Tomorrow, March 10th, kicks off the Greatest-Sporting Month of the Year, so let me be the first to wish you a happy Greatest-Sporting-Month-of-the-Year Eve. The offical start to GSMY varies from year to year, but it always begins right around when the college basketball conference tournaments start and lasts approximately 31 days. This year, BSMY starts March 10th and ends on April 12th. Let's review why these next 31 days are so great. If you're not totally pumped up by the end of this review, then I just don't know what to tell you.
First, we kick things off tomorrow with a ridiculous schedule. Stage 3 of Paris-Nice, World Baseball Classic games, college conference tourneys (including the Big East), and Champions League football. I mean, that's just a ridiculously good line up. Through out the rest of the month we continue to have great cycling with the spring classics (GSYM ends on April 12th with the Paris-Roubaix), extremely important English football matches, the World Baseball Classic followed by opening day of the MLB season, and of course, March Madness. People even tell me that the NBA and NHL will be holding games during this same time period. Amazing. March Madness could carry the month by itself, so to have all of this other stuff just puts things over the top. What other time of the year can match it? I challenge anyone to find me a better 31 days.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
In Praise of the World Baseball Classic
Today I write to encourage everyone to watch and support the World Baseball Classic. For those who did not even know that it is going on, let me tell you that it is and it is awesome. Let's go over all of the necessary ingredients for a successful international tournament and see how the WBC does. In our comparison we will use the World Cup as the benchmark for international tournament greatness.
1. First and foremost, the citizens of all (or at least most) of the countries involved must care about the tournament games. Almost everything else follows from this first key factor. Obviously, the World Cup is off the charts in this category. Well, except for in the US. But in every other country, the citizens care passionately about the World Cup games. On the other end of the spectrum, you have something like Olympic basketball in the 1990's. Back then pretty much only the US and maybe Greece cared. I think the WBC ranks pretty highly here. I haven't gotten a sense yet this time around, but during the first WBC, all of the countries were into it. Japan, Cuba, Venezuela, the DR - all those guys had great fan support.
2. The players have to care, and care enough to actually play. This should follow from #1. If the fans care, the players will care. Again, the World Cup ranks first here, although maybe the Olympics are tied for first b/c every non-pro olympic athlete really cares about being there. After the Dream Team, Olympic basketball suffered a huge fall off in players caring. They couldn't even get the best US NBA players to go, until we started getting our asses whiped by Angola and Dhijbouti. Now the care factor is back up, which may or may not last. In the first year of the WBC, it seemed like the participation and care factors were really good, especially for the Asian and Latin teams. It looks like it's fallen off a little this year, but still pretty good.
3. An open, competitive, diverse field. This is what hurts the olympics. In most of the sports, there are only a few countries who can compete. Skiing is dominated by the northern European countries, gymastics is US/China/Russia, Swimming is US/Australia, and no one can hang with the Canadians in curling. The World Cup is good here but not great. The field is certainly diverse, and pretty open and competitive, but it always comes down to the same countries at the end. The WBC field is a little narrow due to the lack of Europeans and Africans, but the competitiveness is great. The US, Japan, Venezuela, the DR or Cuba could all win it.
What else am I missing? I think those are the big ones, and the WBC does well in all of them. As in the World Cup, I root for the teams whose fans care the most and for those that a win would mean the most. Thus I will be pulling for something like a Cuba/Venezuela final. Wait a minute - does make me some kind of a commie?
1. First and foremost, the citizens of all (or at least most) of the countries involved must care about the tournament games. Almost everything else follows from this first key factor. Obviously, the World Cup is off the charts in this category. Well, except for in the US. But in every other country, the citizens care passionately about the World Cup games. On the other end of the spectrum, you have something like Olympic basketball in the 1990's. Back then pretty much only the US and maybe Greece cared. I think the WBC ranks pretty highly here. I haven't gotten a sense yet this time around, but during the first WBC, all of the countries were into it. Japan, Cuba, Venezuela, the DR - all those guys had great fan support.
