Pater Familias » Sports

MY SISTER’S FIRST HOCKEY GAME.

Philip — Tue, 01 May 2012 01:51:16 +0000

MY SISTER’S FIRST HOCKEY GAME. When my brother Elmer and I went off to graduate school, my mother had expected that there would be much less discussion of sports at meals. However, my sister Mary emerged as a real sports fan, even of hockey, in which my father had no interest. When Mary came to visit that winter, we took her to a Black Hawk-Bruins hockey game. The first period was crisp and exciting. Hockey is much more vivid in real life, especially as compared to the images on the black-and-white televisions of the day. And then in the second period, somebody checked Stan Mikita into the boards. Players did not wear helmets then. Mikita lay unconscious, the red blood soaking into the ice. The crowd came alive with approving shouts. Among the shouts were: “Shake it off, Mikita.” and “Play hockey, you honky.” Mary looked at us and said, “Oh my.”

HOCKEY SUSPENSIONS—INTENT AND INJURY.

Philip — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:07:53 +0000

HOCKEY SUSPENSIONS—INTENT AND INJURY. The National Hockey League playoffs began with a lot of injuries, a lot of suspensions and a lot of controversy. Hockey has a dilemma. It’s a dangerous game. Eric Lindros, one of the greatest players of the 90′s had many problems with concussions (wikipedia article here). Sidney Crosby, one of the greatest players today, has missed long stretches of games because of concussions (wikipedia article here). Yet many fans prefer “playoff hockey” with lots of hits. This post from a hockey website sums up: “The 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs have been a unique brand of brutal. There’s rough stuff in nearly every series, including a half-dozen line brawls. Fighting is up; and, of course, so are the ratings.”

In determining suspensions, should the NHL take into account whether a player was injured? Should it take into account whether there was intent to injure? There has been a lot of discussion; for example, here. I seem to be in the minority on both issues. If the NHL is serious about reducing injuries, it should downplay intent and give more weight to injuries. The problem with making intent a major factor in discipline is that officials are understandably reluctant to accuse somebody of intent to injure. Consequently, emphasizing intent is inconsistent with reducing injuries. On the other hand, focusing on injury caused will make players more careful. A player penalized for causing an injury may rightly feel that he was unlucky, but the injured player was also unlucky.

THE COMEBACK OF TABLE ICE HOCKEY.

Philip — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:47:37 +0000

THE COMEBACK OF TABLE ICE HOCKEY. Will Connors had an article on the comeback of table ice hockey in the Wall Street Journal (April 23). Connors reported on the recent Canadian Table Hockey Championships, which had 120 participants and several hundred spectators. Connors says that: “In Europe, the sport is taken more seriously. There are international rankings, prize purses of several thousand dollars and celebrity players.” Here is a wikipedia article that describes the game. Connors says that the heyday of the game was in the 70′s. We played the game a lot in the 60′s after my sister Mary brought it back from Toronto as a Christmas present for my brother Elmer and me. As she was arriving at the railroad station in Chicago, a well-known hockey player helped her with her packages, and was happy to see the hockey game box. He asked how old her brothers were and, Mary said, seemed surprised to learn that they were in their 20′s.

THE MOST IMPORTANT EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS ? (COMMENT).

Philip — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:38:40 +0000

THE MOST IMPORTANT EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS? (COMMENT). Lee Bryant and then Nick drew my attention to this article on deadspin.com about the importance of the first episode of the Simpsons to deal with baseball by commenting on my post on the “Moneybart” episode of the Simpsons. The article celebrates the 20th anniversary of an episode which was a landmark for the program because it was the first time that the Simpsons had won their time slot. The episode—Homer at the Bat”—had a baseball theme. The writing staff was “full of fantasy baseball junkies”, and the script was full of baseball lore. The episode featured the voices and cartoon versions of nine active baseball players. The choices stand up 20 years later in terms of their importance to the game. The episode is also noteworthy for the Simpsons characters behaving uncharacteristically—Homer has success, winning the game for his team with a walk-off grand slam homer.

