sports

Ichiro Suzuki and His Care for Bats

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Very interesting New York Times piece highlighting how Ichiro Suzuki cares for his bats. To Ichiro Suzki, bats are his Stradivarius violins:

Today, after a decade in the major leagues, Suzuki still displays that same reverence on a daily basis, caring for his bats like Stradivarius violins. While most players dump their bats in cylindrical canvas bags when they are not using them, Suzuki neatly stacks his best eight bats inside a shockproof, moisture-free black case that he keeps close by his locker at home and on the road.

Said Suzuki: “In Japan we take care of our instruments, our bats and our gloves…We take care of them well because these things are very important.”

Medalball

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What if you could apply the tactics of Moneyball to the Olympic Games? Nate Silver performs a neat thought experiment to do just that. As he writes, “I’ve identified three measures that, when weighted equally, suggest the sports in which the Kyrgyzstans of the world could direct their energy and resources to maximize their medal count.” The formula can be broken down to three parts:

Find a cheap sport:

The average medal winner comes from a country with per capita G.D.P. of $27,000 in today’s dollars, which is well above the worldwide average of around $11,000. But wealthy nations haven’t claimed every sport. Indonesia has won many medals in badminton; Belarus and Ukraine are powers in rhythmic gymnastics. 

Pick a sport with most medals awarded per participant:

Team sports like soccer require a lot of players for a single medal; that’s expensive and illogical for a medalball country. So I ranked the number of medals awarded in the 2008 Olympics, per event, for every 10 athletes participating. The higher the number, the better the chance of a medal.

The final tip is to pick a sport where the diversity of country winners (outside of the top three) is large. Putting these together, Nate Silver concludes the following sports are best for producing a medalball country (scores out of 10 points; 5 is average):

1. Wrestling 8.78
Thirty-five countries, including Kyrgyzstan, have medaled in wrestling since 1996.

2. Tae Kwon Do 8.76
Though an Olympic sport only since 2000, it already has among the most diverse lists of medal-winning countries, including Afghanistan and Venezuela.

3. Weight Lifting 8.69
Its eight male (and seven female) weight classes give athletes of all sizes a chance. The poorer nations of Southeast Asia have done well in the lighter classes.

A great thought experiment!

Exploring New York Through Pickup Basketball

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Isaac Eger moved to New York City on a whim: no job, no girlfriend, no aspirations. But he had one curiosity: the city’s mythical ownership of pickup basketball. Were its legendary courts just New York hype? He set out exploring the pick-up courts in what he describes as a “a little stream of consciousness, a little underreported, full of a bunch of first names and first impressions”:

If New York is the city that never sleeps, it is probably because the city never shuts up.

Drowning the shriek of sneakers and the clangs of missed shots is the constant trash talk from the players on and off the court.

“Shoot it! I dare you!”

“You ain’t got nothing.”

“I’m gonna score from the block next time. Wait and see.”

Players on the city’s courts comment on what you wear, how you look, how you smell, what you do, how you blink and breathe. Cries and hoots from the sidelines fill the park when someone gets crossed, blocked or dunked on.

On being close:

Though everything seems to be less than an hour away, people do not appear too inclined to venture far beyond their neighborhood. Perhaps there is a level of comfort that comes with picking a court and sticking with it — like picking your favorite bar or cigarette brand. All of the players seem to know one another’s nicknames, tricks and extended families.

The city’s busy, congested courts have influenced the style of play that takes place on them. For instance, I haven’t run across many pure shooters, but I have encountered a lot of athletes with wicked ball-handling skills. My theory is that because the courts here are so packed with players, there is not enough time or space to practice jump shots.

That is why so many shooters, I suspect, are cornfed boys from the Midwest and prep schoolers from the suburbs: the country and sprawl quarantine them, and they have nothing to do but practice fundamentals by their lonesome.

His conclusion on the guys he played with on the courts:

We weren’t going to be friends. Ever.

But teammates? Perhaps.