2. The players have to care, and care enough to actually play. This should follow from #1. If the fans care, the players will care. Again, the World Cup ranks first here, although maybe the Olympics are tied for first b/c every non-pro olympic athlete really cares about being there. After the Dream Team, Olympic basketball suffered a huge fall off in players caring. They couldn't even get the best US NBA players to go, until we started getting our asses whiped by Angola and Dhijbouti. Now the care factor is back up, which may or may not last. In the first year of the WBC, it seemed like the participation and care factors were really good, especially for the Asian and Latin teams. It looks like it's fallen off a little this year, but still pretty good.
3. An open, competitive, diverse field. This is what hurts the olympics. In most of the sports, there are only a few countries who can compete. Skiing is dominated by the northern European countries, gymastics is US/China/Russia, Swimming is US/Australia, and no one can hang with the Canadians in curling. The World Cup is good here but not great. The field is certainly diverse, and pretty open and competitive, but it always comes down to the same countries at the end. The WBC field is a little narrow due to the lack of Europeans and Africans, but the competitiveness is great. The US, Japan, Venezuela, the DR or Cuba could all win it.
What else am I missing? I think those are the big ones, and the WBC does well in all of them. As in the World Cup, I root for the teams whose fans care the most and for those that a win would mean the most. Thus I will be pulling for something like a Cuba/Venezuela final. Wait a minute - does make me some kind of a commie?
Monday, February 2, 2009
Diving in Football
This past Sunday Steven Gerrard was booked for diving during the Liverpool-Chelsea match. This got me thinking again about this insidious problem and how to tackle it (so to speak). I'm not trying to single out Gerrard b/c I have no idea if he is a particularly grievous offender, but he's definitely a high-profile player and this one incident was a blatant dive in the later stages of very important game that was tied at the time. So, apologies to Liverpool fans for bringing up the topic with that lead in.
Right now we're stuck in limbo where commentators and fans generally deride diving and point out the obvious ones, but nothing is done about it, so it continues. I think the diving epidemic needs to be dealt with in one of three ways.
First, it's possible that fans deal with it by slowly accepting it as part of the game. I think this is largely the case in some of the continental European leagues and South American leagues. There, it's not something that is done proudly or a lot, but when it happens it is not met with outrage. Think of basketball and how the hard foul has become an accepted way to stop a fast break. Why didn't popular opinion develop to see this as a cheap, unsporting tactic? For a baseball example, why is the pitcher allowed to try to pick off runners, but the defense can't use trickery to turn an infield fly into a double play? In the first instance, the "trickery" is accepted and in the second it is not and therefore the infield fly rule was put in. The point is, in all sports teams are going to figure out every way to get any small advantage that falls within the rulebook. Sometimes these strategies are seen as positive, smart innovations and sometimes they are seen as cheap tactics that violate the spirit of the game. Right now most people see diving as falling into the second category, but I don't see any a priori reason why it has to be there. (As an aside, the ridiculous number of offensive charging calls in college basketball has become a huge pet peeve of mine. In my opinion, this was a tactic that started out as a smart innovation to break up a fast break, but has since tipped over into a cheap, overused tactic that definitely violates the spirit of the game - I mean, those guys aren't even TRYING to play defense, they're trying to stand there and get run into!!!! Perhaps this is a topic for another day and how Duke is the number one violator).
OK, but for those of us who do see diving as violating the spirit of the game (and for that matter, the spirit of your manhood), what can be done to stop it?
Option two would be to deal with it like American Football would. In American football, there are 25 referees on the field, a million rules, stoppages in play every 7 seconds, and video replay. This allows the game to be very tightly controlled and every infraction to be spotted and penalized. This works quite well for American football. In football, referees could be added and/or video replay could be used to identify diving and there would be some penalty associated with it. For instance, an impartial observer could watch the replay of a match and retrospectively give out yellow cards for diving. I think this would work pretty well. Not only would accumulated yellow cards lead to suspension as it does now, a running tally of "diving cards" could be kept and shame heaped upon the worst offenders.