BOUNTY HUNTING IN FOOTBALL.

Philip — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:32:25 +0000

BOUNTY HUNTING IN FOOTBALL. I posted recently about the claim that in a conference championship game the New York Giants “strategically concussed” a player for the 49ers—targeted him because he had previously had four concussions. Now the NFL has announced that the New Orleans Saints maintained a bounty pool to reward game-ending injuries inflicted on opposing players. The pool amounts were greatest in 2009, when the Saints won the Super Bowl. Comments from several players indicate their belief that this kind of reward system happens a lot. Some players whose careers were ended by injury have said that they thought they were targeted. Other players—usually defensive players—have taken the position that football is a dangerous game and the players understand that. I posted here a year ago about how a lot of fans and players like the danger. The commissioner of the NFL says that there are two issues: player safety and competitive integrity. Certainly if the teams in a playoff game are playing by different rules, the team with the bounty system has a competitive advantage.

A GREAT PHILOSOPHER ON BASEBALL AS A RELIGION.

Philip — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:08:22 +0000

A GREAT PHILOSOPHER ON BASEBALL AS A RELIGION. Mary Jane quite frequently refers to baseball as a religion for me. The South Side Sox blog called my attention to this essay from 1919 by Morris Cohen, whom Bertrand Russell once called “the most significant philosopher in the United States”. The title is “Baseball as a National Religion”, and it is reprinted on John Thorn’s Our Game blog. Here are some quotes which give the flavor of Cohen’s argument: “I … maintain that, by all the canons of our modern books on comparative religion, baseball is a religion, and the only one that is not sectarian but national.” Baseball offers “redemption from the limitations of our petty individual lives and the mystic unity with a larger life of which we are a part.” Baseball has even more of the religious quality of Greek drama, “since we are absorbed not only in the action of the visible actors but more deeply in the fate of the mystic unities which we call the contending cities.”

Cohen says that: “When my revered friend and teacher William James wrote an essay on “A Moral Equivalent for War,” I suggested to him that baseball already embodied all the moral value of war, so far as war had any moral value.” He concludes by looking forward to “the establishment of the true Church Universal in which all men would feel their brotherhood in the Infinite Game.”

THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT).

Philip — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:32:08 +0000

THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON (COMMENT). David Quemere commented on my post about our “rotisserie league”, which I claim is the oldest fantasy baseball league in the country. (In the early years, fantasy leagues were called rotisserie leagues.) Of the 10 million or so current leagues, there may be some that are tied for first place, but there are none older. I loved hearing from another pioneering league. David Quemere’s league began in 1984 and has three of the original franchises. He remembers compiling stats by hand just as our league officials did. Nowadays, most players follow the drafting on a computer, but from the beginning we have had a large display board on which the draft picks are recorded, and we are maintaining the tradition. Mat Olkin, who ran the board for us for a couple years when he was in law school, has gone on to do sabermetric work for the Seattle Mariners and, as of 2010, the Toronto Blue Jays (see here). Pitchers and catchers are reporting, and we have drawn our draft postions.

MONEYBALL AND “LINSANITY”.

Philip — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:12:39 +0000

MONEYBALL AND “LINSANITY”. “Linsanity” refers to the furor created by the sensational play of Jeremy Lin as the new point guard for the New York Knicks. Lin has been remarkably good, but what is unusual is that he was almost completely unknown. This wikipedia article devotes a lot of attention to Lin’s struggles to play for any team in the NBA. Undrafted basketball players rarely play in the NBA. Lin was undrafted. Lin had received no offers of an athletic scholarship and played college basketball at Harvard, not a basketball power. He spent parts of his first professional year and this year, his second, in the D league (a minor league), was cut by two teams this year, and had played only 55 minutes in the first 23 Knick games. The Knicks were thinking of cutting him by February 10, but gave him a start on February 3.

