News Flash: Urgent Update!

In response to my consideration of capital punishment for corrupt refs, lawyers for Mr. Donaghy forwarded the accompanying photograph.

I'm pretty sure that it depicts Donaghy teaching his daughters how to strangle a puppy.

What's that Foul Odor?

This morning, Tim Donaghy, the former N.B.A. referee who came clean (or as clean as someone made entirely of horse manure and guano can come) concerning his betting on games he officiated, was given a sentence of 15 months in the slammer.

Call me a law-and-order Republican (or Nancy), but 15 months? Does that come with the poolside view or the ocean view? I'm sorry but that's ridiculous. Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines you get beaten with a tire iron continuously for 47 years just for knowing someone who once had a friend who saw a movie in which a character was depicted doing crack.

At the very least, this guy has soured a national pastime. And on this front, it's worth noting that until the Supreme Court recently stepped up to the plate, we were holding guys indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay for simply failing to wear a flag pin when entering a mosque.

However, Donaghy's actions go beyond soiling professional basketball. What is the actual cost to society of a fixed game? Just ask the city of Sacramento, which was robbed of a Western Conference Championship in 2002 when the Lakers were gifted 27 free throws in the fourth quarter of Game 6. Let's start with the Sacramento dads who, infuriated by the biased officiating, turned their anger on their wives and children. Domestic violence costs a lot: among other things (like, um, causing immense physical and emotional suffering), it takes up police, hospital, and social service resources. Then there were the other Kings fans who lashed out in self-destructive ways, punching cinderblock walls and breaking their hands or getting fall-down drunk, driving home, and crashing their cars. Others turned their disappointment and upset outward, committing vandalism and various assaults. And still others moped around for days in a funk, unable to focus on their jobs and important responsibilities. In addition, I'm going to go ahead and posit that a few suicides may have been sparked by the illegitimate Lakers win. It is difficult to accept, but cheating refs cost lives, property, and productivity.

Then there is the matter of the economic benefits of winning a Conference Championship (and, likely, the eventual NBA Championship) that were stolen from Sacramento. It's not just t-shirt and hat sales that were lost, but new season ticket sales and general increases in local business that accompany a championship season.

In short, fixing games as a ref is not a victimless crime. It's serious business, which makes Donaghy's sentence an embarrassment. I'm not saying that I'd favor the death penalty here; I'm just saying that if a state decided to enact it for "nefarious reffing," I think it would pass muster under the 8th Amendment.

Chamberlain Seeks Appeasement; Jews Skeptical

"'It's a 2-0 count and the game's one-nothing,' Chamberlain said. 'I'm not trying to do anything ... [He] doesn't want that pitch there and I don't want to throw that pitch there.'"

Thus spake Yankees phenom Joba Chamberlain, doing his best Roger-Clemens-under-oath impression, after this happened:



Which took place about three weeks after Chamberlain threw behind the most important Jew in the Red Sox organization this side of Theo Epstein.

Which went down less than a year after Chamberlain got suspended for throwing two fastballs over Youkilis's head in the same at-bat:



[Highlight of that video: the clip of Josh Beckett apparently warning Chamberlain that he risks "flunking Kant" if he continues acting on maxims that one could not will to be universal law.]

Here's an interesting statistic: In the 102 and 1/3 innings Chamberlain has pitched in his major league career, he has hit a batter three times. Juxtapose that factoid with the four throws above/behind Youkilis since August 2007, and it makes you wonder: is there anyone on the planet besides Jerry Remy who wouldn't think that Chamberlain had the proverbial mens rea on Friday? And if not, what is the league's prosecutorial arm waiting for--an NSA wiretap into Chamberlain's brain capturing his inner monologue?

MLB: Soft on crime. MLB: Nanny state. MLB = Michael Dukakis?

Favre on Ice

Now that the Green Bay Packers have officially told Brett Favre to go fuck himself, one wonders what the future Hall-of-Famer's next move will be. What exactly are Favre's options for further humiliating himself?

There have been reports that Favre might end up with the Jets. Appealingly degrading though this would be, I have an even better suggestion: Favre should play in Canada. The CFL, with its focus on passing, rough-riding, and multiples of 11, would be perfect for Brett's wide-open, country-boy, let's-crank-it-up-to-11 playing style. Plus, there's already a team with practically the exact same uniform as the Packers: the Edmonton Eskimos (see above). After the first couple of blows to the head, Favre would probably just think he was back on the frozen tundra, throwing to the guys in green and gold. Also, Edmonton is not exactly lacking in frozen tundra.

