the first team ever to start a season 0-6 and go on to make the playoffs.
While you ponder just what that says about this NFL season, check out the full rankings to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
Am I the only one out there thinks this story has gone from bizarre to absurd?
To recap, Gronkowski was at a Boston bar after the Patriots' latest game. He told a guy named Joe that he was going to call Joe onto the dance floor. Joe, who is Asian, said he can't dance (maybe William Hung should have been so modest?), but he can cook fried rice. Gronkowski repeated the comment into the microphone, and TMZ caught the whole thing thanks to a sleuth with a camera phone.
The thing went viral.
Gronkowski must be a racist.
He made a public apology on Friday. Joe said no apology necessary. He wasn't offended.
Is this what things are coming to? We apologize because someone catches a sliver of a conversation, edits it into a salacious sound bite and shares it with the world?
Over the last two weeks, I've watched the Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin tomfoolery unfold with interest. My opinion? The whole thing is just boys being boys. I covered the Oakland Raiders for five years as a freelancer and staff writer. I saw and heard plenty of things in the locker room that offended me. But I understood it to be the language of football.
Do I condone Incognito's words – or Martin's, for that matter? No. I wouldn't speak to someone the way those two spoke to/texted with each other. But the stakes are high in the NFL. Perform or perish. Or, in some cases, perform and perish.
Tough, burly guys get paid to go out and put their bodies (and minds) on the line every week. I think they are crazy. And, a lot of the time, not too bright. (Apologies to the smart NFL players I met along the way, many of whom I respect.) After all, who would agree to a job that could potentially kill you just for money and fame? But I know from experience, a lot of these guys play because it's all they know how to do, because they have families to support, because they can't live without the rush.
All of that said, now that Martin let the cat out of the bag – that the NFL locker room is no place for wimps – it incited outrage. Fans want to watch guys beat the hell out of each other, but when they are off the field, these same guys should be all touchy feely, politically correct and, by extension, unable to make a joke, crass or otherwise.
Just in case you're wondering, I do draw the line. Riley Cooper's slur at a Kenny Chesney concert in June is certainly unacceptable. After a heated exchange with a security guard, the Eagles wide receiver said he would "jump that fence and fight every (N-word) here." Why? He had a little too much to drink. But combining a threat with the worst slur there is deserves punishment and shame. A guy who expresses such feelings with malice most definitely should be penalized by the court of public opinion.
Pro athletes don't have a corner on racial slurs. Just this year, Paula Deen lost her Food Network show after admitting she uses the N-word. Michele Bachmann used the phrase "tar baby" in the same sentence as President Obama. And let's not forget the biggest racist and anti-Semite who was recently exposed – Mel Gibson.
So forgive me if I think a failed pun is grounds for a public hanging.
Consider ESPN's Jorge Andres – who, I might point out – is a minority himself. He was trying to be pithy and funny when he said Jeremy Lin was "cooking with some hot peanut oil" during Thursday's 9 p.m. edition of SportsCenter. Oops. He must be a racist.
Andres apologized later in the broadcast.
Or how about last year, when former ESPN.com editor Anthony Federico wrote a headline with the phrase "chink in the armor," on a story about Lin? The comapny fired Federico, who is, yes, a minority, for being "racially insensitive."
Bad judgment? Crappy choice of words? No question. A fireable offense? Not so much.
But here we are, a year later, with one of the NFL's most recognizable players having a good time with a new buddy in a bar. Someone caught his words on camera, took them out of context, and now Gronkowski's saying a mea culpa.
Can I say that? Or am I being ethnically insensitive?
Jill R. Dorson is an editor of RealClearSports.
]]>Two teams returned to the top five in the Week 10 Power Rankings Averages. The Saints, who peaked at No. 2 in Week 5 climbed two spots, where they sit tied with the Patriots. The top three remain the same: Denver holds onto the top spot, while the Chiefs and Seahawks stay second and third, respectively. The Chiefs had a bye, which means their unbeaten record lives for at least one more week, and the Broncos beat the Chargers 28-20.
The Seahawks faced off with Atlanta in a rematch of last year's hotly contested NFC divisional playoff game, which the Falcons won 30-28 on a last-second field goal. It almost defies belief how the tables have turned on the erstwhile No. 1 seed. From their preseason rank of fourth to this week's drop to 30th, the Falcons have moved the most in any one direction, most closely followed by the Chiefs' meteoric rise (which you can see above). Below is what Atlanta's season has looked like:
With the exception of a +3 in Week 7, the Falcons have skidded from the top to the bottom of the league. Their once-potent offense, helmed by Matt Ryan, was absolutely stifled by the Seahawks. Ryan completed 23 of 36 passes (not bad) for 172 yards (pretty bad), and one touchdown. Russell Wilson had 100 more yards on four fewer completions. Atlanta's running game was even worse. Featured back Steven Jackson carried the ball nine times for 11 yards, and as a team Atlanta managed only 64 yards on the ground. Truly dreadful.
Worse news for the Falcons: The Buccaneers won a game. With a 22-19 victory over Miami, Tampa Bay ended its winless streak. One more weekend like that and the Falcons are challenging Jacksonville for the coveted No. 32.
This week's biggest movers: Tennessee took a nosedive from 15th to 21st after losing to the aforementioned bottom-of-the-barrel Jaguars; eager to fill the void left by the Titans, Philadelphia leapt from 21st to 16th on the back of another strong performance by Nick Foles, who now has 10 touchdown passes in two games; Arizona, Pittsburgh and St. Louis all climbed four spots, while Buffalo dropped the same. Overall, Week 10 left a little something to be desired in the drama department.
Week 11 should waste no time remedying that, with the Chiefs taking their 9-0 record to Denver on Sunday Night Football. If the Broncos win, they'll be unanimous No. 1 again and nigh impossible to budge. And the same might be true for Kansas City.
Until then, check out the full rankings to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
Yankees General Manager Ed Barrow, Cardinals Hall-of-Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander and their legendary second baseman Rogers Hornsby all called it a dumb play. Ruth succeeded in only ~51% of his steal attempts throughout his career and 55% (11-20) in 1926. With .315 hitter Bob Meusel at the plate and the great Lou Gehrig on deck, a stolen base attempt by a subpar base stealer seemed bonehead.
