The Runoff that Wasn't

If you were paying any attention at all to the recently concluded United States Track and Field Olympic Trials, it seems impossible that you would not be aware of the controversy concerning the women's 100-meter event.  As a short recap of what happened, on June 23, 2012, the finals in the event were contested with Carmelita Jeter winning in 10.92, Tianna Madison finishing second in 10.96, and initially Jeneba Tarmoh being declared the third place in a tightly contested finish with Allyson Felix.  Both Tarmoh and Felix were given times of 11.07 seconds, but when the times were expanded to the thousandths of a second position, Tarmoh was given a time of 11.067 seconds to Felix's 11.068.  As stated, Tarmoh was initially declared the third place finisher, but upon further review, the race was declared a dead heat, which meant that somehow the tie would need to be broken since only a maximum of three runners can represent any single nation in the event at the Olympics.  Both Tarmoh and Felix were entered in the 200-meter event as well, and so the Bob Kersee, the man who coaches both athletes, asked that any tiebreaker wait until the conclusion of that second event.  Felix went on to win the 200-meter, with Tarmoh finishing outside the top three, and in the meantime, USA Track and Field decided that the tie would be broken either by a runoff or a coin toss.  In order for the coin toss to decide the issue, both athletes would have had to agree.  On Sunday evening, July 1, 2012, it was initially announced that a runoff would take place the following evening, but as early as later that evening, word started to spread that Tarmoh was considering pulling out of the event and surrendering the spot to Felix.  And then by late morning to the early afternoon of July 2, 2012, Tarmoh did officially pull out of the event and Felix is now set to represent the United States in the 100-meters as the third place finisher.

The paragraph above contains the basic details of what happened, but if you had been following the Trials, you know that there is more to the story.  I want to first address the complaints, or better yet whining as I see it, that have come from some who have paid attention to this story about how USA Track and Field has handled this situation.  One of these biggest whin...err, complainers is Sports Illustrated's Tim Layden, who in one of the articles he wrote about this story had this to say:

USATF spokeswoman Jill Geer informed media that the race was a dead heat, and that there were no procedures in place to settle it. More than 24 hours later, Geer again stood up in front of the same media and announced this procedure which, comically, includes coin toss protocols. It has been an embarrassment for the organization and the sport, and closure is scarcely nearer at this moment than on Saturday evening.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/olympics/2012/writers/tim_layden/06/26/track-field-photo-finish-felix-tarmoh/index.html#ixzz1zZpz5jCF

And then later, in an article that Layden wrote after the runoff was scrapped, Layden had this to say:

Yet even the hint of ongoing controversy further stains USATF, which has done little right since the finish of the race.

*The overrule: According to Jennings, in a 20-year career as a photo finish judge, he had been overruled just once, and that was in a cross-country race. Never had one of his judgments been questioned in a track race, where torso interpolation is common. Podkaminer's fear of appeal undercut the most qualified expert in the booth.

*The lack of procedure: Astoundingly, USATF had no tiebreaking procedure in place, an embarrassing circumstance that the organization's chief PR officer was forced to relate in a surreal press conference after the 100 on June 23, setting the tone for the week that followed.

*Lack of presence: Both USATF President Hightower and CEO Max Siegel, who was appointed in April, enacted a stunning display of non-leadership throughout the week of the dead heat controversy, failing to take control of the story, if not the actual situation. Instead, coach Kersee became the most visible figure, making late night calls to reporters, politicking for more rest for his athletes. (Kersee's most strident argument was that any runoff wait until after the 200.)

All of this seemed salvageable on Sunday, when the runoff was announced. There was palpable excitement in the track community and beyond. Tweets announced "Must-see TV!" and other similar exhortations. But in truth, the runoff began to unravel almost immediately after it was announced, its cancellation a mere formality by Monday morning. Instead of competition at Hayward Field, there was only construction, heavy work that represents the slow dismantling of a sport.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/olympics/2012/writers/tim_layden/07/02/jeneba-tarmoh-allyson-felix-100-meter-runoff/index.html#ixzz1zZtqSfTe

I have quite a number of problems with Layden's (and there is really no other way I can assess this) hyperventilating.  The first issue I will address is this supposed lack of a procedure in place to decide such matters.  Track and field (and the USATF) has long has tiebreaker rules in place and they are really quite simple. I'll explain them for this particular situation.  Since Tarmoh and Felix finished very close to one another, they first looked at the number of seconds each runner had taken to get down the track as the tiebreaker.  Oh wait, they both finished in roughly eleven (11) seconds as judged by the clock, well then let's go to the second tiebreaker, the tenths of a second.  Well, both runners appeared to cross the line about one tenth (0.1) of a second beyond the eleven seconds they had run.  Okay then, let's go to the next tiebreaker, hundredths of a second.  (And for the record, after two tiebreakers, both now stand at 11.1 seconds.)  Well, when we look at the hundredths of a second position, we find that we have to make an adjustment to the tenths of a second position because neither runner did actually run a full tenth of a second beyond eleven seconds, but it does appear that both runners ran seven hundredths of a second (0.07) beyond eleven seconds.  Okay then, we must go to the fourth tiebreaker, thousandths of a second.  (And so after three tiebreakers, both runners are still tied, now at 11.07 seconds.)  And so when they look at the thousandths of a second, the timer sees that neither in fact ran a full seven hundredths of a second beyond eleven seconds, but he is able to judge that Felix ran eight thousandths (0.008) of a second beyond 11.06 rather conclusively for a time of 11.068.  In the case of Tarmoh, the timer cannot tell with nearly the same level of certainty when this runner crosses the line, but interpolates a time of seven hundredths of a second (0.007) beyond 11.06, for a total time of 11.067 seconds.  From this point, it was eventually ruled that the two had run a dead-heat and were given the same time, which started this supposed "embarrassment" for the USATF.

Remaining on this supposed lack of procedure point, I will remind you that they already had exhausted four tiebreakers: the seconds, the tenths of a second, the hundredths of a second, and the thousandths of a second.  I'm not sure how useful it would have been to allow a human being to judge the time to the ten thousandths of a second since it is clear that judging the finish to the thousandths of a second can be guesswork, so let's throw that idea out as a possible tiebreaker.  Now given that we are not going to let humans judge to the thousandths of a second, what other tiebreakers could we possibly use?  I mean other than the two possibilities that USATF provided (runoff and coin toss).  The only sort of other somewhat reasonable choice I can imagine is looking at the two runners' reaction times and finding in favor of the runner with the slower reaction time since she had in fact run the distance faster.  (This would have incidentally given the victory to the Felix.)  But this option is problematic since the start is an important part of the race and I don't believe that an athlete should be penalized for legally reacting to the gun quickly.  So, I'm sitting here thinking and wondering what other procedures other than the ones that USATF provided and other than the positively absurd (like a tether-ball game) could have been used to break this tie that would have been fair to both athletes?  The truth is that there are not any.  Any reasonable person who isn't looking for a reason to criticize the USATF could have predicted once a dead-heat was declared that this tie would be broken by either a runoff or a coin toss (or one of the runners just surrendering the chance at the spot).

Surprisingly perhaps, I have a bigger problem with Layden's seeming complaint about another issue.  This is the overrule of the photo official's original timing call.  In the articles, Layden points out that the photo finish judge, Roger Jennings, has over twenty years of experience, that he has used this process of interpolation to get an athlete's finishing time before, that he had only been overruled one other time before in those twenty years, and that Jennings attests that he would have designated Tarmoh the winner in this situation 100 times out of 100.  The clear suggestion that Layden is making is that Jennings should not have been overruled in the first place.  But let's keep a few things in mind, Tarmoh's time was an interpolation, Jennings admits that the interpolations are always subjective, and at the pace the two runners were moving in the race, if they were separated by one thousandth of a second, they would only be separated by at most about nine millimeters.  And when you are looking at a photographic representation of the finish on a computer, which would generally show a smaller version of the outcome, this nine-millimeter distance would be further compressed.  If one were to blow up this photo to a larger size, you would lose resolution and thereby the ability to accurately assess boundaries in the photo.  It seems crazy to me that Layden is depending so heavily on the accuracy of one guy's interpolations and the fact that they had only been overruled one other time in twenty years.  An interpolation is a guess, pure and simple.  I don't care if Roger Jennings would have called the race for Tarmoh 100 times out of 100, if he was using faulty assumptions when making his guess, then he could have been wrong 100 times out of 100.  Let me give an example of this.  If I told you that there was a certain function that had points (x, y) located at (-2, 8), (-1, 5), (1, 5), and (2, 8), and asked you to interpolate a point at x = 0, what point would you select?  Well, there is a chance that you could select the point (0, 4) because then all five points would satisfy the equation y = x^2 + 4.  But then I would tell you that you were wrong because the point at x = 0 is actually (0, 7) because then the five points would satisfy the equation y = 0.75x^4 - 2.75x^2 + 7.  Again, every interpolation is a guess based on whatever assumptions the person who is doing the interpolation is using.  But it is completely possible for the person to use the wrong assumptions and therefore produce a wrong interpolation.  That there was no actual video evidence showing Tarmoh crossing the finish line ahead of Felix, given how close the race was, I see absolutely zero problems with overruling Jennings's guess, even though he maintains that he would have gone with his guess 100 times out of 100 (especially, I imagine, if he used the exact same procedure and assumptions 100 times out of 100).