The Curious Life of R.A. Dickey

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Yesterday, the New York Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey became the first major leaguer player in 24 years to throw consecutive one-hitters. But it’s his life story that is worth considering. The following nuggets are taken from Wikipedia…

On his ability to throw, when he shouldn’t be able to:

After being drafted by the Rangers, Dickey was initially offered a signing bonus of $810,000, before a Rangers team physician saw Dickey’s throwing (right) arm hanging oddly in a picture. The Rangers subsequently did further evaluation of Dickey, leading to the discovery of a missing ulnar collateral ligament of elbow joint, and reduced their offer to $75,000. Dickey has been quoted as saying “Doctors look at me and say I shouldn’t be able to turn a doorknob without feeling pain,” making his ability to pitch somewhat remarkable.

On tying the record of most wild pitches in an inning, 4:

On August 17, 2008, Dickey tied the record for most wild pitches in an inning, with 4. This came against the Minnesota Twins in the 5th inning. He joins four others including Hall of Famers Walter Johnson and Phil Niekro among others who have accomplished this feat.

On being a studious reader:

One of his favorite hobbies is reading. He keeps a stack of books in his locker at all times, including a Life of Pi by Yann Martel and a collection of works by C. S. Lewis.

If Dickey wasn’t a baseball player, he wanted to be an English professor. Finally, this is the best part, perhaps. He has named his bats for literary swords:

Dickey named his bats for literary swords–Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver (from The Hobbit) and Hrunting (from Beowulf). Dickey mixed up Orcrist and Sting when explaining the origin of the name. This led to what is known to some as the BEST NEW YORK TIMES CORRECTION ever.

Finally, on Dickey being an inspiration to others:

In November 2011, Dickey announced that he would risk his 2012 season salary ($4,250,000) to attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro; he credits this aspiration to his boyhood reading of Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro. While climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, he set out to raise awareness of the issue of human trafficking in India. His climb was in support of an organization called “Bombay Teen Challenge” that ministers to victims of human trafficking and their children in the heart of the redlight districts. Dickey returned from this trip in January 2012 with Mets bullpen catcher Dave Racaniello and the Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Kevin Slowey, and together raised over $100,000.

Soccer: World’s Most Corrupt Game

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A very good ESPN Magazine piece on the world’s most corrupt game, football (or soccer):

Here’s a mere sampling of events since the beginning of last year: Operation Last Bet rocked the Italian Football Federation, with 22 clubs and 52 players awaiting trial for fixing matches; the Zimbabwe Football Association banned 80 players from its national-team selection due to similar accusations; Lu Jun, the first Chinese referee of a World Cup match, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for taking more than $128,000 in bribes to fix outcomes in the Chinese Super League; prosecutors charged 57 people with match fixing in the South Korean K-League, four of whom later died in suspected suicides; the team director of second-division Hungarian club REAC Budapest jumped off a building after six of his players were arrested for fixing games; and in an under-21 friendly, Turkmenistan reportedly beat Maldives 3-2 in a “ghost match” — neither country knew about the contest because it never actually happened, yet bookmakers still took action and fixers still profited.

Soccer match fixing has become a massive worldwide crime, on par with drug trafficking, prostitution and the trade in illegal weapons. As in those criminal enterprises, the match-fixing industry has been driven by opportunistic greed. According to Interpol figures, sports betting has ballooned into a $1 trillion industry, 70 percent of which is gambled on soccer. 

A lot more facts and figures here.