An even better solution would be one where the players themselves enforce no diving as an "unwritten rule" of the game like baseball and hockey players do. In this scenario, the penalty for diving would be perhaps a hard foul later in the game, but also, and more importantly, the scorn of your peers. Doesn't this work well in baseball and hockey? I don't know enough about hockey to come up with a good example, but in baseball there is the obvious one of a pitcher beaning a home run-admiring rookie (which seems like a harsh punishment for the crime, when you think about it). Why couldn't a Roy Keane type figure deal out some vigilante justice to floppers?
There's a few reasons why this last approach might not work. First, the consensus amongst players obviously isn't there yet. This is partly why the Gerrard dive caught my attention so much. Here is a great player, an Englishman, a rough n tumble type of guy - if he's diving then everyone's diving. Second, the penalties in football are too harsh for any kind of retaliation or self-enforcement to work. A hard tackle, if seen as deliberate, could easily be a straight red card. Now your team is playing with 10 men for the rest of the game, and you're looking at a 3 game suspension. In a 38 game season, that is too much of a consequence.
So, it looks like option #2 is the way to go. Let's lobby to get this instituted right away!
Right now we're stuck in limbo where commentators and fans generally deride diving and point out the obvious ones, but nothing is done about it, so it continues. I think the diving epidemic needs to be dealt with in one of three ways.
First, it's possible that fans deal with it by slowly accepting it as part of the game. I think this is largely the case in some of the continental European leagues and South American leagues. There, it's not something that is done proudly or a lot, but when it happens it is not met with outrage. Think of basketball and how the hard foul has become an accepted way to stop a fast break. Why didn't popular opinion develop to see this as a cheap, unsporting tactic? For a baseball example, why is the pitcher allowed to try to pick off runners, but the defense can't use trickery to turn an infield fly into a double play? In the first instance, the "trickery" is accepted and in the second it is not and therefore the infield fly rule was put in. The point is, in all sports teams are going to figure out every way to get any small advantage that falls within the rulebook. Sometimes these strategies are seen as positive, smart innovations and sometimes they are seen as cheap tactics that violate the spirit of the game. Right now most people see diving as falling into the second category, but I don't see any a priori reason why it has to be there. (As an aside, the ridiculous number of offensive charging calls in college basketball has become a huge pet peeve of mine. In my opinion, this was a tactic that started out as a smart innovation to break up a fast break, but has since tipped over into a cheap, overused tactic that definitely violates the spirit of the game - I mean, those guys aren't even TRYING to play defense, they're trying to stand there and get run into!!!! Perhaps this is a topic for another day and how Duke is the number one violator).
OK, but for those of us who do see diving as violating the spirit of the game (and for that matter, the spirit of your manhood), what can be done to stop it?
Option two would be to deal with it like American Football would. In American football, there are 25 referees on the field, a million rules, stoppages in play every 7 seconds, and video replay. This allows the game to be very tightly controlled and every infraction to be spotted and penalized. This works quite well for American football. In football, referees could be added and/or video replay could be used to identify diving and there would be some penalty associated with it. For instance, an impartial observer could watch the replay of a match and retrospectively give out yellow cards for diving. I think this would work pretty well. Not only would accumulated yellow cards lead to suspension as it does now, a running tally of "diving cards" could be kept and shame heaped upon the worst offenders.
An even better solution would be one where the players themselves enforce no diving as an "unwritten rule" of the game like baseball and hockey players do. In this scenario, the penalty for diving would be perhaps a hard foul later in the game, but also, and more importantly, the scorn of your peers. Doesn't this work well in baseball and hockey? I don't know enough about hockey to come up with a good example, but in baseball there is the obvious one of a pitcher beaning a home run-admiring rookie (which seems like a harsh punishment for the crime, when you think about it). Why couldn't a Roy Keane type figure deal out some vigilante justice to floppers?
