Category Archives: Sports

MONEYBALL AND PIG FARMING.

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Philip

MONEYBALL AND PIG FARMING. Lindy Hinkleman, a pig farmer in Idaho, has just had his second success in three years in national fantasy baseball contests. He won a grand prize of $100,000 this year and over $240,000 in 2009. This … Continue reading →

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ALBERT PUJOLS SHOWS LEADERSHIP.

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Philip

ALBERT PUJOLS SHOWS LEADERSHIP. Over the years, some of the most violent criticism I have read in a newspaper results from a failure by an athlete to give an interview. The latest example followed an error in the ninth inning … Continue reading →

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WAS THE RED SOX COLLAPSE A ONE IN 278 MILLION EVENT?

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Philip

WAS THE RED SOX COLLAPSE A ONE IN 278 MILLION EVENT? The 278 million figure is fun to think about, and the events were dramatic. One home run by potentially the last batter in one of the games was by … Continue reading →

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APOPHENIA AND SPORTS JOURNALISM.

Posted on October 9, 2011 by Philip

APOPHENIA AND SPORTS JOURNALISM. In yesterday’s cartoon, the first character says: “A weighted random number generator just produced a new batch of numbers.” The other character replies: “Let’s use them to build narratives.” The caption at the bottom says: “ALL … Continue reading →

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APOPHENIA—THE CARTOON.

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Philip

APOPHENIA—THE CARTOON. I posted here on September 25 about apophenia, and I have since been encountering discussions of the phenomenon although they don’t use the new word. Nate Silver even linked to this cartoon which dramatizes the phenomenon. The site … Continue reading →

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THE STORY OF A LONG SEASON.

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Philip

THE STORY OF A LONG SEASON. The use of statistics represented by MONEYBALL changed sports journalism as much as it did baseball on the field. There was a flood of baseball writing by newcomers writing from a different point of … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Journalism, Sports | 2 Comments

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BASEBALL MOVIE?

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Philip

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE BASEBALL MOVIE? This article in Salon finds a consensus choice—somewhat surprisingly because there are a lot of good ones. The winner is Bull Durham. I was pleased to see a few mentions of Major League and surprised … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Sports | 3 Comments

MONEYBALL AND STORYTELLING.

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Philip

MONEYBALL AND STORYTELLING. I have posted several times on MONEYBALL, the book by Michael Lewis. The movie of MONEYBALL has now opened to generally favorable reviews. The reviewers who seem to be the harshest critics are sportswriters, who point out … Continue reading →

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POETRY AND BASEBALL.

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Philip

POETRY AND BASEBALL. Nick said that when he made his post he had in mind this post (@morncale on Twitter): “Barrold L. Bonds’ defunct who used to crush a maplehit-heavy homer and break onetwothreefourfive recordsjustlikethat Barry OPS’d 1.4 and what … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Literature, Sports | 1 Comment

POETRY AND BASEBALL.

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Philip

LITERATURE AND BASEBALL. Tony Phillips and Mike Marshall, who had long distinguished careers in major league baseball (they faced each other in the 1988 World Series), got into a fight in an independent league game where Phillips is still playing … Continue reading →

Posted in Baseball, Literature, Sports | 2 Comments