And finally, as for the last point, I just chuckle.  I'm sure it would have been absolutely fantastic and worthwhile if the USATF President and/or CEO had 'taken charge of the situation.'  Because it would have changed so much if one or the other or both came out and said, "We still don't have a firm decision, but it's likely to be settled by either a runoff or a coin toss, you know, because we don't think it's appropriate to settle this with a tether-ball match."  The bottom line is that a resolution was achieved in the allotted time window that was necessary for the United States to finalize its track and field team for the Olympics.  If the USATF President and CEO were more focused on making sure the meet was running smoothly and were not overly focused on a single damned spot in a single damned event, then I would take that rather than having them have to come out and tell people what they should have logically known was going to happen in the first place.  Lastly (for real this time), it seems completely laughable that Layden seems to want to hold USATF at least partially responsible for Tarmoh deciding to pull out of the race.  Really?  This is somehow USATF's fault?

 

Nostalgia...Or Wishful Thinking

As anyone who follows tennis closely knows, The Championships, Wimbledon got started this morning (or rather it was yesterday morning local time) and some of the big names have already been in action.  These names include Maria Sharapova, the number one ranked female player in the world who just recently completed the career Grand Slam when she won the French Open earlier this month.  Also in action was five-time champion Venus Williams, who it appeared might still be feeling the effects of an autoimmune disease with which she was recently diagnosed as she went down somewhat meekly in straight sets.  And on the men's side, defending champion and world number one Novak Djokovic advanced in straight sets, while six-time champion Roger Federer likewise advanced in straight sets.

But prior to the matches starting up, I went over to ESPN.com's tennis page because before each of the major tournaments, the ESPN tennis experts will give their predictions about what will happen in the tournament.  So I found the predictions here, and stunned does not begin to describe my reaction to the lunacy of the picks in one of the categories.  I am of course speaking of the Men's Winner category.  If you take the tally of the eleven experts, you will see that two of them picked Djokovic, four picked Federer, and five picked world number two and two-time champion Rafael Nadal.  In theory this would not appear to be such a big deal since Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer are ranked first, second, and third in the world, respectively, and have combined to win the last nine Wimbledon titles.  But in having a breakdown in picks of Djokovic-Nadal-Federer of 2-5-4, these experts have demonstrated that they have abandoned rationality in making these picks.

Before going any further, I will say that these three players are indeed the only three that anyone should even consider picking to win this tournament.  The three have, after all, won twenty-eight of the last twenty-nine major titles, with the only one not to go to these three being the 2009 US Open title that went to Juan Martin del Potro.  (By the way, the breakdown over the last twenty-nine completed majors is Federer-12, Nadal-11, Djokovic-5, and del Potro-1.)  However, it is an absolutely absurd that only two people selected Djokovic to win, and even more absurd that more people picked Federer to win than Djokovic.  In the interest of full disclosure, of the three players, Nadal is my favorite and Djokovic is second.  I respect the way that both of them are playing right now and I would not be upset if either one won the tournament.  If you are asking me to make a pick, though, I pick Djokovic.  Despite the fact that Nadal has defeated Djokovic in their last three clay court encounters, I think that Djokovic has demonstrated over the last seventeen or eighteen months that he is still the best player in the world.  But I would say that Nadal has showed that he is a close number two.  These two players have met for the last four major championships, something that has never previously been done in men's tennis (as far as I know).  There is absolutely no rational explanation for this many people selecting Federer to win.

It's possible that a number of the experts considered that Federer has won Wimbledon more times than he has any of the other majors and I believe that he has stated that it is favorite tournament as reasoning for selecting him.  But these are absolutely shoddy substitutes for doing true analysis.  If you go to Federer's Wikipedia page, you can see a compilation of his performances at the major tournaments.  Since the start of 2010, Wimbledon is the only one of the major tournaments in which Federer has failed to advance past the quarterfinals (admittedly it is a small sample size, but during the last two times Federer has played Wimbledon he has not demonstrated that he is this king of grass-court tennis that he once was).  By going out in the quarterfinals of the last two Wimbledons, he did not even get a chance to face Djokovic or Nadal.  Since the start of 2010, Federer is 5-7 against Djokovic and 3-5 against Nadal.  But in major tournaments, he is 1-4 against Djokovic and 0-2 against Nadal.  Considering that Federer is seeded number three, and Djokovic and Nadal have each reached the final of the last four majors, odds are that Federer would have to beat both of them to win the championship.  And in the last two and half years, he has fared poorly against both in majors.  Yet, four out of eleven of these experts somehow think that despite what has occurred in recent match play, Federer will get the job done.  Again, it is entirely possible for Federer to win this tournament, but by whatever analysis this many experts came to the conclusion that Federer would win should be heavily scrutinized.  Methinks they are suffering from a bout of nostalgia, or wishful thinking.

Jeff Van Gundy's Basketball Strategy

I was not planning on posting anything this evening, but I'm watching the end of game five of the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals and I heard Jeff Van Gundy say something that was incredibly stupid.  It was so stupid that it deserved a post.

So the situation was that Boston was leading 90-88 with 15.2 seconds left and preparing to inbound the ball.  Ray Allen caught the inbound pass close to the sideline and was quickly fouled by Miami's Shane Battier with 13.8 seconds remaining.  And then the fun started.

Here is the paraphrase from Van Gundy - If I was Miami I would have trapped Allen on the sideline there rather than foul because there's a chance that he may have turned the ball over like what happened last night in the Oklahoma City-San Antonio game.

And if you were Miami, you would have lost faster than they did tonight, Jeff.  Good work.

And just to add to that, here's a bonus one.  With forty or so seconds left, Boston led by I believe four points and had the ball.  Mike Breen asked Van Gundy whether Miami should foul right away.  Van Gundy said that they did not need to foul but just play solid defense.  Hey Jeff, I suppose you could just let the Celtics run off twenty something seconds leaving you with fewer than twenty seconds remaining to score four points.  Oh, that's what Miami did?!  And Miami lost partly by employing this incredibly stupid strategy?!  I am shocked.  It always amazes me that teams use a such a stupid strategy of allowing that much time to tick off the clock, thinking that they are going to be able to play outstanding defense, not foul, grab the rebound, and then make up (in this case especially) two possessions in less than twenty seconds.

Sometimes I sugarcoat things, but I cannot do so in this case.  This was incredibly stupid strategy espoused by Van Gundy.

Pacers-Heat: Game 5 - Morning After

So my cable reception ended up getting screwed up last night sometime in the third quarter and I did not see the end of last night's game five.  As a result, I did not see or hear about Miami's Dexter Pittman's hard foul on Indiana's Lance Stephenson in the closing moments of the game.  I have since watched the play and I wish that I could say that I was shocked at how the officials judged the play, but I'm not because they also judged the play a Flagrant "1".

This foul was even more absurdly called than the Udonis Haslem foul discussed in my previous post.  Stephenson was driving toward the basket and Pittman steps across the lane and throws an elbow at Stephenson's head/neck area, knocking him off balance.  You can see video of the play here, courtesy of NBAHighlight247.  (Additionally, here are the videos of the Hansbrough foul and the Haslem foul mentioned in the previous post, again courtesy of NBAHighlight247, which were not available at the time of my last post.)