There's a few reasons why this last approach might not work. First, the consensus amongst players obviously isn't there yet. This is partly why the Gerrard dive caught my attention so much. Here is a great player, an Englishman, a rough n tumble type of guy - if he's diving then everyone's diving. Second, the penalties in football are too harsh for any kind of retaliation or self-enforcement to work. A hard tackle, if seen as deliberate, could easily be a straight red card. Now your team is playing with 10 men for the rest of the game, and you're looking at a 3 game suspension. In a 38 game season, that is too much of a consequence.
So, it looks like option #2 is the way to go. Let's lobby to get this instituted right away!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Great Idea for Croftina's History Class
Croftina! I have a great idea for your history class. First, you need to clear off a whole wall. Then, make 25 blank time lines that run from 1750 to the present. Give each of your students a time line and have them each pick some figure/data/trend and do research to track it through US history, plotting their results on the time line. You could track population, steel output, GDP, incidents of flu, size of the military, acres of conservation land, etc... - you get the idea, there must be many more. Then, line up all of the time lines on your wall. Now you have 25 data sets through history, correlated in time so you can how they interelate and how they are effected by major events. Your students could see how population shot up after WWII, or how conservation land was a big deal during Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Wouldn't that be sweet?
We could even take this idea and make it into a website. I envision the website containing one time line and a long list of things to plot one side. The user could click on a checkbox next to whatever item he/she wanted and it would be plotted. Click on another one and it would be plotted on the same axis. You could uncheck to get rid of plots. Of course, the plots would have to be normalized in some way b/c the y-axis for every item would be different.
We could even take this idea and make it into a website. I envision the website containing one time line and a long list of things to plot one side. The user could click on a checkbox next to whatever item he/she wanted and it would be plotted. Click on another one and it would be plotted on the same axis. You could uncheck to get rid of plots. Of course, the plots would have to be normalized in some way b/c the y-axis for every item would be different.
Monday, January 12, 2009
BCS Alternative
Coach, very interesting article from Bill James. I've been waiting for years to hear from you a legitimate alternate proposal, a way to replace the BCS system. Let's have it, in depth and detail!
Genesis of the FEG
For my first real blog post, I'm going to cover the origins of the Football E-mail Group. I have saved every e-mail I that ever written going to back 2004. So I looked through some around spring of 2006 and found the e-mails that I consider to be the forerunners to what we now know as the modern day FEG. There are posted verbatim a few paragraphs below (with a few spelling corrections).
The back story is as follows: I had been working in my lab where I mostly sat in front of a computer all day and needed an occasional distraction from work. Since Satish had recently moved to England, I decided to write to him about English Football. I included Arnold partly because he's just a good guy and partly because I found the idea of sending Arnold football e-mails humorous b/c he neither likes nor cares about football (at least back then, we've converted him now).
In these 3 e-mails we discuss the 2005/2006 Champions League final between Arsenal and Barcelona, and get pumped for the up coming 2006 World Cup. The last e-mail is the best b/c that's the one where we introduced Croftina. You also need to know that Tutte is one of our many nicknames for Satish. It has a long origin, but the bottom line is that it means shit in Hindi. Without further ado, here they are:
May 19th, 2006; From Nick, To Satish and Amol:
First of all, congratulations to Tutee and Barcelona for their victory- they were the better team and it was well deserved. Although, Tutee, I say it's a little BS that Barcelona, who just happens to be the best club in the world, is somehow your second favorite team. That's like being a Brewers fan and claiming that you also like the Yankees.