In fact, the play entered baseball lore as a monumental blunder, described as such in Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders: A Complete Guide to the Worst Decisions and Stupidest Moments in Baseball History, Yankees Century: 100 Years of New York Yankees Baseball, Ruth biographies, and a panoply of articles, internet sites and more. A Baseballreport.com analysis called it one of the 10 worst moments in Yankees history, and even the Babe Ruth Museum web site acknowledges the blunder.
History is casting judgment based on the result. This is wrong.
Ruth actually faced the ultimate situation favoring a stolen base attempt: One run down with two outs in the ninth and a great pitcher, Alexander, on the mound at the top of his game (Alexander had easily retired all six batters he faced prior to walking Ruth). This was similar to when Dave Roberts stole second with the Red Sox trailing by one run against Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of the 2004 ALCS. The realistic strategy in such situations is to play for one run. Under the circumstances, an attempted steal of second makes good sense (albeit even more for a great base-stealer like Roberts than for Ruth).
The two most likely (simplified) scenarios by which the Yankees could score one run were as follows:
Successful stolen base + Meusel hits safely
No steal attempt+ Meusel hits safely + Gehrig hits safely
This comparison is straightforward: As "Meusel hits safely" is in both scenarios, the difference in the two comes down to the relative odds of "Successful stolen base" vs "Gehrig hits safely". As noted, Ruth's stolen base percentage in 1926 was 55%. Gehrig hit .313 that season, and his chance for a base hit was surely even less against Alexander. The percentages decisively favor the attempted stolen base. A more complicated calculation, including the small likelihoods of walks, infield hits, run-scoring extra-base hits, etc., yields the same conclusion: Ruth's attempt was easily justified.
Moreover, Ruth may plausibly have believed his chance of success was better than usual. As Ruth noted in his autobiography, he had the element of surprise in his favor; Alexander admitted that he "forgot all about Ruth" on first. The element of surprise is no small thing: It allowed David Ortiz, the Red Sox's lumbering 37-year-old slugger to succeed on all four stolen base attempts this season, two of third base (one of which did not even draw a throw).
Ruth had little time to think everything through, and certainly did not do any mathematical calculations. Most likely, he had an intuitive sense that the situation called for a stolen base and that his chances were good enough to justify the attempt. At any rate, he got it right. Only the result was bad.
Mickey Mantle had even less time to address a critical situation in the 1960 World Series. This Series ended with the epic Game 7 walk-off Bill Mazeroski home run, but it nearly ended earlier and in even more unusual fashion. In the top of the ninth inning, with one out and the Yankees down by one run, Mantle on first and Gil McDougald on third, Yogi Berra hit a one-hopper to first baseman Rocky Nelson.
Nelson caught the ball and quickly stepped on first. Mantle, with a significant lead off the base, did not head to second, as runners on first base routinely do on groundballs. When Nelson stepped on first, Mantle realized the force play was off and sensed that the usual sprint to second was a season-ending losing move (a run-down out or McDougald thrown out at home). Instead, Mantle dove back into first, avoiding the tag and distracting Nelson, allowing McDougald to score the tying run. This all happened so fast, Mantle's play could only have been instinctive.
Like Ruth, Mantle got it right. Major league teams are expected to successfully execute a run-down play between first and second without a runner scoring from third. Thus, Mantle's choice, which also capitalized on the element of surprise (Nelson surely had never seen a runner diving back into first base after a ground ball to him), optimized the Yankees' chances of scoring a run and tying the game. Mantle's success was lauded, sometimes cited as an amazing play.
Two all-time Yankees greats, 34 years apart, faced critical decisions with the World Series on the line. Ruth and Mantle both made instinctive, creative plays - Ruth ran to second, Mantle back to first; in each case, the opposite of expected. Their decisions were sound. The decisive difference was the result: Mantle succeeded, Ruth failed. In a results-driven realm, Mantle was congratulated and Ruth criticized. Had Rocky Nelson been a little more alert and Cardinals catcher Bob O'Farrell a little less, Mantle would have been labeled a goat for a bonehead decision to head back to first, and Ruth commended for a savvy steal.
History relies too much on results. History can be an ass.
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
]]>The very media that jumped to conclusions and rendered a verdict before any facts of the case was known is now at it again, prematurely tarring and feathering a man based more or less on the transcript of a voicemail without any context.
Nothing else needs to be known. Richie Incognito allegedly used a racial slur, and therefore he must be the worst guy in the history of sports and be banished forever.
This is the same media that have always given Ray Lewis a pass, even though he was charged in a murder case that eventually ended in his being convicted of obstruction of justice. Granted, Lewis didn't kill anyone and never served any prison time (and was never suspended by the NFL). But before, during and after the trial, the media never went after Lewis with the same zeal as they're now with Incognito.
And the same could be said for NFL players who did serve prison time for manslaughter or other crimes: Lewis' former Baltimore Ravens teammate Jamal Lewis did a four-month stint for a drug charge, both Leonard Little and Donte Stallworth were guilty of drunk driving that resulted in deaths. The only NFL player that had been as widely vilified as Incognito was Michael Vick, because he killed dogs.
A little perspective, please.
To be sure, Richie Incognito did have a checkered past. He was kicked off the team by both Nebraska and Oregon and as a pro cut by the Rams after a run-in with the head coach. He had been convicted of a misdemeanor assault charge stemming from a fight at a party in college. He's no angel.
He's just like many players in the brotherhood that is the NFL.
It's extremely naïve to try to impose your own work environment sensitivities on an NFL locker room, a place I've spent a decade of my career in as a beat writer. It has its own culture, its own set of omerta that's similar to what exists in the military, law enforcement, or a crab fishing boat. After all, you're not asked to go around assaulting (or be assaulted) by other cubicle workers every Sunday, but that's exactly what they do.
Players get into fights. They pull practical jokes on one another. They shred rookies' suits or pants and leave them in a thousand pieces or give them unsightly haircuts. And sometimes they throw around racial slurs (by both black and white players) as both an insult and a term of endearment.