What the officials did in calling those plays in last night's game was absolutely gutless.  If those referees are unable to judge the differences between those three plays, then they do not qualify to officiate basketball games of any level, and particularly not NBA games.  People can disagree about whether the Hansbrough foul should have been called a flagrant.  I thought it was borderline; I thought it could have been called either just a foul or a Flagrant "1".  And at halftime of the game, there was a disagreement in the Inside the NBA studio where at least Charles Barkley thought that the Hansbrough foul was not a flagrant foul, but it certainly was not a "borderline" Flagrant "2" foul as Steve Kerr had judged during the game.  However, the plays by Haslem and Pittman were clearly Flagrant "2" fouls and both should have been immediately ejected.  I am definitely at an absolute loss as to how Pittman was not ejected.

If the NBA has any spine, three things should happen.  First of all, the officials that worked last night's game should not be allowed to work any more games this postseason.  They have demonstrated an inability to judge the degree of severity of fouls and this cannot be allowed to persist in the NBA playoffs.  The second thing that the NBA should do is elevate Haslem's foul to a Flagrant "2" and suspend him from Game 6 of this series.  Had Haslem been charged appropriately during Game 5 and subsequently ejected, the suspension would not be necessary.  But since it seems clear to me that Haslem intentionally took a shot at Hansbrough's head, he should now be punished with a one game suspension.  Finally, Pittman should be suspended for multiple games.  I think that Tim Legler suggested three to four games, saying that it should not be as severe as Metta World Peace's seven game suspension for elbowing James Harden in the head due to World Peace's previous history.  That is a fair assessment, but I would disagree because at least in the case of World Peace it was a spur of the moment kind of thing and I do not think there was premeditation.  Pittman seemed to have time to think about what he was doing and decided to follow through with a dangerous elbow to another player's throat area.  I think that Pittman deserves a suspension at least as long as World Peace's seven games.

That is what the NBA should do if the organization has any spine.  However, as the NBA seems frequently to appear to try to protect their glamor teams and players, I'm highly skeptical as to whether they will level a stiff, but deserved penalty to their darling Miami Heat.

Pacers-Heat: Game 5

So I'm watching game five of the Pacers-Heat Eastern Conference semifinal series right now and decided I had to take issue with Steve Kerr's analysis.  There were a couple of incidences occurring relatively close to each other during the second period of the game where first Tyler Hansbrough of the Pacers was assessed a Flagrant "1" foul for a foul committed against Miami's Dwyane Wade and then the Heat's Udonis Haslem was assessed a Flagrant "1" foul for a foul committed against Hansbrough.  First of all, if you see replays of these two plays, it is pretty clear that there is absolutely no equivalence between these two fouls.  The referees screwed up in their assessments, as Kerr suggested, but Kerr's analysis seems absurd as well.

First of all, I'll provide the definitions of the two types of flagrant fouls as listed at NBA.com:

Flagrant "1" (FFP1) - unnecessary contact committed by a player against an opponent. The opposing team is awarded two (2) free throws and possession.

Flagrant "2" (FFP2) - unnecessary and excessive contact committed by a player against an opponent. The opposing team is awarded two (2) free throws and possession and the player committing the foul is automatically ejected.

Now Kerr explains that Hansbrough's foul was a borderline Flagrant "2" offense and Haslem's was definitely a Flagrant "2".  With Kerr's assessment of Haslem's foul, I wholeheartedly agree.  Haslem's foul on Hansbrough was unnecessary and excessive.  He made no pretense of trying to make a play on the ball, but instead chose to rake both of his hands across Hansbrough's face and head.  It seemed clear to me that this was a retaliatory play for Hansbrough's foul at the other end of the court.  However, Kerr's assessment of the Hansbrough foul is completely unsupported by what occurred, and I'm unsure of what he was actually viewing.

First of all, Hansbrough makes a clear attempt at blocking the ball on Wade's drive toward the basket.  So clear is this attempt by Hansbrough that he actually does make contact with the ball during the play.  And this was a more difficult thing for Hansbrough to do than Haslem considering that on Hansbrough's shot he went straight up in the air attempting the shot while Wade was attacking the basket when Hansbrough met him on his right side, with the ball shielded by his body.  Yet, Hansbrough was able to block the ball away with his right hand as the two met.  It so happened that Hansbrough collided with Wade lower with the body and then on the follow-through of blocking the ball, Hansbrough's hand hit Wade across the face, but this does not rise anywhere close to "unnecessary and excessive contact."  I'm not sure what Kerr was looking at, whether he was reacting just to the fact that Wade's face was bleeding and that he went to the floor, but it is absurd to say that was a "borderline" Flagrant "2".  If anything that was a borderline Flagrant "1".

2012 Kentucky Derby

I've been thinking a lot about the Kentucky Derby in the thirty or so hours since the race was run.  It is always an exciting event for me, but this year I was a bit lucky to catch the race as I was attending friends' Cinco de Mayo party and almost missed it as I arrived right about post time.  And so I did miss the opening of the starting gates, but the television was on in time for me to start watching while they were still in the first quarter of a mile.

As I said, I'm always excited about this race and when March comes around each year, I'm searching for information about prep races the horses have done to get an idea about what horses will truly be in contention for the victory.  I knew about Hansen, the horse that had won last fall's Breeders' Cup Juvenile and then went on to win the Eclipse Award as America's top two-year old colt.  I knew about Gemologist, the undefeated colt that had won the Wood Memorial .  And I had also heard about a few of the other horses such as Union Rags and Take Charge Indy.  But about a week or so out from when the Derby was to be run, I learned about a new horse that I had heard nothing about to this point.

And that horse was of course Bodemeister.  I was on ESPN's horse racing page and I saw a link to the story about the Arkansas Derby that had taken place on April 14, a Bodemeister win by 9-1/2 lengths.  I was stunned to read about this since the Arkansas Derby is considered a fairly important Kentucky Derby prep race, with the winner having a pretty good shot of qualifying for the early May race.  You just don't normally see horses winning this type of race by 9-1/2 lengths.  I remember back in 2008 watching Big Brown race and win the Florida Derby, another important Kentucky Derby prep race, before going on to convincing victories in the first two legs of the Triple Crown.  I was of course impressed by Big Brown in that Florida Derby, but I was far more impressed with Bodemeister's destruction of the field in the Arkansas Derby.  Bodemeister just seemed to get the job done far more easily than Big Brown, and the former's margin of victory was double that of the latter.  Of course a large part of this could be attributed to the competition each faced.  I have not gone back to compare the fields that the two colts faced in their final prep races.  But to get to the point, I was so extremely impressed with Bodemeister that I could not wait to see what he would do in the Kentucky Derby.

Bodemeister was installed as the morning line favorite for the race, as I thought that he should be because it was truly tough to find a performance by another colt in the field that rivaled that Arkansas Derby performance.  The lines changed of course, but I have read somewhere that Bodemeister remained the post time favorite.  As we joined the race shortly after the start, I saw the first quarter-mile fraction: 22.32 seconds, with Bodemeister in the lead.  Wow, I thought.  And then he continued through a half-mile of 45.39 seconds and three quarters of a mile in 1:09.80.  I was absolutely stunned seeing these times.  I don't think you generally see fractions this fast at the Breeders' Cup Classic when the best horses in the world are assembled.  When Bodemeister hit the three quarters mark in sub-1:10, I thought that there was no way he'd be able to hold on over the last half mile.

But Bodemeister kept pushing on, hit the mile in 1:35.19, and seemed to open up his largest lead of the race as he hit the quarter poll and started the run for home.  As Bodemeister ran down the stretch, you could see that the early fast fractions were catching up to him, as the other horses in the field started catching up to him.  That is, some of the other horses that did not follow closely to his torrid pace.  The horses that were close to him in through the middle of the race were not so as the race came to its conclusion.  And in the end, only I'll Have Another was able to pass by Bodemeister in the final sixteenth of a mile to win (2:01.83), having stayed away from the fast early pace.

I have read a few people's commentaries on the race and there are a number of them that seem to share my sentiments in being more impressed with the runner-up than the winner.  Yes, it is crazy to say this, but for me it is true.  The Preakness Stakes is coming up on May 19 and I more excited than I was going into Big Brown's 2008 Preakness (provided Bodemeister does go on to run, that is).  Generally I'm pulling for the Kentucky Derby winner to take the Preakness so that for once in my lifetime there will be a Triple Crown winner that I remember, since I was only a few months old in 1978 when Affirmed won the last Triple Crown.  But this year I've decided the Triple Crown can wait one more year.  I just want to see Bodemeister do something special in these last two races.