Anyways, let's get to the game. Arsenal started off strong and had a few good chances in the first 15 minutes. Henry probably should have put one of those away. I knew that Barcelona was the heavy favorite going in, but those first 15 minutes gave me hope - i really thought it was going to be a great game. And then my worst nightmare comes true. Jens Lehman gets a red card. This was just devastating. The foul was obvious and the ref either had to give Lehman a red card or let the Barcelona goal stand (a lose-lose situation for the Gunners). At the time, I was hoping the ref would let the goal count and we go on playing with 11 men. The ref decided the other way, and even though Rhonaldino couldn't convert the free kick, I was destraught. It looked like any chance of a victory, or even a good game, was gone. I would have rather played a goal down with 11 men than have it be nil-nil with 10 men.
But then Sol Campbell scored a textbook goal and it looked like we might hang on for a while. Of course, Barcelona was too strong in the end and scored two goals in 4 minutes to seal the win. A tough loss, but the Gunners should keep their heads held high after such a valiant effort.
May 21st, 2006; From Satish, To Nick and Amol:
May 22nd, 2006; From Nick, To Satish, Amol and Croftina:
Keen insights from Tuttee. I agree all around. I'm quite worried that Arsenal is going to lose a number of key players (Henry, Pires, Cole, ... any others?), but hopefully we can keep our defense in tact and develop the promising young talent that we have to make another run at the UCL title next year.
Now, on to even bigger things- The World Cup!!!
I've added Croftina to the team for these crucial discussions. Croftina has been in and out of the squad due to behavorial issues (ie not responding in a timely manner) but I think we have to include him in the World Cup team b/c of his tremendous upside. An in-form Croftina is truly a sight to behold.
I'm not sure that Satish and Croftina have met, so let me give some brief introductions.
Satish is pretty much your average Indian guy. He enjoys drinking, he LOVES to eat, he just got engaged and is looking forward to pumping.
Croftina is pretty much your average white guy. He lives in Connecticut with a bunch of other white people and is always running around doing things.
Let's get started with the only team that matters- England. I love our line up, but unless Owen and Rooney get fit soon, we're not going to score any goals. I'm worried about both of them- It will be a miracle if Rooney is ready by the second round and Owen is going to be too rusty. The reserve strikers, Crouch and Walcott (?!?), don't exactly instill fear into the hearts of opponents. It would be such a shame if Rooney is not fit, b/c with him we'd be unstoppable. Just look at the rest of our line up: Becks, Lampard, Cole and Gerrard in midfield and Cole, John Terry, Neville and Campbell in defense. Who can compete with that midfield? Joe Cole is having the best season of his life, Gerrard has led Liverpool to the UCL and FA Cup titles in successive years, Becks, although not as dominant as he once was, still has to have something left in the tank and Lampard is runner up for footballer of the year. Amazing!
Please discuss your thoughts on this brilliant English side and how pumped up you are for the start of the World Cup.
Coach, out
The back story is as follows: I had been working in my lab where I mostly sat in front of a computer all day and needed an occasional distraction from work. Since Satish had recently moved to England, I decided to write to him about English Football. I included Arnold partly because he's just a good guy and partly because I found the idea of sending Arnold football e-mails humorous b/c he neither likes nor cares about football (at least back then, we've converted him now).
In these 3 e-mails we discuss the 2005/2006 Champions League final between Arsenal and Barcelona, and get pumped for the up coming 2006 World Cup. The last e-mail is the best b/c that's the one where we introduced Croftina. You also need to know that Tutte is one of our many nicknames for Satish. It has a long origin, but the bottom line is that it means shit in Hindi. Without further ado, here they are:
May 19th, 2006; From Nick, To Satish and Amol:
First of all, congratulations to Tutee and Barcelona for their victory- they were the better team and it was well deserved. Although, Tutee, I say it's a little BS that Barcelona, who just happens to be the best club in the world, is somehow your second favorite team. That's like being a Brewers fan and claiming that you also like the Yankees.