The Problem with Buying Sports Experiences

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Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier argue that when people are buying a sports experience, they let emotions get in the way, and end up making poor judgments. Their examples:

    • A fan goes to StubHub to buy a ticket to a big basketball game and shells out $125 for the best seat she can afford. The logic here is understandable: More money seems like it should give you a better view of the action and a better fan experience. But in practice, the worst seats in the highest-priced section are often no better, or are even worse, than the best seats in the next lower-priced section. But the seller is not going to tell you that.
    • When customers sign up for a gym, they’re typically given two options: an all-inclusive membership or pay-by-the-visit. Studies from economists Stefano DellaVigna and Ulrike Malmendier have shown that even though it would be cheaper for most customers to pay by the visit, they almost always choose the unlimited plan, losing (on average) $600 for their trouble. Gym owners do not advertise this proudly, nor do they usually encourage you to take the cheaper deal.
    • A fan scans the upcoming schedule of his local (lousy) NBA team and has to pick an upcoming game — so naturally he goes for one featuring a star team or a star player. (Our editor-in-chief has been known to do exactly that when, say, the Thunder come into town to play the Clippers.) But more often than not, an unbalanced game results, one with little drama and that sees the star play only 27 minutes, much of it at half-speed. You expect a ticket agency to point that out before you shell out hundreds of dollars? Yeah. We thought not.

When I visit a new city and if there is a sports event that I can attend, I do my best to get tickets. I am surprised the authors purely focus on the experience of the game, when it’s so much more than that. It’s the walking to/from the event, interacting with the fans, trying out the food at the ballpark. Often, these other experiences more than compensate if one observes a lackluster game.

The Evolution of Jeremy Lin

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The phenomenon that is #Linsanity has swept the nation… The saga began after Jeremy Lin had a 25-point Game at Madison Square Garden on February 4. Since then, Jeremy Lin has been averaging more than 20 points and dishing out nearly 9 assists per game for the New York Knicks. In my opinion, he has single-handedly resurrected the shortened NBA season.

But what of Jeremy Lin’s evolution? Cut twice by two NBA teams, this fascinating New York Times story reveals how Jeremy Lin’s evolution as a point guard we observe today was gradual. Over a span of eighteen months, he has shown dedication to get better at his game. It meant coming to the training arena before anyone else and leaving after everyone else has gone home. The Jeremy Lin that is now the starting point guard for the Knicks isn’t the same player as the one who entered NBA after his playing days at Harvard:

It began with lonely 9 a.m. workouts in downtown Oakland in the fall of 2010; with shooting drills last summer on a backyard court in Burlingame, Calif.; and with muscle-building sessions at a Menlo Park fitness center.

It began with a reworked jump shot, a thicker frame, stronger legs, a sharper view of the court — enhancements that came gradually, subtly, through study and practice and hundreds of hours spent with assistant coaches, trainers and shooting instructors over 18 months.

My favorite anecdote from the story is a game called “Beating the Ghost”. This passage shows Lin’s dedication to continue improving:

Doc Scheppler has coached in Bay Area high schools for 34 years. He first saw Lin as a scrawny eighth-grader. But even then, “he had the ability to see the floor, make the right decision, make the correct angle pass. And that is just not done at 13, 14 years old.”

Last summer, Lin sought out Scheppler to help him with his 3-point shot. It was improving, but Lin was still shooting too high and throwing the ball — a “flying weapon,” Scheppler called it.

Working mostly in Scheppler’s backyard in Burlingame, Lin learned to begin his shot on the way up and release it at his peak. They also worked on a variety of in-game situations: the catch-and-shoot, off-the-dribble shots, and hesitation moves to create space.

Lin’s perfectionist tendencies came out in a 3-point-shooting drill called “beat the ghost,” in which Lin earned 1 point for every shot he made at the arc and the “ghost” earned 3 points for every shot Lin missed.

On one occasion, Lin made 17 3-pointers but lost 21-17, then kicked the ball in anger, Scheppler recalled with a chuckle. He refused to stop until he beat the ghost. It took 14 games. When Scheppler tallied up all of the scores for the day, Lin had converted 71 percent of his shots from the arc. “That’s the beauty of Jeremy Lin,” Scheppler said. “It’s not about moral victories. It’s ‘I have to win.’ ”

Of all the stories I’ve read about Jeremy Lin, The New York Times piece is one of (if not) the best explainer of Jeremy Lin’s rising stardom in the NBA. It didn’t happen overnight.