A Tribute to Mariano Rivera

It is amazing to me that I'm sitting here today writing a post titled A Tribute to Mariano Rivera, but on this morning I feel that I need to do just this.  My interest in baseball has fallen in a severely exponential way in the last decade.  Twenty to twenty-five years ago I could sit and watch baseball all day, but now I can rarely sit through an entire half inning of the sport.  The game bores me and certainly in the last decade or so I have found it comical that many people still refer to it as 'America's Pastime.'  But the biggest reason that this post might be surprising is that to the extent that anyone can still refer to me in any way as a fan to any degree of anything related to baseball, I am a fan of the New York Mets, and Mariano Rivera is the longtime closer of the New York Yankees, the team that I hate more than any other professional sports team.  But yesterday, prior to the Yankees' game against the Kansas City Royals, Rivera, while catching balls in the outfield during the Yankees' batting practice, went down with a torn ACL.  Such an injury means that he is done for this season and at forty-two years of age, he may have pitched his last ball in professional baseball.  I cannot think of a sadder turn of events for the sport of baseball.

I have not always been a fan of Rivera.  Indeed, for many years I hated everything Yankees-related.  True, while I was in college in Massachusetts I grudgingly rooted for the Yankees because I enjoyed playing the role of arrogant New Yorker and hated being immersed in New England fandom.  I hated having to hear about all the Boston sports teams non-stop, year-round.  I grew to hate the Celtics, Bruins, Patriots, and Red Sox, and so I could root for the Yankees (again, grudgingly) because of the angst that arose in the region each time the Yankees succeeded during those years.  (I was in college from 1996-2000.)

But things changed during the summer of 2000.  At the conclusion of the year, the Yankees would go on to defeat the Mets in the World Series, a fact which crystallized my eternal hatred for the Yankees.  However, it was in the summer of that year that my animosity started to build toward the team.  The Yankees and Mets were playing an interleague game at Yankees Stadium and the Mets' Mike Piazza was facing the Yankees' Roger Clemens.  Now Roger Clemens had struggled when pitching to Piazza in the past, and just like any professional athlete who is facing some difficulty and in need of a few tweaks to his game, Roger Clemens made some adjustments and threw a fastball that hit Piazza in the head.  A real tough guy that Roger Clemens was, throwing at people that he could not get out fairly because he knew he was protected by the American League designated hitter rule.  But then we fast-forward to the World Series and in Piazza's first at-bat versus Clemens since Clemens had hit him in the head, Piazza fouled off a pitch, causing the bat to break, with the barrel tumbling out to the left of the mound if you are facing home plate.  And of course Clemens, being the great guy that he is, picked up the bat barrel and threw it in Piazza's direction (and to this day I believe he threw it at Piazza), but seemed to mouth the excuse, "I thought it was the ball," as Piazza took exception and started walking toward the mound.  Of course no data was provided on how many times during Clemens's career when a ball came out toward the mound that he was roughly forty-five degrees off in the direction the ball should have been thrown (you know, toward first base), but maybe this is some research that the Elias Sports Bureau can do.

Yes, I digressed, but at least some of the digression was necessary to illustrate the extent of my antipathy for the Yankees.  The conclusions of the next four baseball seasons brought considerable enjoyment for me as the Yankees lost in excruciating fashion.  In 2001 it was to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series, in 2002 it was to the California-Anaheim-Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the division series, in 2003 it was to the Florida Marlins in the World Series, and then finally in 2004 it was the epic choke-job loss to the Boston Red Sox in the league championship series. Delicious.  But as I look back now, the loss to the Diamondbacks was the most amazing of those losses because in game seven of that series, the Diamondbacks beat the unbeatable Mariano Rivera when he was called on to do what he seems to have been born to do: slam the door at the end of big baseball games.

I have long hated baseball's seeming ever more liberal reliance on relief pitchers.  I hate the absurd amount of useless statistics that are developed for baseball like the 'quality start' and the 'hold.'  And I also think that the save statistic has been cheapened due to the fact that these days a pitcher can pitch six innings, give up three runs, and then get a pat on the back with a way to go with that quality start!  And then you have two or three pitchers come in and 'hold' the game, before finally the closer comes in and gets a save, many times surrendering more runs than innings pitched.  I respect the relief pitcher role less so than any other position in baseball and generally scoff anytime anyone even hints that one of these people deserve to be in the Cy Young Award conversation.  However, Mariano Rivera is different.

Mariano Rivera is different because when he came on to pitch, you believed that there was no chance he was going to blow a lead.  You almost felt you had a better chance of drowning in a lightning storm than to see Rivera blow a save, particularly in a big game.  And this is what makes that loss by Rivera in game seven of the 2001 World Series so amazing.  Rivera was not one of these relief pitchers who only recorded the easy save or would routinely pitch himself into trouble while in the course of hanging on by the fingertips at the end of games.  He came out to pitch in the tough situations and you knew it was lights out.  In game seven of the 2001 World Series, Rivera came in to start the eighth inning with the Yankees leading 2-1, and though I hoped for a Diamondbacks win, I knew it was not going to happen.

It is been more than ten years since that game took place, and my memory of all of the events of that game and World Series have faded a bit.  I confess, I did have to look up the information to be sure that Rivera came on in the eighth inning of a 2-1 game, even though I suspected that this was the case, but I do not want to look up and recount an entire play-by-play.  But I will never forget the final play of that game.  I remember sitting there in my apartment watching that game, stunned that finally after having won the last three World Series, the Yankees just might be on the verge of losing.  Rivera had already surrendered a run and the winning run was on third base with less than two outs.  I was getting excited, but still I left room for that inevitable disappointment that I thought was coming.  In the back of my mind, I just knew Rivera was somehow going to pull off some magic act in that ninth inning, the Yankees were going to win that World Series, and that blown save would largely be forgotten over the years.  But with a drawn-in infield, Luis Gonzalez blooped the feeblest of feeble hits just over shortstop Derek Jeter's head.  Had Jeter been in his normal fielding position, this would have been an easy catch and I believe those Yankees find a way to win again.  But it was not meant to be as that feebly hit ball landed on the ground and finally beat the unbeatable Rivera.

After years of reflection on those Yankees teams of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a few of those players I still truly despise (see Roger Clemens), a few I'm indifferent toward (see Andy Pettitte), a very few I have come to grudgingly respect (see Derek Jeter), but Mariano Rivera is the only one that I have come to like.  I still remember back to the 1990 ALCS that the Oakland A's swept the Red Sox 4-0.  I loved the A's teams of those years.  I loved the Bash Brothers.  I loved their swagger.  I still vividly remember during one of those games when A's legendary and Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley mowed down Dwight Evans swinging and gave a gigantic fist pump out of exuberance of the important moment, but also with at least a little hint of taunting his vanquished opponent.  I have never been one to truly disdain taunting and showmanship, but it is because we never see a hint of either of these things out of Rivera that I respect and like him so much.  He always came out in a no-nonsense, business-like fashion.  And he almost always got the job done emotionlessly.

But there is one more reason why if the event of yesterday spells the end for Rivera, I will find it to be a truly sad day.  Mariano Rivera wears the number forty-two.  He is the last Major League Baseball player to wear the number 42 other than on Jackie Robinson Day when every Major League Baseball player wears the number 42.  Major League Baseball took the rare step of forever retiring the number 42 some years back in tribute to the important legacy of Jackie Robinson.  Now I was never alive when Jackie Robinson played, nor was I alive at any point while he lived.  I do not intend to compare the baseball or life achievements of Robinson and Rivera.  But I can think of no better person to be the last to wear the number 42.  I have always known that Rivera would one day leave the field, leaving Jackie Robinson's number 42 to be worn on that one special day each year by all, but I know now that I wish and hope that that one day was not yesterday.

More Words of Wisdom from Jeff Van Gundy

So I happened to be watching the waning seconds of game three of the NBA Finals, which had the Los Angeles Lakers trailing the Orlando Magic by four points and scrambling to score a basket of any kind to cut into the Magic's lead. The Lakers had a number of shot attempts as time disappeared with the Magic unable to gather the rebound, but then the Lakers finally scored two points to cut the lead down to two with just five tenths of a second remaining on the clock. The Magic inbounded the ball to Rashard Lewis, who was quickly fouled by Kobe Bryant, and that's when the fun began.