Jason Gay writes in this Wall Street Journal article about Ed Weiland, a student of basketball statistics, who wrote on the basketball website Hoops Analyst in May 2010: “”Jeremy Lin is a good enough player to start in the NBA and possibly star.” He saw this before anybody else by relying on two statistics: Lin’s two-point field goal percentage (showing his ability to get to the rim) and “RSB40″ (rebounds, steals and blocks per 40 minutes). He was also relying on a fundamental proposition of MONEYBALL, that statistics from college performances—even the Ivy League—are relevant to performance at professional levels. Weiland’s use of the word “star” was bold, given the lack of attention Lin got, but he has already been proven right. Lin is a star.

ARE PEOPLE LESS VIOLENT? (COMMENT).

Philip — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

ARE PEOPLE LESS VIOLENT? (COMMENT). Both Dick Weisfelder and Nick commented on my most recent post on concussions in football, each expressing the thought that people today are more concerned about injuries in sporting events than in the days of gladiatorial combats and bare knuckle fighting—that, as Nick put it, in many ways society is more “civilized”. They are raising issues which have been raised by a new book by Steven Pinker, the cognitive psychologist: THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE: THE DECLINE OF VIOLENCE IN HISTORY AND ITS CAUSES. The book is considered important and controversial—so much so that it was chosen to lead off a new feature in the Guardian (the “Reading room”) devoted to discussions with readers to “explore major new works by contemporary thinkers.” This article by Pinker from 2007 in The Edge website seems to be a good introduction to the book. One sentence which bears on the comments from Dick Weisfelder and Nick: “Violence has been in decline over long stretches of history, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful moment of our species’ time on earth.’

FOOTBALL PLAYERS DELIBERATELY CAUSING CONCUSSIONS?

Philip — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:32:10 +0000

FOOTBALL PLAYERS DELIBERATELY CAUSING CONCUSSIONS? I have posted several times about the dangers of concussions in football (see this post asking whether the NFL is serious about reducing concussions). Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a post on the New York magazine web site asking whether the New York Giants “strategically concussed” Kyle Williams in the conference championship game for the right to play in the Super Bowl. He has quotes from Giant players which support his suggestion, including this one:: “…we knew he had four concussions, so that was our biggest thing, was to take him outta the game.” In the event, Williams made two critical fumbles which cost his team the game. Notice that the hits on Williams may well have been lawful under the rules. Note also that the comments of the players (and in the comments on the post) show that the culture of the game is that these hits are good plays. Wallace-Wells concludes that: “a history of concussions doesn’t only make you a red flag on your team doctor’s list. It also makes you, in opposing film rooms, a target.”

A KIPLING LIMERICK.

Philip — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:14:47 +0000

A KIPLING LIMERICK. I have posted on limericks and how I think that light verse is an important branch of poetry. Today is the middle of January, and there is playoff game scheduled on the Frozen Tundra in Green Bay. On this winter day in Connecticut (temperature 9 degrees this morning), here is a limerick by Rudyard Kipling from a blog devoted to limericks:

There was a small boy of Quebec
Who was buried in snow to his neck
When they said, “Are you friz?”
He replied, ” Yes, I is —
But we don’t call this cold in Quebec”

WHEN ARE SUNK COSTS SUNK?

Philip — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:20:12 +0000

WHEN ARE SUNK COSTS SUNK? Although the article by Baliga and Ely presents its arguments as an exception to the long-established rule that it is rational to treat sunk costs as by-gones, I think it is easier to view the argument in the article as focusing on the difficulties in applying the long-established rule. If you can’t figure out what went wrong with the original decision, the previous analysis, even though not completely remembered, should be given some weight. To take the example of the expensive outfielder, perhaps some of the scouts who evaluated him before the decision saw some abilities that should be taken into account….