The locker room is filled with all kinds of different personalities that have to strive for a common goal. There could be a Lincoln Kennedy, as gentle a soul as you'd find in any locker room but a mean SOB once he stepped between the lines. There could be a Bill Romanowski, always carrying around his suitcase of pharmaceuticals and be at any given time borderline deranged. And there could be players as dumb as a box of rocks, but useful because they have no second thoughts about using their body parts as a battering ram.
If you don't like the sausage-making, then it's best to stick to enjoying the sausage on Sundays.
Now, I'm sure I'll be accused by many of condoning Incognito's behavior. They'll tell me that bullying in the workplace is not OK under any circumstances.
But calling what took place in the Dolphins locker room based on just the information we have is doing a disservice to helpless kids who are truly being bullied. Bullying is a serious problem in schools and among children and teenagers, but what happens in an NFL locker room is not nearly the same, because every man is capable of standing up for himself.
Former NFL player Keyshawn Johnson tells of his time when he was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where future Hall of Famer Warren Sapp relentlessly pushed around other players, particularly a young Chidi Ahanotu.
Now, Ahanotu is in many ways like Martin – bright, talented and coming from a good home, not exactly a typical NFL player's profile. He could've gone to Columbia but chose to accept a scholarship from Cal-Berkeley. He contemplated going to med school after college but decided to give the NFL a try.
It's almost certain that Ahanotu got picked on by Sapp because of his "otherness." But Ahanotu put an end to that by confronting Sapp in front of the whole locker room. Sapp backed down and Ahanotu went on to have a long and distinguished NFL career that lasted 12 seasons. He founded a talent management firm after his retirement and has continued to thrive after his playing days were over.
Jonathan Martin came from similar, if not more privileged background. His parents both went to Harvard, as did his grandfather and great grandfather. He prepped at Harvard-Westlake, a school as prestigious and exclusive as there is (I know this as I've spent many days there while covering high school sports). He went to Stanford after turning down Harvard and spent his time on the Farm studying the Classics and protecting Andrew Luck's blindside.
Martin probably would've been a high achiever in pretty much any field he chooses to enter. A two-time All-America selection, he nevertheless decided to give the NFL a shot after being drafted by the Dolphins in the second round. The ensuing culture shock probably made things tough for Martin.
The often profane and vulgar NFL locker room bears little resemblance to what Martin had experienced in his upbringing, surrounded by smart, articulate, polite and mostly affluent people. The NFL locker room is much more street than seminary, filled with competitive alpha dogs who can be, well, mean. And it's that way because pro football is legalized mayhem, and only those who are willing to inflict and absorb bodily harm can survive and thrive. The NFL is not for everybody.
This foreign environment, compounded by his poor performance as a rookie, likely helped to create massive mental anguish for Martin, who finally snapped after a fairly pedestrian locker room prank and left the team. The situation immediately escalated after someone leaked the transcript of the voicemail and the media pounced on it.
It's not surprising that the Dolphins locker room universally sided with Incognito over Martin. They have a better idea about what transpired behind closed doors and they don't like someone who threw a teammate, and by extension, the entire team, under the bus. Whereas the media were quick to seize on the racial angle, this was way more about class and culture than about race.
Incognito is a middling talent who worked hard to become a Pro Bowler and emerged as the leader of a rebuilt offensive line that has its team in the playoff hunt. Martin is a bright young kid with options, who doesn't necessarily need football in his life and has contemplated so. Society might not have more admiration for the former over the latter, but football players do.
We don't have all the facts yet, and there's a possibility that this episode may be an internal friction that happens on sports teams a thousand times over. Or more likely, the stresses - on and off the field - of being a pro football player pushed Martin to a breaking point. It might end amicably with a bro-hug between Incognito and Martin, who many insist were good friends. It might end with neither playing another down in the NFL because they're now both toxic, damaged goods.
Chances are, it won't end well, because there is already sufficient acrimony and distrust for all parties involved, and that Martin has hired a prominent lawyer. The atmosphere is poisoned by a national media that, as usual, jumped to conclusions without either context or facts.
It's the same media that at least wanted to hear from murderous thugs like Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad. But Richie Incognito? He's apparently an even lower life form who does not deserve to have his side of the story heard.
Samuel Chi is Editor of RealClearSports. He may be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @BCSGuru.
In last week's rankings breakdown, the big question was whether or not the Chiefs' undefeated record merited their being ranked No. 1 by default. I said I didn't think so, and this week it seems everyone else has decided the same thing. After two weeks in the top spot, Kansas City has dropped down to second, this despite maintaining the undefeated record.
Given who replaced them at the top, it's pretty clear Kansas City doomed itself with a not-very-impressive 23-13 win against Buffalo (No. 23) with a less-than-impressive performance by quarterback Alex Smith. The new No. 1? Denver, who had a bye week. The Seahawks had what seemed to be a cakewalk through winless Tampa Bay to reach the top, but ended up needing an overtime field goal to win (at home) and dropped from second to third.
The other big change in the top five is the appearance of the San Francisco 49ers, who've been out of it since they were third in Week 2. They popped up into the fourth spot, like the Broncos, without even playing, supplanting New Orleans, who lost to the Jets.
With the win, the Jets climbed three spots to 16th. The Patriots and Browns also went up by the same margin. Philadelphia and Washington improved to 4-5 and 3-5, respectively, and jumped four spots (it helped they both were in the high 20s in Week 8). The Giants (up) and the Ravens (down) each moved five spots, and the Raiders dropped six, having been the victim of Nick Foles' touchdown bonanza.
The Jets are also among the ranks of teams that confuse observers and confound categorization. While four sources have the Jets at 14th, Jeff Sagarin's computer says 27th, the biggest high-low difference this week. Right behind them, with a gap of 12 (11 to 23), are the Miami Dolphins, coincidentally right behind the Jets in the AFC East with a 4-4 record. The next highest difference belongs to the 3-5 Baltimore Ravens, who stretch from 14 to 25.
So it seems the answer to last week's other question is no, we aren't quite sure how good these middling teams are. And given the Seahawks and Chiefs dropping with wins and the Broncos and 49ers climbing without even playing, it seems we're a little less sure how good the top teams are, too.