Okay, so the fun actually began a little bit earlier when as the officials were reviewing whether a made shot by Lewis should be a three (as originally credited) or a two, Van Gundy, in looking at the replay and seeing that Lewis's foot was actually on the three point line when attempting the shot, said something along the lines of "a player is coached to never attempt a three point shot with his foot on the line." Van Gundy was seemingly forgetting, of course, that if a player's foot is on the three point line when attempting a shot, he is in fact attempting a two point shot and not a three point shot. But this was relatively minor, and I was content to leave well enough alone until the last five tenths of a second came around.

Well, after Lewis was fouled, Van Gundy said without hesitation that no matter what Lewis should miss the second of his upcoming free throws intentionally. Now this was among the stupidest things I've heard Van Gundy say during these playoffs, though it does have competition. And let me paint the entire picture so that you can get a fuller picture for why this analysis was so stupid.

• After Bryant's foul, two tenths of a second remained on the clock.
• The Lakers had no timeouts (and I absolutely abhor this word as I think that it should more properly be times-out) remaining.
• Without any times-out remaining, the Lakers could not advance the ball to midcourt after a made free throw.
• NBA rules do not allow for a player to catch and shoot a ball with under three tenths of second remaining.
• With under three tenths of a second remaining, the only score that can be made (barring a foul of some sort prior to inbounding the ball) is a tip in attempt.
• If Lewis did make the second free throw, the Magic would be ahead by at least three points.
• Assuming the Magic were up by three points, the Lakers would have had to tip in a three point basket off of a pass launched from underneath the Magic's basket to tie the game.
• Assuming the Magic were up by four points, the Lakers would have had to tip in a three point basket off of a pass launched from underneath the Magic's basket and get fouled in the process to have a chance at tying the game.

So what happened? Well, it seems that Jeff's brother Stan, the coach of the Magic, obviously does not subscribe to the dumbass strategies of his younger brother as he evidently did not instruct Lewis to miss the second free throw. Lewis made both free throws and the Magic won the game by four. (The Lakers simply inbounded the ball and allowed the last two tenths of a second to expire.)

Jeff Van Gundy is a poor analyst in my mind because it almost seems as if he has these pre-programmed strategies in his mind that he will blurt out without actually taking the time to rationally consider the scenarios. If he had truly rationally thought about the scenario with two tenths of a second remaining, he would have realized that it was (currently) humanly impossible for the Lakers to win game three at that point (absent a foolish foul of course) if Lewis made the second free throw. (If someone really, really wants me to go over the physics of this, I can certainly do so in another post.) But Jeff Van Gundy knows basketball strategy. Good call Jeff!

The LeBron James Fake Controversy

So, some huge fake controversy has arisen lately over the fact that LeBron James left the court last Saturday night following the Cleveland Cavaliers' Eastern Conference Finals series losing game six loss without shaking the hands and congratulating the victorious Orlando Magic. People are whining aloud that James is a poor sport for not giving the Magic kudos on a job well done. And my thoughts are, of course, that all of these critics need to relax and get a grip.

Because after all, why should LeBron James give a damn what someone like Jay Mariotti thinks? And more to the point, why should LeBron James feel compelled to act in the way that someone like Jay Mariotti wants him to act? When it's all said and done, LeBron James is an adult. He is not Jay Mariotti's child (and I am kind of singling Mariotti out here because I don't think that he is very talented, but there are certainly others who have done similar whining about this non-issue) and does not have to do a damned thing that Mariotti would like for him to do.

Let's ask ourselves a few questions: Did LeBron James kill anyone? Did James injure anyone? Did James hit any traffic cops with his car? Did James hurt the feelings of the Orlando Magic players? If James did hurt the Magic players' feelings, as a result, will they be unable to play at their best in the NBA Finals? If James did hurt the Magic players' feelings and, as a result, they will be unable to play at their best in the NBA Finals, should we blame James or should we blame the Magic for being pansies? (If you so desire, please feel free to reply with your answers to these questions in the comments section.)

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that you know where I stand on this, but let me provide another example of one who has a counter opinion to my own. Alright, of course you have no idea who this author is - neither do I. However, I included this piece because of the following quote that he makes:

Professional athletes are supposed to be role models for young athletes all over the world. What is a young, aspiring LeBron fan suppose to think when he sees his idol storm off the court without shaking anyone's hand after losing?

He's probably going to side with his role model and think it's okay not to shake the winning team's hands.

Since when are professional athletes supposed to be role models for anyone? At best I think you can say that professional athletes are supposed to be role models for their own children, not yours. But let's assume for the moment that a scenario happens precisely like described above where a young athlete refuses to shake the hands of players on the opposing, winning team because he saw LeBron James refuse to do so. To the extent that there should be any "blame" assigned for this, the blame should be placed on that young athlete's parents for not teaching the athlete the "proper" way to behave after losing.

And one final point before I leave this stupid subject alone, if you are really that deeply offended by what James did, and you really feel like you have to get back at him for this horrible display of sportsmanship, I'll tell you exactly what you can do. You can stop going to his basketball games, stop watching his basketball games on TV, stop buying the products he endorses, and finally, yell and scream about how poor a sport he is and even write about how poor a sport he is. Obviously a number of people have already gotten these last couple of things down perfectly, so they only need work on the rest. Good luck, you'll show LeBron!

(Oh, and David Stern is getting involved! Fantastic!)

NBA Western Conference Finals: Game One

After watching the end of game one of the Western Conference finals between the Nuggets and Lakers last night, I'm convinced more than ever that many (if not most) NBA analysts are idiots with little to no comprehension of sound late game strategy and clock management. In this case I will be directing my ire at Jeff Van Gundy, but I'm certain many other analysts have advocated for similar strategic errors in the past.

With 30.5 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets trailed the Lakers 101-99 and preparing to inbound the ball at midcourt. An errant pass was intercepted by the Lakers' Trevor Ariza and recovered on the Lakers' offensive side of the court with just over twenty-eight seconds to play. And so Jeff Van Gundy said essentially that since there was a four second differential between the shot and game clocks, the Nuggets did not have to foul.

I suppose Van Gundy was technically correct, the Nuggets did not have to foul. But then again, the Nuggets also did not have to try to win the game. I'm going to assume for the moment that the Nuggets were trying to win the game and lists the steps that would likely have to take place for Van Gundy's strategy to have any chance of working.

1. Nuggets do not commit any fouls (this is after all the foundation of the entire strategy).
2. Lakers do not score on the possession.
3. Nuggets rebound presumed errant Lakers shot attempt (see number 2) with 4-5 seconds remaining.
4. Nuggets successfully inbound the ball to one of their players.
5. Nuggets score basket to either tie game (2-point attempt) or take the lead (3-point attempt).
6. If time remains, Nuggets prevent Lakers from scoring and force overtime or win game.

The overwhelming flaw in this plan is that it essentially requires every step in the plan to go flawlessly if the Nuggets are going to have any chance to win. There is almost no margin for error. And the strategy is foolishly optimistic considering the fact that the Lakers have Kobe Bryant on their team, a ruthlessly attacking player who would (a) almost certainly have the ball as time wound down and (b) stood a greater than 50% of chance of scoring on the play, getting fouled on the play (Bryant being an 85+% foul shooter), or both. And then you throw in the very real possibility that the Nuggets just might not get the rebound since Bryant would likely draw help defense, potentially leaving the helping defender's man unchecked to grab the offensive rebound, and I certainly can go on.

So what did actually happen? Well, the Nuggets had a tad bit of trouble going the entire 24 second shot clock without fouling, and so ended up fouling Bryant as he drove the lane toward the basket with right around ten seconds left. So there the Nuggets were, down two points with Bryant shooting two free throws with ten seconds left where if they had fouled immediately, they could have been down two with Bryant (or even Ariza) shooting two free throws with 26-27 seconds left. And of course Bryant did hit both of the free throws to put the Lakers up 103-99 with roughly ten seconds left.

But the absurdly stupid strategy suggestions did not end with 28 seconds remaining. Van Gundy next said that the Nuggets should not necessarily attempt a three point shot when inbounding the ball, but rather should go for the best available shot. Okay, so with ten seconds left and the Nuggets down by four points, Van Gundy thought that now the Nuggets were in the right situation to start the "quick layup-quick foul-hope the guy misses at least one free throw so that we can eventually cut it to a one possession game-oh, he didn't miss, well let's start the cycle over again by taking a quick layup" strategy. This strategy is actually a decent one that can be used to prolong a game, but not when you only have ten seconds left. (It seems like the perfect strategy to employ with, oh I don't know, 28 seconds left.) Granted, with ten seconds left, there are not going to be many more times that your team finds itself with the ball. And this means that when you are down by four points, you have to score as many points as possible on each of these very few possessions. This means taking three point shots!