Think it over, Brett. I think this could make a lot of sense. Plus, I hear they have cheap prescription drugs up there.

More Baseball Arbitrariness in the News

As has been widely reported, today is the 25th anniversary of the George Brett pine tar incident. Sadly, the hilarious freak-out footage seems to have been removed from YouTube. There's nothing quite like an enraged man wearing powder blue.

This week also saw the passing of Jerome Holtzman, the inventor of the "save" statistic. Thank you, Mr. Holtzman, for spurring a generation of idiot managers to avoid using their best relief pitcher in the 8th inning of a close game when the heart of the other team's lineup is due to bat. At least now I know that "wins" almost invariably means "subset of total blown saves" on a closer's stat sheet.

The systemic bias in favor of check-swing strikes

While Jon Miller and Joe Morgan have undoubtedly inspired more suffering than intellectual stimulation during their time on Sunday Night Baseball, they made one pretty good point during yesterday's Red Sox-Angels game: the prevailing regime for evaluating check-swings is systematically biased in favor of strike calls.

The home plate umpire makes an initial call. If he says swing: no appeal available. But if he says no swing: appeal available. The result: false negative calls are occasionally caught and overturned (erroneously or not) while false positive calls always remain in place.

Is there any persuasive reason for this? Do efficiency concerns counsel in favor of granting in catchers a right of appeal that batters would use less judiciously or deservedly? Is accuracy instead the operative value--in which case the idea would be that home plate umpires simply render fewer erroneous false positive than false negative decisions (perhaps deliberately so, in light of their knowledge that only a non-swing call, or non-call, can result in a second opinion)? Is there some other explanation?

To be sure, the phenomenon of the one-way-appealable call appears elsewhere in sport. In the NFL, for example, a disputed fumble ruled a fumble on the field is subject to instant replay review, but the same play initially ruled down-by-contact is unreviewable. In that case, however, there's a good resason for the asymmetry: players stop playing when they hear the whistle that accompanies a down-by-contact call, and so any subsequent activity during the play might reasonable be viewed as tainted or less legitimate. At first glance, at least, it's hard to see a similarly compelling justification for baseball's check-swing appellate regime. Am I missing something?

Counterpoint: Changing the Home Run Derby Rules = Wicked Un-American

In a recent post to the influential "Dorks on Sports" weblog, Dork 2 suggests that the rules of Major League Baseball's Home Run Derby are characterized by "arbitrariness" and "caprice." His/her/its argument: whatever bass-ackward, multi-round, non-aggregating tallying method MLB employs is a suboptimal system for determining the event's "winner" if a player can hit way more home runs than his opponent and still lose.

What Dork 2 fails to appreciate, however, is that similar logic would condemn the very lifeblood of the American democratic process: the Electoral College, which our Constitution's framers brilliantly devised in order to ensure that the person whom most voters want to be President won't always win. What next, Dork 2: a "National Popular Vote" movement for the Home Run Derby? Then maybe we nationalize our oil companies?

Naughty Hot Young Thing! 18-Year-Old Amateur Wants To Break All The Rules!

Yes, Brandon Jennings, formerly of Oak Hill Academy (a well known math and science magnet school . . . er, basketball mill) is trying to sidestep the NBA's age rules by heading to Europe to play for Pallacanestro Virtus Roma, which is either an Italian basketball team or something you see in the architectural tour of Quirinale.

He was going to go play for the University of Arizona, but then came to his senses. By all accounts it was a tough choice: (1) Political Science 101 and being yelled at by someone named Lute or (2) a multi-million dollar contract and sex with models from Milan.

I have to say, it's never made much sense to me to force people to go to college for a year. A quick review of the internets will reveal that we let our 18-year-olds do pretty crazy things. How is playing professional basketball in the NBA right out of high school so much more corrupting than taping yourself having sex with three guys for money or blowing up an Iraqi with a hand grenade? Only David Stern knows.

All-Star Underpants (or, the Commissioner's New Underpants)

So many memories from the All-Star festivities at Yankee Stadium this week: Chase Utley cursing the New York crowd... Billy Wagner blowing a late lead, including giving up an uncontested steal of second base (which is not easy for a left-handed pitcher)... George Steinbrenner getting a true totalitarian strongman's entrance, complete with nighttime sunglasses, weeping, man kisses, and, we can only hope, a diaper. Truly an event to remember. And thanks again to Bud Selig for making the All-Star Game "matter" again. I think they should play 15 innings every year! If we can't ruin the arm of every decent pitcher in both leagues in a single night, then the terrorists have already won.