Check out this week's full rankings to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
"It is the worst thing in the English language you can be called if you are a native person," she adds. "It is basically characterizing a person by their skin. How wrong is that?"
Not so, Redskins team officials say — not at all. They have insisted that the name was never meant to disparage indigenous peoples, but rather to honor them. For years the team even maintained that the moniker didn't refer to skin color at all. As recently as 2009, the team's media guide claimed that "Redskin" actually referred to red paint used on the eve of battle by Indian braves.
Neither claim, as it happens, is historically accurate. The less said about the whopper concerning red paint instead of red skin the better — and the team's image-handlers have quietly dropped it.
As for the central assertion made by Harjo and others (including iconic NBC sportscaster Bob Costas), that "redskin" was always an insult, well, this is also untrue. Not only was "redskin" not originally a slur, its first documented use comes from a Midwestern chief named Black Thunder.
Eight years ago — yes, the Washington "Redskin" controversy goes back a while — Smithsonian Institution senior linguist Ives Goddard set out to find out what he could about the word's origins. Goddard traced its usage back to July 22, 1815, to an article in the Missouri Gazette. The paper was reporting on the progress of negotiations between Indian tribes in the Midwest and envoys sent personally by James Madison after the War of 1812.
At this meeting, President Madison's men faulted the tribes for claiming the rights to territory also claimed by the United States. But a man named Black Thunder, chief of a small tribe called the Meskwaki, pushed back. "Restrain your feelings and hear calmly what I say," he told them. "I have never injured you, and innocence can feel no fear. I turn to all red skins and white skins, and challenge an accusation against me."
So there's that. There's also this: If "redskin" was, in the ensuing years between James Madison's presidency and Barack Obama's, considered a denigrating term for Indians, that is not a commonly used term now. Today, the word "Redskins" conjures up in most Americans' minds a National Football League team, period.
Having said that, events have moved beyond academic discussions of linguistics. A tipping point seems to have been reached this season. The reasons why it's happening now are something of a mystery, even to the protagonists on both sides.
For starters, the sports world — like the larger world — has become less accepting of the salty language of the locker room, and more sensitive to how casual slurs directed at women, homosexuals, the handicapped and racial groups can cause hurt feelings.
In addition, and this is never irrelevant in sports, the Redskins are losing this year, though at 3-5 they're still in the playoff hunt thanks to a weak NFC East. Their own fan base is restless and the coaching staff is being constantly criticized by experts around the country over everything from the play-calling to their handling of star quarterback Robert Griffin III's injuries. Moreover, because of his combative personality, team owner Dan Snyder is widely disliked by fans and even other owners.
Add to the mix a dash of political correctness, the effects of our increasingly partisan politics, and the smug posturing (or, depending on your view, the principled stands) taken by sportswriters and sportscasters ranging from Costas to Sports Illustrated's Peter King. This small, but budding cabal of writers who refuse to use the word "Redskin" in their stories now includes Washington Post columnist Mike Wise, whose columns about Redskins games — but without the "Redskins" have become hard to read.
More distracting to the Redskins' players and coaches, almost certainly, are the picketers who've begun to show up at Redskins' away games. There are only a handful of them — at least, so far — but what team mired in a slump needs the hassle?
Even Obama has weighed in. "If I were the owner of the team and I knew that the name of my team, even if they've had a storied history, that was offending a sizable group of people, I'd think about changing it," he said.
Snyder says he has thought about it — and the answer is an emphatic no. But that's unlikely to be the last word on this subject. It appears that the handwriting may be on the wall. If so, that presents a more agreeable task than deciding who is right in this argument.
That job is choosing the next mascot. The challenge is yours, readers of RealClearPolitics and RealClearSports, to vote for our nominations.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington Bureau Chief of RealClearPolitics.
]]>Navy officers unfurled a giant flag for the national anthem and held it at the edges, covering what looked to be a quarter of the field. We sang along as the winds slowly rolled Old Glory.
The local rowdies were vulgar and rowdy and largely stayed put in their own designated section. This was down and well away from the area designated for hated rival Portland Timbers fans to prevent fisticuffs. The fact that all attendees now face mandatory wanding on the way in probably helped keep things civil.
Or what passes for civil in soccer fandom, anyway. The Sounders crowd did break out their famous "Let him die!" chant a few times to taunt injured Timbers players.
CenturyLink Field had both soccer and football markings, to accommodate the Seattle Seahawks game on Sunday, which caused some comic moments early on. When a Sounder drove the soccer ball fast, past the Timbers and deep into their territory, scattered Seattleites would yell "touchdown!" until that joke got old.
As for the performance of the Sounders in the first leg of the MLS Western Conference semifinals, the words of master spy Maxwell Smart seem most appropriate: "Missed it by that much!"
If the game was determined by time in control of the soccer ball or keeping it on the other team's side of the field, the Sounders would have won handily. Instead they did not manage to score their single goal, by famed Cuban defector Osvaldo Alonso, until the 90th minute.
During the four minutes of added time, the Sounders tried and narrowly failed to get past Portland's world-class goalkeep Donavan Rickets to pull out a draw.
The Timbers had a much easier time at the net. One could argue the game was over before it started, because of a freak penalty.
The Sounders' normal keeper Michael Gspurning drew a red card during the previous game. He laid hands on the ball a yard outside the penalty box against the Colorado Rapids. By soccer's draconian rules, that meant he was out for the next game as well.
With Gspurning out, the Sounders relied on backup keeper Marcus Hahnemann to hold back the barbarian hordes. He was only partially successful, allowing Ryan Johnson to score a lazy goal in the first half and Darlington Nagbe to score in the second.
The Sounders head to Portland this Thursday with the odds heavily against them. The Timbers are in first place in the Western Conference because they are defensive, not offensive powerhouses. They managed 15 draws this season, one more than their actual wins.
The two-game semifinal match is decided based on aggregate goals. All the Timbers have to do to advance to the Western Conference championship is a tie in their own stadium or not allowing Seattle to score more than one goal.
Pity the poor Portland security. Sounders fans will be bussing down the I-5 corridor to the much smaller Jeld-Wen Field in force Thursday to root against the Timbers as much as for their own team.