So the bottom line is that Chaucey Billups wisely attempted and made a three point shot (though it should not have counted since he stepped out of bounds just prior to attempting the shot), but the Nuggets did eventually come up short, losing 105-103. There's no way to know for sure if they would have won the game if using a strategy other than the asinine Van Gundy strategy (evidently adhered to by George Karl and probably a great many other NBA coaches), but they almost certainly would have given themselves a better chance.

NFL 2008: Week 11

I just had to touch on a few NFL stories for week 11, with the Monday night game between Cleveland and Buffalo still yet to be played.

First of all, with each successive week, I become more and more convinced that the New York Football Giants are going to repeat this year. Their running game seems virtually unstoppable at this point, and the fact that they are not relying too heavily on one back is extremely important. Since they are spreading the rushing load around, the odds of their running backs being fresh and healthy for a presumed late trip into the playoffs seem high at this point. It is a bit worrisome that top running back Brandon Jacobs did come down with a bit of an injury in yesterday's game versus the Ravens, but since he insists that he could have come back to play if absolutely necessary, I'm going to cross my fingers and judge it as being of little concern.

The Giants running attack was dominating yesterday, totalling 207 yards rushing, and in so doing, becoming the first team to break 100 yards against Baltimore's previously top rated run defense this year. The Giants run offense is doing the important job of limiting the need for the Eli Manning to beat teams passing. The Giants defense is also doing its part, ranking number two overall in the league in total defense, and in the top ten in both rush and pass defense. Being able to control the ball with a solid running game on offense and being able to prevent your opponent from doing so on defense are certainly ingredients for success in the NFL.

Okay, now that I'm done fawning over the Giants, I'll move to a few other things. First of all (or second of all), I'll discuss the Chargers-Steelers game. By now you may know that the Steelers defeated the Chargers 11-10, this game being the first time in 12,000 plus NFL games (or something like that) in history that the final score was 11-10. When I first heard this stat, my initial response was who gives a damn? Do people really have this little to do that they sit around and wait for professional football final scores to see if they have ever been achieved in the history of the game? And then I remembered that the answer to this last question is yes, and that the people who do have such little to do are at the Elias Sports Bureau. But then I later learned that the officials had improperly taken away a touchdown at the end of the game that would have given the Steelers a 17-10 or 18-10 win and I realized that there were other people who would actually give a damn. Those would be fantasy football players and gamblers. I certainly am glad that my fantasy football team wasn't affected by this error, and it is times like this that I am overjoyed that I never got into gambling.

And I guess I should say at least something about the Denver Broncos so that James doesn't whine that I dedicated an entire post to football and didn't discuss the Broncos. The Broncos are in first place, leading an otherwise absolutely crummy division. Good show! Keep up the good work!

And finally, I get to the reason that I really wanted to write this particular post. I'm going to discuss the Philadelphia-Cincinnati 13-13 tie that took place on Sunday. And to be more precise, I'm going to discuss Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb's apparent lack of understanding that ties were possible in the NFL. I find this utterly ridiculous that a starting quarterback on an NFL team did not know that a tie was possible. Now sure, ties don't occur that frequently in the league, the last one having occurred six years ago, but McNabb was in the league six years ago. One would think that even if he didn't know ties were possible when he entered the league that just perusing the scores of games that particular week would have caused him to say, wow a tie - I didn't know that was possible! That's crazy!

But even if that tie had not occurred in 2002, this still seems utterly absurd. Maybe the Philadelphia Eagles just haven't played that many games that have gone to overtime since McNabb has been in the league, but one would think that if they have played any other overtime games, since he is the starting quarterback he would be out there for the coin toss for overtime and he would at least listen to all of the rules that the referee gives. I'm not 100% certain, but I think that the referee does tell the players gathered for the second coin toss that if no team scores after fifteen minutes of overtime the game ends in a tie. I mean, did the guy not watch any pro football while he was in college? Admittedly, I'm a bit of stats junkie and I love ties in the NFL because I think it is funny how they screw up playoff races, but off the top of my head, I was able to remember that there were two ties in the 1997 NFL season, and three of those teams with ties were in the same division. And that division with three teams, and one of those teams, are the division and team on which McNabb has always played for in the NFL. I guess McNabb must have known what record his team had the year before joining the team, but he didn't think to look at their record just one more year back? Unbelievable...

9/28/08 Weekend of College Football Chaos

As is the case during many autumn weekends, I spent quite a bit of time (perhaps too much) watching college football this weekend. And of course this enabled me to witness the various losses among the top ten teams, many of which lost to unranked opponents. What started innocently enough with top ranked Southern Cal's "shocking" loss at Oregon State on Thursday turned into a tidal wave with 4rd ranked Florida's loss at home to unranked Ole Miss, 9th ranked Wisconsin's loss at unranked Michigan, and 3rd ranked Georgia's loss at home to 8th ranked Alabama. (Okay, so Georgia's opponent clearly was not unranked, but the way in which events in this game transpired makes it worthy of inclusion in discussion about this chaotic weekend.)

The Florida-Ole Miss game was tight for the most part and as a result, it did not produce quite the level of shock for me as the other games did, other than the fact that Ole Miss was able to pull out the victory. The other three games produced far greater shocks in that Southern Cal was down 21-0 at halftime, Wisconsin was ahead 19-0 at halftime, and Georgia was down 31-0 at halftime!

It was not necessarily surpising that Southern Cal was able to rally and make a game out of it with Oregon State. I felt that if they could have ever tied the game in the fourth quarter then they would have won, but Oregon State's defense came up big at the most crucial points of the game. And watching that game on Thursday night, I thought that the result should completely doom Southern Cal's (national) championship aspirations - and I still do (more on this later) - but then a whole bunch of other craziness ended up happening once Saturday rolled around.

It was likewise not too, too surprising that Georgia was able to rally to create the semblance of an illusion that they were actually sort of in the game with Alabama at any point. After all, Georgia did start the year ranked number one. Now granted, I never understood why Georgia started at number one, and thus I actually expected Alabama to win. However, I did not expect Alabama to lead 31-0. Now sure, if Georgia runs the table (which would necessarily mean that they win the SEC Championship) they instantly put themselves in the conversation for the national title, but the Georgia team that I saw play on Saturday would seem to me to have little chance of beating Alabama in a potential rematch, and I cannot even envision them going through the rest of the regular season without another loss.

What can I say about Wisconsin? I suppose the only statistic that I can point to that would indicate that their collapse was not a surprise would be the fact that Wisconsin has not won at Michigan since 1994. Otherwise there is no way to paint this game as anything other than a colossal choke. Michigan has looked awful this season, and they looked awful in the first half of the game against Wisconsin, turning the ball over five times in the first thirty minutes. However, Wisconsin was only able to produce four field goals and a lone touchdown before intermission. This loss should absolutely doom Wisconsin's national title hopes. After the last two showings in the BCS Championship by Ohio State, Big Ten schools were essentially playing with zero margin for error. As a result, it essentially does not matter if Wisconsin runs the table; they will not beat out a one-loss SEC or one-loss Big 12 school should it come down to such a selection. And they certainly would not beat out a one-loss Southern Cal team.

This all brings us back to Southern Cal. (See, I told you that I would come back to this later.) Southern Cal should be done. The pollsters should have punished them far more than dropping them to nine (on the AP poll - I don't use the Coaches' Poll, it's a total sham). Southern Cal is buoyed by a perceived superiority in athletic talent (which they could well have) and on the strength of convincing early season victories over a very bad Virginia team and an overrated Ohio State team. (Let's face it, even with Chris Wells in the lineup against Southern Cal, Ohio State still gets beat badly in my opinion.) The conventional wisdom prior to last weekend's games was that (a) Southern Cal was the best team in the country and (b) there was the chance that an undefeated SEC or Big 12 team could be left out of the BCS Championship because it was unlikely that either would jump an undefeated Southern Cal team playing in a weaker Pac 10 conference.