Special mention, however, must go to the Home Run Derby. In the midst of all this newfound All-Star making-sense and mattering, the Home Run Derby stands as a bulwark of arbitrariness and rulebook caprice. So, Josh Hamilton sets a new record by hitting like 80 home runs, overcoming his drug-addiction demons once and for all on the grandest possible stage, and he... loses 5-3 to Justin Morneau? WTF? Justin Morneau couldn't carry Josh Hamilton's bent spoon and zippo! What exactly is the purpose of the multiple rounds, anyway? Forgive me, but it seems like the Home Run Derby is a pretty fucking simple concept. This is ripe for commissorial intervention.

Also, Dan Uggla: does that guy suck or what?

Housekeeping Note

Dorks: in an effort to increase our page views, I suggest that we begin adding the keyword label "underpants" to all of our posts. I got the idea from a friend who mentioned that his Flickr pictures of his two-year-old son get way more hits when they have words like "bathtime" and "underpants" associated with them than when they don't. And his son isn't even that hot.

Play on sabbath, get burned

Undisputed statistic of the week, from ESPN's blurb on the Red Sox' win over the Orioles today:

"Baltimore lost for the sixth time in seven games, and dropped its 14th straight Sunday game. The major league record for consecutive losses on a specific day is 21 -- the 1939 St. Louis Browns and 1890 Pittsburgh Innocents both did it on Tuesdays."

Which begs the question: if they were so Innocent, then why did God hate them so much? Seriously though, if the US devoted a tenth the manpower to foreign intelligence gathering that ESPN does to digging up meaningless statistics, we'd probably be fighting, like, way fewer wars right now.

Does Wisconsin Make You Stupid?

So, I hate to break up the fascinating discussion of English soccer by-laws and dead southern politicians and other deeply interesting (and totally relevant!) material that's been posted to the blog this week, but I have a new proposal related to actual American sports that I think you might find interesting:

Instead of having home-field advantage in the World Series determined by the winner of the All-Star Game (thanks Bud!), it should be determined by whether or not Brett Favre intends to come out of retirement at the moment the game ends. Year in and year out, this would make for a far less predictable, and thus much fairer, outcome than what we have under the current system.

Alternatively, any foul ball that strikes and kills Selig during the game automatically results in home-field advantage for the batter's league.

One more media watch digression

CNN on the bill granting retroactive immunity to telcos that just passed the Senate:

"The controversy over President Bush's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program also prompted calls for change in the FISA law. The so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) was ordered by the president after the 9/11 attacks. It allowed for spying on the communications between U.S. residents and people overseas if it was believed one of the parties was linked to terrorism. Telephone carriers now face lawsuits for assisting the government in eavesdropping on suspected terrorists after 9/11."

Almost. Except the reason the telcos wanted immunity in the first place was that they weren't just turning over information about suspected terrorists. Instead, AT&T siphoned off all electronic data that went through its Folsom Street plant in San Francisco to a room packed with advanced computer equipment and accessible only to representatives of the National Security Agency. We know this because an AT&T whistleblower has said so in a sworn declaration, uncontested in several years of litigation, that is the basis for the ongoing lawsuit Hepting v. AT&T (which itself is the principal basis for the telcos' expensive campaign to have their liability retroactively extinguished).

More succinctly: the story would be right if CNN replaced "assisting the government in eavesdropping on suspected terrorists after 9/11" with "assisting the government in collecting information on any American whose communications happened to be routed through AT&T's San Francisco operating plant." Probably just a typo.

Reward and Punishment

In direct contrast to the recent experience of Dork 1 and the other blessed Bostonians, the sun does not shine on the sports teams that I like. Somehow my support seems to turn promising draft picks into arrogant washups, strong arms into dust, and golden franchises into dynasties of disappointment.

Since childhood I have tried to wait it out. I've bided my time. I've been patient as ticket prices have increased and losses have mounted. But what has it gotten me? A lifetime of spoiled Sundays. A bitter taste in my mouth.

Enough is enough.

As a supporter of countless mediocre and poor sports teams over the years, I am hereby proposing the adoption of a "relegation" mechanism in American professional sports.

