Category Archives: Sports

IT’S THE FIELD, NOT THE CHAINS (COMMENT).

IT’S THE FIELD, NOT THE CHAINS (COMMENT). I had posted here on the football ritual involving the ten yard chain and noted a recent game in which the chain did not reach the ten yards between the 20 yard line … Continue reading

Posted in Football | Leave a comment

LOCATING THE CHAINS (REVISITED).

LOCATING THE CHAINS (REVISITED). A few days ago, I posted on something that I had been puzzled by for many years: the casualness with which football chains are located on first down and the ceremony of exactness when there is … Continue reading

Posted in Football, Sports | Leave a comment

LOCATING THE CHAINS.

LOCATING THE CHAINS. I have always thought that there is an arbitrariness to bringing out the chains at a football game to determine whether the team with the ball has picked up the ten yards necessary for the first down. … Continue reading

Posted in Football, Sports | 3 Comments

THE COMMITTEE SPEAKS: WE’VE BEEN IN A RECESSION ALL YEAR.

THE COMMITTEE SPEAKS: WE’VE BEEN IN A RECESSION ALL YEAR. I posted in August about the fact that a committee decides whether the United States is in a recession and what the beginning and ending dates of the recession are—just … Continue reading

Posted in Baseball, Economics, Sports | 4 Comments

MONEYBALL AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS.

MONEYBALL AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS. What does MONEYBALL have to do with the financial crisis? The connection is that Michael Lewis, the author of MONEYBALL (which describes how sabermatricians brought statistical analysis to baseball) has written a long, amusing, and … Continue reading

Posted in Baseball, Economics, Shakespeare, Sports | 3 Comments

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT (COMMENT).

FIVETHIRTYEIGHT (COMMENT). Molly in a comment refers to the FiveThirtyEight website which is bringing in the insights from sabermetrics to political statistics. Nate Silver, who is one of the two authors of the site, is a major figure in Baseball … Continue reading

Posted in Baseball, Politics, Sports | 1 Comment

GETTING HOLD OF THE BEANS BEFORE VALUING THEM.

GETTING HOLD OF THE BEANS BEFORE VALUING THEM. It has been observed that some of the mistakes that were made that led to the current crisis were intellectual mistakes made by brilliant people. In fact some of the mistakes occurred … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Shakespeare, Sports, Theater | 5 Comments

THE EXCITING GAME WITHOUT ANY RULES.

THE EXCITING GAME WITHOUT ANY RULES. Baseball nearly had a disaster last night. Mark Harris wrote a baseball novel in which the players passed the time in hotel lobbies playing TEGWAR (“The Exciting Game Without Any Rules”). The joke was … Continue reading

Posted in Baseball | 1 Comment

HOW RARE ARE TWINS?

HOW RARE ARE TWINS? As an identical twin, I should have an idea of frequently one encounters twins, but I didn’t. My first reaction on looking at twins who are successful in sports was surprise at how few there were. … Continue reading

Posted in Sports | Leave a comment

ARE TWINS BETTER IN SOME SPORTS THAN IN OTHERS?

ARE TWINS BETTER IN SOME SPORTS THAN IN OTHERS? The NBA season is starting and the Lopez twins are joining the Collins twins, also identical twins, as NBA players. One of my correspondents suggested to me that twins seem to … Continue reading

Posted in Baseball, Basketball, Football, Sports | 1 Comment