This is precisely the reason (now) that Southern Cal should be out of the BCS title conversation. To me, this retarded system in which the contenders for the championship are selected subjectively by human beings has almost no merit whatsoever. And the only time it truly has any merit is when teams being considered are undefeated. It's simple; when teams go undefeated, they have done everything they could possibly do to be in the championship conversation. When teams have one-loss, they have not done everything possible. If all teams (or at most all but one) have lost, and the schedules of the teams in question all can be considered legitimate, then I think it is completely useless to discuss which team a person thinks would win in a hypothetical matchup. For example, a Trojan fan might say today, I totally think Southern Cal would beat Georgia. My response would be, Really? Did you totally think that they would beat Oregon State, too? You see, in absence of a credible argument to support your beliefs about the hypothetical outcome of a college football game, I'm afraid you have to select a team that tallied a more robust list of victories. And I'm afraid that there is no way that a one-loss Southern Cal team can trump either a one-loss SEC Champion or one-loss Big 12 Champion (should this scenario occur) in this department no matter what the identity of those teams might be.

Olympic Report - August 12, 2008

I must thank my dear sister for alerting me to the story of the little Chinese girl lip-synching at the opening ceremony for the Olympics. Do you know what this is folks? It is cheating, and that is about all I'll have to say on this subject. (And you mean to tell me that out of a billion plus people China could not find a cute little girl with a good singing voice?)

Oh but wait, because I suddenly have more to say. As I perused the medal tables earlier this morning or afternoon, a realization came to me that was utterly disturbing. While the great US of A was ahead in the medal count, as we should be (twenty-one total medals versus China's twenty medals), we did trail the host country in terms of number of gold medals. (I believe at that time China led thirteen golds to the US's six or seven.) Now sure, China does have probably four times our population, but still no nation should have more gold medals than the USA. I could only come to the conclusion that there was more cheating going on on the part of China.

But as you might imagine, I was just a tad bit lazy to do the necessary research to see in what events China had cheated to win all of these gold medals. So instead, I have come up with a creative solution to ensure that the US returns to its rightful place as the country with the most gold medals.

My remedy to this problem is quite simple; there just are not enough swimming events in the Olympics yet. I know that Michael Phelps has won every event that he has entered so far in the Olympics, but can we say with a certainty that Phelps would win the 200 meter freestyle-butterfly individual medley if the event were contested? Or for that matter, can we say with a certainty whether Phelps would win - and wait for it - the 400 meter freestyle-butterfly individual medley relay? I say we try it out just in case so that the greatest Olympic athlete of all time can have a chance to win a few more medals. (And you probably noticed that I left out the 250 meter freestyle-butterfly medley relay - well let's not get silly. This would require Phelps to change strokes in the middle of a lap, and while Ihave no doubt that the great Phelps could do this, I'm just not confident that any other swimmers could do so. This just would not be a fair competition and so I will leave it out.)

And why in heavens did they ever limit the number of stroke disciplines to just four?! You're telling me that we couldn't get a little sidestroke action into the swimming program? And no elementary backstroke? Come on! We are so getting cheated in these Olympics!

The Brett Favre Saga

Quite frankly, this Brett Favre retirement/non-retirement saga is getting a bit annoying. All you hear about all day long seemingly is whether or not Brett and the Packers are essentially going steady anymore. To be honest, I don't really care, but I got to thinking and I'm pretty sure that there have to be other people who are just as annoyed as I am by this Brett Favre Saga. And so without further delay, here are the top ten people who are pissed off about the Brett Favre Saga.

10. Cabral Williams - Ordinarily I would never have a top ten list that had me at number ten. For the purposes of such a list that would put me in last place, and I don't like to put myself in last place ever. Because I'm a winner. But I put myself here because believe it or not, I think that there are others who are slightly more annoyed by this than I am. Not that they are better than me, because they're not, but they are probably a little more annoyed. And the mitigating factor in the Brett Favre Saga is that as annoying as it is, it is still much more exciting than spending the entire summer worrying about the boring baseball season.

9. Cal Ripken, Jr. - You can see it coming, I can see it coming, so Cal Ripken, Jr. can definitely see it coming. As you may know, Ripken holds the Major League Baseball record for consecutive games played at 2,632. Well, Brett Favre holds the record for most consecutive games started by an NFL quarterback at 253. Knowing Brett (and I don't really know Brett), he won't be satisfied with just taking down Jeff Feagles's (ongoing) NFL record of 320 consecutive games played, he's shooting for Ripken. Now sure, barring an increase in the number of games of an NFL season, and assuming no work stoppages along the way, Favre won't have the opportunity to break Ripken's record until the twelfth game of the 2156 season, but Cal just cannot be happy that Brett just won't hang it up.

8. Fans of the 2156 Green Bay Packers - Now in truth, fans of the prior 140 or so Packers teams will share similar sentiments, but in particular, fans of the 2156 Green Bay Packers (although it is almost certain that none are yet alive) cannot be happy with where this is going. I mean, raise your hand if you would be thrilled if your NFL team was breaking camp with a 186-soon-to-be-187 year old quarterback attempting to lead the team to the championship.

7. Brian Brohm - What looked like an ideal situation, being drafted as the backup quarterback for a guy who had never started an NFL game before, for a team that came extremely close to making it to the Super Bowl last season, suddenly no longer looks so rosy. Tell me, would you want to spend the next century and a half as the third-string quarterback, only coming into the game if both of the guys ahead of you were injured or for mop-up duty during blowout games?

6. Aaron Rodgers - It would seem virtually impossible for anyone to be more annoyed with this Brett Favre Saga than Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers has to be annoyed for similar reasons to those of Brohm, but one has to believe that Rodgers's level of annoyance goes a bit higher (at least one level higher as Rodgers is number six while Brohm was number seven). When Rodgers was coming out of college a few years back, there was some discussion that he might in fact be the number one player taken in the entire draft. Unfortunately for Rodgers, that honor went to Utah's Alex Smith. Rodgers had to have been looking to finally show the world that he is a quality player, and in particular to demonstrate this fact to the more than one person (because I certainly did this and I have to assume that there is at least one other person who did so as well) who derived great enjoyment out of seeing Rodgers slip all the way to the number twenty-four selection. And so Aaron Rodgers has to be saying, "Brett, get out of here! Just retire, old man! Let me have a shot!"

5. Aaron Rodgers - Aaron

4. Aaron Rodgers - Rodgers

3. Aaron Rodgers - Hates

2. Aaron Rodgers - Brett

1. Aaron Rodgers - Favre.

This Morning's Top Story - July 23, 2008

In an absolutely stunning development I have learned that two ATP (that would be Association of Tennis Professionals to those unaware - the men's professional tour) tennis players have recently been suspended by, err, the ATP for betting on tennis matches. You can read about it here if you would like.

You may be asking yourself at this point, what's so stunning about this, given that the article itself mentions recent allegations of potential match fixing by tour player Nikolay Davydenko. True, the fact that tennis players were gambling on the match isn't the stunning development of which I am speaking. What is stunning about this is that I learned of this news in the first place.

Now I will freely admit that I am a fairly big tennis fan, however, even my level of interest in the sport does not rise to the point where I would know, let alone care, what the names of the 34th and 37th ranked doubles players in the world are. These people are doubles players for crying out loud! Usually the best doubles players in the world play doubles because they are not skilled enough to win on a consistent basis playing singles. And these two guys in a combined twenty years of professional tennis play have a combined singles record of 19-29. They're obviously not that great at playing singles, but they're ranked 34th and 37th in the world playing doubles. So I would say that they aren't exceptionally good at doubles either.

So in essence what is stunning about this story is that Associated Press evidently had someone to spare to write about it. How is it newsworthy that the 34th and 37th ranked doubles players in the world are betting on tennis matches that do not involve themselves?

And of course, you naturally should be asking why I even care about this or even bothered to open the link. Well, I will simply answer this (very good) enquiry by saying that recently I have heard a number of complaints (or better yet whines) by people because I have not been updating this weblog enough. Well, here you go.

Big Brown vs Casino Drive - May 24, 2008

I have good news for you horse racing fans! This is going to be yet another horse racing post, and so obviously if you do not like horse racing, I don't really care. As you are no doubt aware of by now, Big Brown did go on to win the Preakness Stakes impressively by 5 1/4 lengths in 1:54.86. The margin could have been a lot more if Kent Desormeaux had allowed Big Brown to really throw down for longer in the race, but Desormeaux wisely thought to save some of the horse's energy for the Belmont Stakes on June 7.