Anyways, let's get to the game. Arsenal started off strong and had a few good chances in the first 15 minutes. Henry probably should have put one of those away. I knew that Barcelona was the heavy favorite going in, but those first 15 minutes gave me hope - i really thought it was going to be a great game. And then my worst nightmare comes true. Jens Lehman gets a red card. This was just devastating. The foul was obvious and the ref either had to give Lehman a red card or let the Barcelona goal stand (a lose-lose situation for the Gunners). At the time, I was hoping the ref would let the goal count and we go on playing with 11 men. The ref decided the other way, and even though Rhonaldino couldn't convert the free kick, I was destraught. It looked like any chance of a victory, or even a good game, was gone. I would have rather played a goal down with 11 men than have it be nil-nil with 10 men.
But then Sol Campbell scored a textbook goal and it looked like we might hang on for a while. Of course, Barcelona was too strong in the end and scored two goals in 4 minutes to seal the win. A tough loss, but the Gunners should keep their heads held high after such a valiant effort.
May 21st, 2006; From Satish, To Nick and Amol:
great assessment by coach
i agree, the tempo of the match totally changed when lehman got sent off and campbell's header was brilliant which hopefully means that he will be on form for the big stage.
i agree, the tempo of the match totally changed when lehman got sent off and campbell's header was brilliant which hopefully means that he will be on form for the big stage.
i am elated at the barca victory but would have like to see more ronnie magic. i have to say that, former celtic, larrson came up big. despite the short time he played i would say he was the man of the match.
the goat of the match was THE REF...i mean has he ever heard of playing the advantage and giving the yellow...this would have made for a much more even match.
ultimately, the team that was suppossed to win did and all is right in the world.
coach have you heard that theo walcott made the england squad?
i'm going to watch the england b team play next week against belarus in reading. theo walcott, michael owen, jermaine defoe will be playing as per rumors. i'll let you know
i'm going to sleep,
satish
May 22nd, 2006; From Nick, To Satish, Amol and Croftina:
Keen insights from Tuttee. I agree all around. I'm quite worried that Arsenal is going to lose a number of key players (Henry, Pires, Cole, ... any others?), but hopefully we can keep our defense in tact and develop the promising young talent that we have to make another run at the UCL title next year.
Now, on to even bigger things- The World Cup!!!
I've added Croftina to the team for these crucial discussions. Croftina has been in and out of the squad due to behavorial issues (ie not responding in a timely manner) but I think we have to include him in the World Cup team b/c of his tremendous upside. An in-form Croftina is truly a sight to behold.
I'm not sure that Satish and Croftina have met, so let me give some brief introductions.
Satish is pretty much your average Indian guy. He enjoys drinking, he LOVES to eat, he just got engaged and is looking forward to pumping.
Croftina is pretty much your average white guy. He lives in Connecticut with a bunch of other white people and is always running around doing things.
Let's get started with the only team that matters- England. I love our line up, but unless Owen and Rooney get fit soon, we're not going to score any goals. I'm worried about both of them- It will be a miracle if Rooney is ready by the second round and Owen is going to be too rusty. The reserve strikers, Crouch and Walcott (?!?), don't exactly instill fear into the hearts of opponents. It would be such a shame if Rooney is not fit, b/c with him we'd be unstoppable. Just look at the rest of our line up: Becks, Lampard, Cole and Gerrard in midfield and Cole, John Terry, Neville and Campbell in defense. Who can compete with that midfield? Joe Cole is having the best season of his life, Gerrard has led Liverpool to the UCL and FA Cup titles in successive years, Becks, although not as dominant as he once was, still has to have something left in the tank and Lampard is runner up for footballer of the year. Amazing!
Please discuss your thoughts on this brilliant English side and how pumped up you are for the start of the World Cup.
Coach, out
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Welcome!
Welcome to my newly created blog. This is all very new to me, but I'm excited to try it out. First some background. My main man Croftina set up this blog as a Christmas present to me. He gets a lot of e-mail from me on various topics and I guess he thought I should consolidate all of my musings into one location.
I'm not sure yet what course this blog is going to take. I guess we'll see.
I'm not sure yet what course this blog is going to take. I guess we'll see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)