One Sounders fan, photographed with a black hoodie and a half skeleton-face bandana, held up a banner with the Timbers team logo circled in red and crossed out before the match. It read "A Feeling Deeper Than Hate." It'll be deeper still after that narrow loss.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large of RealClearSports.
Jeremy Lott is editor-at-large for RealClearSports.
]]>As the NBA season begins, one of our favorite topics will resurface - the all-time ranking of players - particularly as it relates to the polarizing Lebron James. His fans believe that James rivals Michael Jordan as the greatest player ever; skeptics claim he is overrated. Where does James properly rank?
First, we should set apart the three Great Centers (Russell, Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar) and their peers as a separate category. Centers and perimeter players have such different skills and roles that it is impossible to compare them.
The consensus is that the elite group of perimeter players includes Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.
Lebron James, even mid-career, belongs in this illustrious group. He has four regular-season MVPs, two championships, two Finals MVPs, an unofficial 2012 Olympics MVP, a 27-game winning streak, and seven first-team All-NBA honors in his first 10 seasons.
James also has a superb postseason record. He ranks first all time in scoring average in Game 7s, including 45 points against the Celtics in Boston Garden in 2008 and 37 in the Finals last year. He has multiple games on the short list of most clutch or greatest postseason games ever: Scoring the last 25 points against a tough Detroit defense in 2007; scoring or assisting on 32 consecutive points down the stretch in a must-win game against Orlando in 2009; 40 points, 18 rebounds and 9 assists in another must-win game against Indiana in 2012; 16 points in the fourth quarter against San Antonio in Game 6 in 2013.
Remarkably, in a season-and-legacy-on-the-line Game 6 in Boston Garden in 2012, he had 45 points and 15 rebounds. Not only did James make almost every shot until the game was decided (virtually by himself), he also held future Hall of Famer Paul Pierce to 4-of-18 shooting and 9 points. Outscoring Pierce 45-9 in a game of that magnitude on Pierce's home court might have been a near-perfect game.
James' detractors emphasize his poor series in the 2011 Finals against Dallas and the Game 5 debacle against Boston in 2010, but everyone has low moments (Jordan shot 41 percent in the '96 Finals against Seattle and Bryant 40.5 percent against Boston in 2008). You'd have to remain consumed by "The Decision" and ignore the overwhelming evidence of James' clutch play to deny him a place in the group, and even a reasonable claim to the top spot.
However, the other players could also reasonably make a claim for the perch. Consider Baylor, a 10-time first-team All-NBA player, largely forgotten. In 1960, he averaged 35 points and 20 rebounds a game, and followed that in 1961 with 38 points and 19 rebounds per game. He averaged over 38 points per game in consecutive postseasons. He scored 64 against the Celtics and 71 against the Knicks in regular-season games, and in Game 5 of the 1962 Finals he had 61 points and 22 rebounds against the Celtics - while being guarded by Satch Sanders with Bill Russell lurking behind, two of the greatest NBA defenders ever.
Those are crazy numbers for any era. Baylor was the best passing forward of his time (six times in the league's top 10 in assists) and ranks high with modern defensive metrics. Baylor's athleticism was even further beyond his own contemporaries (as YouTube can attest) than either Jordan or James. It could reasonably be argued that nobody was better than Baylor.
Then there's Kobe Bryant, maybe the toughest player ever, who has five championship rings, may end up the all-time leading scorer, and scored 81 points, yes, 81 points, in a game that mattered, not a last game of the year with the scoring title on the line charade. When the 2008 Olympics was on the line, the best players in the world all deferred to Kobe, and he bailed them out. It could reasonably be argued that nobody was better than Bryant.
Mr. Clutch, Jerry West, scored 30 points or more in 31 different Finals games, 40 points or more in 10 different Finals games (both records), averaged an absurd 46.3 ppg in a playoff series against Baltimore in 1965, led the league in assists and won all-defense honors four times. Hard to top the NBA Logo.
Yet Mr. Triple-Double Oscar Robertson, Magic, Bird, and, of course, Jordan have their own superb resumes.
The reason why each of the eight players can make a reasonable case for the top spot emerges from Stephen Jay Gould's book "Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville": Once someone has done about as well as anyone can do, by definition nobody can do much better. Gould illustrated the gamut of talents within a sport as a bell curve on a graph, the x-axis characterizing increasing ability as it goes from zero out to the right, and the y-axis describing the number of people with different levels of ability. As overall performance improves over time, the entire bell curve moves to the right on the x –axis. However, the improvement at the right-hand tail of the bell curve, the few very greatest athletes, slows down considerably. Eventually, the right tail hits a "right wall," an apparent "outer limit to human capacity."
Ample evidence supports Gould's observations. Consider representative track and field events (untainted by steroid allegations): The broad jump world record is 23 years old and has advanced less than three feet since Jesse Owens 78 years ago. The men's 1,500 meters record is 15 years old and has decreased only 7 seconds in the last 46 years. The 800-meter record has decreased less than 1 second in 32 years. The men's pole vault and high jump records are 19 and 20 years old, respectively. This pattern characterizes much of women's track and field and even horse racing. Secretariat still holds the record for all three Triple Crown races, 40 years later.
We also find a looming right wall in aspects of basketball and baseball. The NBA leaders in free throw percentage shot between 91 and 96 percent in 26 of the last 27 years (the outlier took relatively few shots).
Julius Erving dunked from roughly the foul line in the slam-dunk contest in 1976. In the 37 contests since, no NBA player has dunked from appreciably farther out.
The speed of fastballs (measured by commonly used modern devices) seems to have reached the right wall. J.R. Richard threw 100 mph in 1976, Rob Dibble 101 in 1992, Mark Wohlers 103 in 1995, and in the 18 years since Wohlers, the record has been extended only 2 mph by Aroldis Chapman. The fastest pitches in baseball remain clumped around 100-plus mph. Human biomechanics probably preclude more than about 105.
Thus, in multiple areas where we are purely objective, we find only incremental improvement over time (sometimes seemingly no improvement at all) in the greatest achievements - evidence of relative limits to athletic performance. Of course, team sports involve more complex skills than running, jumping and throwing. However, there is no particular reason to believe that in basketball, for example, the shooting, dribbling and passing skills of each generation's top players have improved at a greater rate than their pure athleticism. It seems that in team sports as well as in track and field, there are a few transcendent players, who not only dominate their peers but whose stars shine brightly well into the future.