Big Brown is already in New York as I write, getting set for his attempt to become the first US Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. Big Brown has dominated every single horse that has ever raced against him. The case can be made that we have yet to truly see Big Brown at his best because he has never been truly challenged. And I will be honest, as impressive as Big Brown looked in the Preakness, his competition was truly atrocious. Andrew Beyer put it best in his article when he said "[r]arely do a horse and rider win any kind of race...with such obvious disdain for the competition." That Big Brown was able to win so easily should not have been a surprise. (Heck, I essentially stated that Big Brown could win this race in essentially the way in which he did and I am clearly no expert - please ignore those picks for second and third place.) However, there still appear to be many people who refuse to acknowledge the quality of races that Big Brown has run (irrespective of what the "competition" might have done in the races), and continue to grasp at straws for why Big Brown should be unqualified to win this Triple Crown.

Before the Kentucky Derby, the story was that Big Brown was too lightly raced and that no horse since 1929 had won the race from post 20, Big Brown's assigned post in the Derby. Of course the naysayers seemed to heavily discount the quality of Big Brown's prior starts when assessing his Derby chances. In Big Brown's maiden run in 2007, he won the 1 1/16 mile turf race in a very fast 1:40.33, while setting quarter-mile fractions of 23.19, 47.54 (24.35), 1:11.84 (24.3), and 1:34.46 (22.62). Now turf (grass) times tend to be faster than dirt times, so on dirt one would expect slower times, however, notice that the second half mile that Big Brown ran (46.92) was faster than the first (47.54). He won this race by 11 1/4 lengths.

In Big Brown's second race, and first of this year, he ran a mile on dirt and set quarter-mile fractions of 22.95, 45.31 (22.36), 1:09.87 (24.56), and finished in 1:35.66 (25.79). This might seem like a disappointing time, but watch the race. The race was a joke. Kent Desormeaux never had to ask Big Brown to run hard and he just cruised in for the win. Nearing the top of the stretch you can see Desormeaux looking around behind him for other horses - something that would become a familiar sight in later races. The key is that if asked Big Brown probably could have gone two seconds faster in this race. He won this race by 12 3/4 lengths.

The next race for Big Brown, and the one that installed him as the favorite for the Kentucky Derby, was the March 29 1 1/8 mile Florida Derby. The Florida Derby was the last Kentucky Derby prep race that the great Kentucky Derby champion Barbaro contested in 2006. In that Florida Derby, Barbaro did the seemingly incredible, winning the race from post 10 in a time of 1:49.01. The fractions for that race were 23.45, 47.35 (23.9), 1:11.37 (24.02), and 1:36.08 (24.71). Barbaro won that race by about a quarter length. When Big Brown ran the race, he won from an even more impressive post 12 in 1:48.16, setting splits of 22.76, 45.83 (23.07), 1:10.08 (24.25), and 1:35.18 (25.1). Big Brown won the Florida Derby by five lengths. Clearly Big Brown's Florida Derby was more impressive. He broke from a more disadvantageous position, set faster fractions in leading from wire-to-wire, and his final eighth of a mile was nearly as fast as Barbaro's (12.98 for Big Brown versus 12.93 for Barbaro) even though Big Brown had the race in hand and was not being pushed to finish.

Then we come to the Kentucky Derby. The race has been discussed widely because of the ill-fated run of Eight Belles. Despite this tragedy, the run by Big Brown was truly spectacular. Again starting from post 20, Big Brown won the 1 1/4 mile race in 2:01.82 in which the fractions were 23.3, 47.04 (23.74), 1:11.14 (24.1), and 1:36.56 (25.42). What may not be immediately obvious, and if you do the math (and I've done the math), you will realize that the last quarter mile, in 25.26, was faster than the second to last quarter mile. Essentially this means that the pace to the mile mark was not an overly taxing pace for Big Brown as he still was able to accelerate late in the race. Big Brown won by 4 3/4 lengths over Eight Belles, with another 3 1/2 lengths back to third place Denis of Cork.

And finally we come to the Preakness. There is no secret that Big Brown won the race. As stated above, he went the 1 3/16 mile course in 1:54.86, with fractions of 23.59, 46.81 (23.22), 1:10.48 (23.67), and 1:35.72 (25.24). Big Brown was able to win this race by 5 1/4 lengths with Desormeaux slowing him down well before he had crossed the line. Big Brown probably could have won by more than 10 lengths had Desormeaux allowed him.

Two weeks from today is the Belmont Stakes, the 1 1/2 mile race that has doomed ten Triple Crown contenders in the last thirty years. Many have said that Big Brown has the best shot at winning the Crown since the great Spectacular Bid in 1979. The new horse that everyone is talking about that supposedly has a shot at derailing Big Brown is Casino Drive. There are three main factors that the "experts" point to when assessing Casino Drive's chances. First of all, he is half-brother (sharing the same mother) to the last two Belmont Stakes winners, Jazil in 2006 and Rags to Riches in 2007. And second of all, people point to Casino Drive's victory at Belmont Park in the 1 1/8 Peter Pan Stakes on May 10 in 1:47.87. Casino Drive won this race by five lengths with Kent Desormeaux as his jockey. It's a very impressive time, better than Big Brown's time at the same distance in the Florida Derby, with quarter mile splits of 23.08, 46.31 (23.23), 1:10.47 (24.16), and 1:35.26 (24.79). The third main factor that people use is that Casino Drive will be the more rested horse.

Casino Drive hasn't received nearly the same scrutiny that Big Brown has. Would you care to know how many lifetime races Casino Drive has completed as he prepares for the Belmont? Two. The Peter Pan Stakes was Casino Drive's second lifetime race. Why is there no talk about whether such a lightly raced horse such as Casino Drive able to win such a demanding race as the Belmont as there was for Big Brown heading into the Kentucky Derby? Additionally, is the fact that Casino Drive is half brother to the last two Belmont winners really that strong of a piece of evidence? Put in another way, might it not be more chance than anything else that Jazil and Rags to Riches happened to win the Belmont? Surely there have been well-bred horses born from the same mare who have shown varying abilities to perform over the last several decades. Why should it be the case that simply because Casino Drive's two half siblings won the last two Blemonts that Casino Drive should have a reasonable chance to upset Big Brown? Oh, that's right, Casino Drive did have that big performance in the Peter Pan Stakes. However, that performance is somewhat deceptive, and is in my opinion not as impressive as Big Brown's Florida Derby victory.

One of the things that I have never heard discussed is the dimensions of the tracks on which the horses have run. The Belmont Park main racecourse, on which the Belmont Stakes will be contested and on which the Peter Pan Stakes took place, is a 1 1/2 mile racecourse. The straights of the Belmont course are 1940 feet, which leaves 2020 feet for each of the curves. The Gulfstream Park course, where the Florida Derby took place, is a 1 1/8 mile racecourse, and as nearly as I can tell, the straights are about 1370 feet while the curves are 1600 feet. (This is a rough estimate based on using the Gmaps Pedometer, but it is close enough for qualitative and quantitative purposes.) Casino Drive ran a single turn in his Peter Pan win while Big Brown ran two turns in his Florida Derby win. Anyone who has ever run in races knows that it is harder to maintain a high speed on a tighter curve than it is on a more gradual turn. That Big Brown ran a longer distance on tighter curves (3200 feet versus 2020 feet) and actually had to run a few horses wide on the first turn as a result of the disadvantageous 12 post start position (actually increasing the distance that he ran), and only ran .29 seconds slower than Casino Drive, who was able to stay along the rail for pretty much the entire race, is impressive. Each horse won by five lengths and so it is unclear as to whether either was going all out as the race ended.

The biggest that I see with those who are discounting Big Brown's chances is that it seems virtually everyone ignores the fact that Big Brown seems to listen to and obey Kent Desormeaux's every command. From all appearances, Big Brown will not go off chasing an insanely fast pace on his own, and I doubt that Kent Desormeaux would direct him to do so. From what I've seen, the only way to defeat Big Brown is to set some pace that is fast enough that he will have his kick taken out of him. So far, none of these other horses have demonstrated this ability. In the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, Big Brown was positioned just off of the pace as he reached the quarter pole, and then once Desormeaux gave him the green light, he accelerated away from the field, gapping them by three to four lenghts in a matter of a few strides. I don't think any of the horses that ran against Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby or the Preakness are good enough to set such a fast pace that will break Big Brown. And in those last two races, once Big Brown pulled away the distance widened without Kent Desormeaux asking for the full effort out of Big Brown. (This was certainly the case in the Preakness, but I believe it was also the case in the Kentucky Derby.) I don't think that Casino Drive would be likely to set the pace in the Belmont and I have not seen anything out of this horse to suggest that he can handle that Big Brown acceleration when it inevitably comes.