Thought Experiment: The End of the NFL

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The NFL season may be over, but the conversation on the growing phenomenon of head injuries and cognitive problems among football players will continue. Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier contemplate a thought experiment on the demise of the NFL:

Before you say that football is far too big to ever disappear, consider the history: If you look at the stocks in the Fortune 500 from 1983, for example, 40 percent of those companies no longer exist. The original version of Napster no longer exists, largely because of lawsuits. No matter how well a business matches economic conditions at one point in time, it’s not a lock to be a leader in the future, and that is true for the NFL too. Sports are not immune to these pressures. In the first half of the 20th century, the three big sports were baseball, boxing, and horse racing, and today only one of those is still a marquee attraction.

The most plausible route to the death of football starts with liability suits. Precollegiate football is already sustaining 90,000 or more concussions each year. If ex-players start winning judgments, insurance companies might cease to insure colleges and high schools against football-related lawsuits. Coaches, team physicians, and referees would become increasingly nervous about their financial exposure in our litigious society. If you are coaching a high school football team, or refereeing a game as a volunteer, it is sobering to think that you could be hit with a $2 million lawsuit at any point in time. A lot of people will see it as easier to just stay away. More and more modern parents will keep their kids out of playing football, and there tends to be a “contagion effect” with such decisions; once some parents have second thoughts, many others follow suit. We have seen such domino effects with the risks of smoking or driving without seatbelts, two unsafe practices that were common in the 1960s but are much rarer today. The end result is that the NFL’s feeder system would dry up and advertisers and networks would shy away from associating with the league, owing to adverse publicity and some chance of being named as co-defendants in future lawsuits.

They contemplate it might take some time, at least ten years:

Imagine the timeline. A couple more college players — or worse, high schoolers — commit suicide with autopsies showing CTE. A jury makes a huge award of $20 million to a family. A class-action suit shapes up with real legs, the NFL keeps changing its rules, but it turns out that less than concussion levels of constant head contact still produce CTE. Technological solutions (new helmets, pads) are tried and they fail to solve the problem. Soon high schools decide it isn’t worth it. The Ivy League quits football, then California shuts down its participation, busting up the Pac-12. Then the Big Ten calls it quits, followed by the East Coast schools. Now it’s mainly a regional sport in the southeast and Texas/Oklahoma. The socioeconomic picture of a football player becomes more homogeneous: poor, weak home life, poorly educated. Ford and Chevy pull their advertising, as does IBM and eventually the beer companies.

Very interesting read. Will the day ever come when Americans refer to soccer when they say football?

Jeremy Lin: From Harvard to the NBA

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The New York Times has a great story on Jeremy Lin, an NBA player currently with the New York Knicks. He is an Asian-American in a league devoid of them (the only other name that comes to mind is Yao Ming). He is the N.B.A.’s first American-born player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent and only the fourth Asian-American in league history.

Lin received no college scholarship offers, even though he lead his Palo Alto High School team to a 32-1 record and the California championship. At Harvard, he was twice named to the all-Ivy League first team and delivered a signature 30-point performance against 12th-ranked Connecticut. In June 2010, he went undrafted in the NBA. His defense, jump shot, and just about everything else seemed subpar compared to the NBA elites. Why is he receiving so much attention all of a sudden? Not only is he helping the Knicks overcome a mediocre season, but

[T]he Lin phenomenon transcends race or nationality. He resonates with devout Christians, because he speaks openly of his faith, a sort of Taiwanese Tim Tebow. He taps into the passions of Harvard alumni, Ivy Leaguers, New Yorkers and anyone anywhere who loves an underdog.

Below, some highlights of Lin’s ability to pass, score, and play defense:

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Related: this piece on Jeremy Lin reminded me of the Remarkable Story of the Caltech Basketball Team.

Best Super Bowl Trivia

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This Sunday, the Giants will face the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. Everyone will watch or care about the game for different reasons: there’s Madonna at the halftime show, the gambler who wants to cover the spread, the nonchalant fan, the ones in it for the commercials, and of course, the die-hard fans of the Giants and the Pats.