Baylor, West and Robertson were the first perimeter players to approach the right wall, followed by Bird, Magic and Jordan, then Bryant and James. In that small region abutting near-maximal possible achievement, these remarkable players become nearly indistinguishable. Bill Simmons, for example, in "The Book of Basketball" spent 15 pages analyzing Oscar Robertson and Jerry West and concluded that West ranks higher "by a hair" because he "had a better handle on the Secret" (i.e. that winning is not about "statistics and talent as much as making teammates better and putting your team ahead of yourself").
If West vs. Robertson is decided by something so subjective and vague, it speaks mostly to the difficulty of ranking these players. Other experts make their own arguments - the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan has argued passionately for Bird - but these opinions seem to reflect whom one has rooted for or covered more closely, or a particular statistic, style of play, concept of the game, talent or achievement that happens to resonate particularly well with the observer, rather than reflect actual superiority of the players in question. Thus, outside of Jordan, there is no consensus on the ranking of these players.
Instead of emphasizing arbitrary, non-compelling, fine distinctions, it seems more important simply to admire the brilliance of these players, each in his own way.
That said, the right wall is only "apparent" and does not represent an absolute impediment to progress. For the many observers who single out Jordan as a notch above the others, he slipped through a crack in the wall. Others may follow. A 7-footer with Jordan's skills may come along. Or a Larry Bird with Lebron James' speed; a Magic with Bird's shooting ability. It will take this sort of miraculous player to break through the wall, and it will be breathtaking if it happens.
Don't expect it soon: The current crop of who's "got next" - Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose and maybe Andrew Wiggins - are superb and may expand the elite group, but none of them looms as a miraculous wall-breaker. That person may not yet have been born.
As for James: He belongs in the elite group. That much we know.
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
]]>While handled in each instance with taste and all the required respect and deference, Mariano Rivera's 2013 stadium-to-stadium farewell tour had to it the air of a funeral procession. With every plaque or lump of mound dirt it became more and more obvious that something more than just a great career was coming to an end.
Nowhere was this palpable feeling of eulogy more apparent than at Boston's Fenway Park on the evening of Sept. 15 - the night the playoff-bound Red Sox bid adieu to their longtime nemesis. With a tongue-in-cheek video roast, along with a somewhat odd string quartet rendition of "Enter Sandman," the farewell tribute to the sport's all-time saves leader was a gloomy reminder to every Yankees fan of one increasingly obvious fact: while the 20th Century unquestionably belonged to the New York Yankees, the 21st probably belongs to a team like the Boston Red Sox.
With their third World Series win in this still young new century - earned, appropriately enough, against one of baseball's other titans, the St. Louis Cardinals - the Red Sox have established themselves as a model organization, and quite possibly the face of Major League Baseball for years to come.
This baseball revolution, like many revolutions, began with a small band of determined individuals. When historians look back to find the asthenic underpinnings of the Yankee Empire, the Lexington and Concord moment will, in all likelihood, be the 2004 ALCS. Arguably the greatest comeback in professional sports history, the Red Sox from that day forward became baseball's embodiment of everything the Yankees could never be: the underdog. Indeed, no matter how big their payroll, or how numerous their all stars, the Red Sox have built a brand around being the habitual comeback kids - an identity premised on playing the league's Good Guys.
Such a narrative of course requires a bad guy, and the Yankees have been more than happy to fill that role in recent years. Some of this was out of the team's control: the late-'90s Yankees teams enjoyed much success, and with success comes envy and eventually resentment. Win it once and people will applaud you; win it four times in five years and eyes begin to roll. Practices that once upon a time symbolized a modest and dutiful deference to the gods of baseball history - nameless uniforms, clean shaves, tight haircuts - gradually became symbols of the overly-polished and corporate culture that came to embody the Bronx Bombers.
The same cannot be said of the Red Sox. With their scruffy beards and 'Idiots' ethos, the 2013 Sox - much like 2004's motley bunch of upstarts - appear to approach the game with a passion and playful recklessness long forgotten by New York's five-piece pinstripers. Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz - the one bit of continuity linking the 2004 team to this year's champions - plays the game with a flair and, at times, anger that only makes him more endearing to the Fenway faithful. His story - originally signed as "David Arias" by the Seattle Mariners, and later dropped by the Minnesota Twins in order to clear salary cap space - fits perfectly with the Red Sox romance.
Occasional Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez's early trajectory looked much different from Big Papi's. Whereas Ortiz appeared destined for a career of modest success, A-Rod the wunderkind was always bound for greatness. It seemed laughably unfair when the Yankees acquired the Hall of Famer-in-waiting back in 2004. Fresh off his first MVP award, Rodriguez was at the top of the baseball world. Alex's arrival would, as many believed, breath new life into the Yankees dynasty, and solidify him as one of the game's all-time greats. A-Rod would join names like Mantle, Gehrig and Ruth, and his number would one day find its way out to Monument Park.
But something funny happened on the way to Cooperstown. While Rodriguez spent the week fending off claims of obstruction in MLB's ongoing Biogenesis investigation, Ortiz (his own alleged PED use notwithstanding) was busy carrying his team to its third title in a decade. A-Rod will undoubtedly go down as one of baseball's great players - asterisk or no asterisk - but his resume and accolades won't win him the status of beloved legend that Ortiz has won in Boston. Both may have cheated, but one played for the Good Guys while the other - an admittedly unlikeable fellow to begin with - played for the bad guys. Baseball is now a game for bearded underdogs and angry upstarts.
Winning heals most wounds in pro sports, and the Yankees can turn their fortunes around in short fashion with a little more of it in the years to come. But the prospects, if you'll forgive the pun, look dim. While the Red Sox continue to produce in-house success stories like Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz and Xander Bogaerts, the Yankees can only look at farm flops such as Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain and wonder where it all went wrong.