But Ken Jennings (the 74-time Jeopardy! champion and the author of books Maphead and Brainiac) argues that no one appreciates the Super Bowl as a whole the way a trivia buff does. So he compiled a top ten list of best Super Bowls in trivia history:

10. Super Bowl XIX

In beating the Dolphins, the 49ers became the only team ever to win the Super Bowl at home (sort of — Stanford Stadium is less than 30 miles from Candlestick). But this game is mostly of note to fans of movie trivia, since a fictional San Francisco-Miami championship was a major plot point in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Any Given Sunday. Oh, and Teri Hatcher was a 49ers cheerleader in 1985, and got almost as many ABC-TV close-ups during this game as she did during the third season of Desperate Housewives.

9. Super Bowl XLV

In 20 years, will anyone remember that the Packers won Super Bowl XLV? I doubt it. But will they remember Christina Aguilera mangling the national anthem by singing “What so proudly we watched, at the twilight’s last reaming”? Absolutely. Will they remember Lindsay Lohan’s $100 million lawsuit of E*Trade, for featuring a substance-abusing baby named Lindsay in one of their ads? I hope so. Will they remember Bryan Bulaga, the 21-year-old Green Bay lineman who became the youngest starter in Super Bowl history? Okay, probably not.

8. Super Bowl XXIX

This was the highest-scoring Super Bowl in history (49ers over Chargers 49-26) and a record fifth-straight Super Bowl for one player: backup Chargers QB Gale Gilbert, who had been signed from the Bills during the offseason. It’s also the game that Jerry was forced to attend with his nemesis Newman in the Seinfeld episode “The Label Maker.” But the highlight for me was the bizarre Disney synergy exercise of a halftime show, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye,” in which an Indy look-alike (Harrison Ford refused to participate) rescued the stolen Vince Lombardi Trophy from a jungle lair whose dangers included frenzied temple worshipers, the evil Eye of Mara, and Patti LaBelle singing “New Attitude.”

7. Super Bowl IV

The first Super Bowls weren’t quite ready for prime time. (Even literally! Super Bowl XII was the first evening game.) In the very first AFL-NFL championship, for example, the first touchdown was scored by a hastily suited-up (and hungover) Packers reserve named Max McGee, and the second-half kickoff had to be rekicked because the TV cameras had missed it. Super Bowl IV’s halftime show was the first one headlined by a big celebrity: Miss Carol Channing. The on-field accomplishments were just as dubious: This was the game that marked the beginning of the Minnesota Vikings’ 0-4 Super Bowl record that, amazingly, still doesn’t include a single first-half score.

6. Super Bowl XXXVIII

This Patriots-Panthers showdown been called the greatest Super Bowl of all time, and you probably remember it as a classic quarterback duel. Tom Brady’s 32 completions are still a Super Bowl record, as is Jake Delhomme’s 85-yard pass to Muhsin Muhammad. But only trivia fans remember the record scoreless 27 minutes that opened the first half. And the British streaker who tried to crash the second-half kickoff in a G-string but got clobbered by linebacker Matt Chatham. And a terrible Bud Light commercial about a farting horse. With all that going on, the “wardrobe malfunction” seems like almost an afterthought.

5. Super Bowl XXIII

The first Bud Bowl! And a halftime show that was a stadium-wide 3-D card trick performed by a magician named — I wish I were making this up — “Elvis Presto.” For me the trivia MVPs of the game were Mike Cofer, the 49ers kicker who made a 41-yard field goal only to miss a 19-yarder (!) on the next drive, and legendary Canadian comedian John Candy. As the story goes, with the 49ers down three with three minutes to go, Montana calmed down a nervous huddle by pointing into the crowd and asking, “Isn’t that John Candy?” Then he proceeded to march the team 92 yards downfield for the game-winning touchdown to John Taylor. Cool customer.

 For the trivia and sports fan in you, the complete list is worth reading.