The problems likely go deeper than one cheater and an aging "core" - something is rotten in the Bronx. As Keith Olbermann recently noted, there are a number of reasons why fewer and fewer Americans are watching baseball, but a big reason is that baseball stopped being a national sport years ago. So while the Yankees were busy building an empire, baseball internalized, got smaller. While the Yankees tore down their rickety, charming - and historic - old stadium and replaced it with the sports equivalent of the Mall of America, the Red Sox opted to make modest, piecemeal improvements to baseball's most revered ballpark, Fenway.
The MLB of the future will look a lot more like the NHL or even MLS, and some teams are prepared for that adjustment. The Yankees, like an aging and overextended empire, might need to scale back those imperial ambitions and settle instead for a now unfamiliar role: underdog.
Kevin Sullivan is the editor of RealClearWorld and a grumpy Yankees fan. You can follow him on Twitter @kevinbsullivan.
]]>Week 8 is in the books, which means we have a full half of a season's worth of evidence with which to judge the NFL, and yet as we compile our power rankings averages it still sort of seems like half the rankings are — at best — educated guesses.
For example, no one can seem to agree on the Carolina Panthers, who this week moved to 4-3 with a 31-13 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (universally ranked 30th or lower). That win landed the Panthers at 12th, 14th twice, 17th, 18th, 20th and 22nd. For a team that was ranked 21st in the preseason, is a 4-3 record enough to climb roughly 10 spots? Jeff Sagarin's computers think so, he had them 23 preseason.
A more important question: Does a no-loss record trump a one-loss record, by default? Only Sagarin's math says no; the Chiefs are merely 8th in his calculations. The other six sources we draw from have them first. (Pete Prisco at CBS even admits they're not the best team but says "they've earned that spot." So, there's that.)
Sagarin has the Seattle Seahawks No. 1 and the Denver Broncos No. 2; in our rankings this week the two are tied for second. Either of those teams has a strong case for the top spot.
The Seahawks' resume to-date is excellent, with Sagarin giving their schedule a rank of sixth, against which they've gone 7-1, only losing to the Indianapolis Colts. There are a lot of questions about Seattle's offensive durability: Sidney Rice just went down for the season with an ACL tear, starting tackle Russell Okung is out until Week 13 at the earliest. But by Prisco's logic, the logic that puts Kansas City first for its accomplishments thus far, the Seahawks' one loss against a much tougher schedule means they've earned it, too.
The Broncos, led by an on-fire Peyton Manning, were a unanimous No. 1 for three weeks, and in each of the two weeks before that received four out of seven possible first-place votes. Then with one loss, they dropped down to third, and a 45-21 win over Washington put them back in second. While Denver's schedule strength is barely better than the Chiefs', the Broncos started the season ranked second and Kansas City started 23rd. Is one loss more significant than a record year from Peyton Manning in determining which team is stronger now?
Looking at the rest of the league, this week reveals an interesting trend: 13 teams moved just one rank up or down, and 11 teams didn't move at all. The previous two weeks, only 11 teams moved one spot or fewer. While that might mean that rankings are becoming more solidified, look at all the teams hovering near .500. It gives the impression that maybe, outside of the top or bottom teams, we just have no idea who is actually good or bad.
Check out this week's full rankings to see where your team landed.
Brian Colella is an associate editor of RealClearSports.
DiMaggio had a terrific 56-game run in 1941 with a .408 batting average, 15 home runs and 16 doubles. However, several players out-hit DiMaggio over 56-game sequences: Rogers Hornsby batted .476 over 56 games in 1924, George Brett hit .480 over 56 games in 1980, and most notably, over the exact time period of DiMaggio's streak, Ted Williams (in 55 games) hit .412 with many more walks (50 to 21) and a higher on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS: 1.224 to 1.180).
Why are DiMaggio's 56 games included in epic sports lore while the superior feats of Hornsby, Brett and Williams (contemporaneously) are lost to history?
The most common reason cited for exalting the Streak is that hitting safely in 56 consecutive games is unparalleled consistency. However, DiMaggio's streak actually does not demonstrate any unusual consistency. The general understanding of consistency is to do roughly the same thing over and over again. In statistical terms, it is having a small standard of deviation - the mathematical way of saying that there is little variation in the performances.
During the Streak, DiMaggio averaged 1.63 +/- .93 hits per game as compared with Williams' 1.40 +/- 1.05. For additional perspective, Yunel Escobar, who batted exactly the American League mean of .256 this season, averaged .88 +/- .90 hits per game over his first 56 games. There is no statistically significant difference in the three standard deviations (.93, 1.05, .90). Thus, basic mathematical analysis of consistency does not elevate The Streak above Williams' contemporaneous hitting nor even distinguish DiMaggio's consistency from a representative average hitter.
Without favorable mathematical analysis, Streak fans can only claim great consistency by changing the measured result from the usual "hits per game" to the contrived formulation "at least one hit in a game" and noting that DiMaggio "did not get zero hits" 56 games in a row. However, eliminating a single result from the 56 games — zero hits — does not necessarily create consistency.
This is illustrated by the following example: a B on 56 consecutive exams would clearly demonstrate consistency. A grade of B or B+ on 56 consecutive exams might also be considered consistent. However, a student who received grades scattered in the A+ to D- range on 56 consecutive tests can say he got "at least a D- on every test" or "no F on every test" but would not be considered consistent. He does not demonstrate the spirit of consistency, as it is commonly understood. (If he wants praise, the student needs better grades.)
The Streak cannot even be considered, more broadly, consistently good hitting, because too many (23) of the games were subpar (one hit in four or five at-bats). The subpar games served mainly to fill in the gaps between the more worthy games, meeting the requirement for consecutive (at least one hit in a game). This was important because DiMaggio's 56 games came to attention only as a consecutive streak.
However, it is an odd rendition of consecutive in which the events of interest — the hits — are separated and have no meaningful interaction. There is no benefit accrued by this sort of interrupted consecutiveness, as compared with, for example, consecutive hits in an inning leading to runs or multiple planks laid consecutively making a wooden bridge.
Without any special consistency or benefit related to the consecutive label, the mania that surrounds the 56-game hitting streak seems surprising. Its most instructive feature is that it is alone among consecutive streaks. Other long consecutive streaks generate nowhere near the same fanfare. Tom Brady recently came within one foot of throwing a touchdown pass in his 53rd consecutive game, a shade short of Drew Brees' all-time record of 54. Brady is a popular superstar and the Patriots a marquee team, yet the game was just another game on another Sunday.
There was also little hoopla when Michael Jordan broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record for consecutive games scoring at least 10 points, and continued on to 866 in a row. Returning to baseball, Orel Hershiser's 59 consecutive scoreless innings in 1988 receives substantially less attention than DiMaggio's streak. Notably, a baseball streak of similar nature and value — most consecutive games getting on base (ironically held by Ted Williams at 84) — remains largely unknown despite the modern emphasis given to on-base percentage. It is understandable why this was ignored in 1949, but it is noteworthy that few noticed when Orlando Cabrera reached base safely in 63 consecutive games in 2006, and Mike Trout in 46 games this year.
The absence of great fanfare around the other long consecutive streaks suggests that fans and media intuit the limitations of these streaks. They are regarded as excellent performances based on the usual criteria and not unduly exalted beyond that. The exception is DiMaggio.
The major reason advanced to separate DiMaggio's streak from other long consecutive streaks is that his was less likely to occur; therefore, more difficult. One can compare the relative odds of different streaks occurring based on the likelihood of each specific result in a game, and the length of the streak (i.e. a fraction less than one multiplied to the 56th, 59th, 84th, or 866th power). Several calculations of this sort are possible, yielding different results, but no matter how this type of analysis plays out, it surely misses the point: ALL of these long streaks have a near infinitesimal chance (typically one in ~ten or a hundred million or even less) of actually occurring.
For all practical purposes, the results are the same: You cannot make grandiose claims about the difference in sizes of amoebas. Without any meaningful distinction between DiMaggio's streak and other long streaks, it follows that the unique exaltation of 56 is not rooted in the achievement itself, but rather in something else.
We can speculate about that something else. In 1941 DiMaggio was already a superstar, the Yankee Clipper, a rags-to-riches son of an immigrant fisherman. At that time baseball was particularly prominent in American culture. We are always partial to finding heroes, and America in 1941 may have been particularly ready. The depression was not far in the rear-view mirror. World War II was raging, Hitler was advancing; six days after DiMaggio's streak started, the first United States ship was sunk by a German U-boat. Perhaps the situation was ripe for defining a super-hero: The right player at the right time with the right feat (pre-OBP and pre-WAR, the base hit was the coin of the realm).
Then the super-hero married Marilyn Monroe, and was celebrated in song ("Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?"), literature ("the Great DiMaggio" of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea") and television ("Mister Coffee"). As the DiMaggio aura blossomed, "56" became fixed in the American psyche and grew to transcend sports: The noted commentator Stephen Jay Gould called it "... the finest of legitimate legends because it embodies the essence of the battle that truly defines our lives ... he cheated death".
The Streak does not warrant the hype.
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
Sheldon Hirsch is the co-author of "The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball."
]]>As recently as last summer, the great Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao debate was still alive and well. But, by the end of the year, after C.J. Ross, Duane Ford and Juan Manuel Marquez's right fist chimed in, it was fair to wonder whether the Filipino star would ever enter a boxing ring again.
When his last two conquerers, Marquez and Timothy Bradley, face off for the WBO welterweight title Saturday night in Las Vegas, it will in many ways mark the arrival of the post-Pacquiao era.
Given the mythic aura that surrounded Pacquiao in recent years, his sudden decline is jarring. And it serves to highlight the downside of media-driven celebrity, the brutal verdicts rendered in a boxing ring, as well as the sport's frequent unfairness.
The latter was on display last June when Pacquiao lost a highly controversial split decision to Bradley. Though Pacquiao was far from dominant, and Bradley was more competitive than many, including the HBO announcing crew, gave him credit for, the aforementioned Ford and Ross' scorecards bordered on criminal. Fair or not, however, the loss delivered a hit to the Pacquiao legend.
But the Pacquiao decline really began seven months before, amidst the boos of the MGM Grand crowd after a controversial majority-decision win over Marquez. Going in, many expected the still-dominant Pacquiao to knock out the aging Mexican star and end their rivalry with a finality that had eluded him in their previous two bouts. But, yet again, Marquez flummoxed his rival with sharp counterpunching. And last December, it was Marquez who emphatically finished the rivalry with a brutal right hand.
Pacquiao, who won world titles in a record eight divisions, became a bonafide mainstream sports icon with a beatdown of Oscar De La Hoya in 2008 and a vicious one-punch knockout of Ricky Hatton in 2009. A hero in the Philippines, he became an international superstar and fan favorite thanks to his ferocious power, lightning speed, entertaining style and charming persona.
During the height of Pacquiao mania, media hype turned him into an almost unstoppable force, whose speed and power would be too much for any fighter. But he was never able to completely conquer his kryptonite (Marquez) and never got a chance to fight the best fighter of this generation, Floyd Mayweather Jr. (The breakdown of their 2010 negotiations likely cost Pacquiao around $100 million).
Now, Mayweather is the clear-cut pound-for-pound king. And after being written off in advance of his 2011 fight with Pacquiao, the 40-year-old Marquez is climbing pound-for-pound lists and fighting for a world title Saturday. Meanwhile, Pacquiao will look to prolong his career in December in Macau against Brandon Rios, a fighter coming off a loss to Mike Alvarado.
None of this is meant to diminish Pacquiao's legacy. He will go down as one of the top fighters of this generation, and his eight-division title record may never be touched. He retains a huge fan base and will remain the valiant warrior he has always been. Barring an upset loss to Rios, he will continue to fight and may have several more glorious moments left in his boxing future.
But the past year has raised questions. Did he ever have a chance against Mayweather? Was he as good as we thought? Probably not, and in his defense, the media and fans probably built him into something he wasn't. Unrealistic expectations led to the rapid fall as much as any deficiencies in the ring.
When Bradley and Marquez face off Saturday (in a very compelling matchup, by the way), the rapidly changing fortunes of Pacquiao and his rivals will be on display. For Saturday's combatants, it will be sweet justice. For Pacquiao, it will be a reminder of a swift fall. Manny Pacquiao the fighter will press on, but the icon is gone.
Kyle Adams is an editor at RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.