It is common in European leagues for teams to be transferred between division at the end of the season: the top teams in each echelon are called up to the next-highest division, while the worst teams are dropped to the lower division. In English football, for example, the bottom three teams in the Premiership are relegated each year, while the top two teams in the Football League Championship (the next level down) are automatically promoted with the next four vying for the third spot through a set of playoffs. This continues down through the Football Leagues One and Two, the Conference National, and the Conferences North and South.

This system accomplishes three things. First, it makes the end of the year exciting for everyone, including those who have suffered through a season of defeats. Given serious loss of revenue, exposure, and players, those at the bottom have everything to play for. Second, having teams coming up from the lower divisions adds excitement to the season with real underdogs fighting for the title. Third, if my no-good teams were relegated, at least they wouldn't be on TV so much, which would save me valuable time where I might take up a hobby, such a horticulture or backgammon.

Yes, it would be difficult to implement a new system at this point, but hockey and baseball, at least, already have minor leagues, and we could start with them. Getting "called up to the big leagues" could take on a whole new meaning.

Obstructionist to the end

Yes, this post is related to the topics typically treated in this forum only to the extent that trashing the New York Times is a sport in itself--but an item in this morning's business section pretty well raises journalistic incompetence to world-class competitive levels.

In a three-page investigative report on Congress's general failure over the last 25 years to do anything that might have softened the blow of currently high oil prices, the paper of record notes that one opportunity for reform was thwarted in 1990 when Senators Carl Levin and Jesse Helms teamed up to block legislation offering higher fuel efficiency standards. After three paragraphs describing the episode, the article proclaims, damningly: "Mr. Levin and Mr. Helms didn't return calls for comment."

Clearly, they are dodging journalists' hard-hitting questions because they are embarrassed about and have no defensible explanation for their obstructionist tactics. Or Jesse Helms died two days ago. Definitely one or the other.

[The online version appends a correction. The print version survives, as further evidence that the Times hasn't yet entirely mastered the death/life distinction.]

MLB = Nanny State, Revisited

First base coaches, now batting practice. In the wake of the freak accident that Chipper Jones suffered during a pregame warm-up last month (video footage worthy of the Zapruder family reproduced above), at least one team has decided that it will not be complacent any longer: the Los Angeles Dodgers now all wear batting helmets during BP. I know this because I watched them take BP this evening, and they were all wearing batting helmets.

[In a related story, the Giants have a pregame contest where they invite three fans onto the field to try to catch fly balls shot out of a pitching machine--and the fans also all wear batting helmets. To catch fly balls.]

The good news: Mothers' League Baseball has not yet stepped in to require that first basemen wear catchers' masks during between-inning infield ground-ball tossing, even despite the black eye Kevin Youkilis recently sustained in the course of that treacherous activity. The bad news: the scourge of over-reaction to a high-profile but extremely improbable incident has struck again. Because the people who run baseball are idiots.

Sometime in the relatively near future, there's going to be another weird accident involving someone unpredictably getting injured on a baseball field in some bizarre way. Like, a line drive is going to hit a pitcher warming up in one of those bullpens that are right on the field in foul territory. Or a groundskeeper is going to have his eyeballs burst when a soprano national anthem singer gets to "la-and of the freeee" and the frequency of the high note pierces the film of his irises. Can we just agree now that in the aftermath of that episode, whatever it is, we're going to acknowledge that it will never, in a hundred years, happen again, that it was a risk worth bearing, and that we're not going to make relief pitchers warm up in riot gear and the grounds crew wear safety goggles?

Err Apparent

So Sports Illustrated has a story this week about the challenges facing Aaron Rodgers, successor to Brett Favre as the Packers' quarterback (pictured at right, scalping Phish tickets, with Favre indicating the size of the doobie they are going to smoke during YEM). The article dwells on the difficulties faced by players who replace hall-of-fame, Superbowl-winning, living-legend quarterbacks. Shockingly, it turns out that they are usually not as good as their predecessors.

SI goes for the too-much-pressure, fans-expecting-the-world-of-you explanation for these follow-up quarterbacks' collective failure, pointing to the miserable results of those who followed Unitas, Namath, Staubach, Bradshaw, and Marino (with the notable exception of Steve Young, who won a Superbowl as Joe Montana's successor in San Francisco).

But allow me to suggest another explanation: quarterbacks who follow living-legend types tend not to be as good as the actual living-legend types because EXTREMELY FEW HUMAN BEINGS ARE LIVING-LEGEND-CALIBER QUARTERBACKS. This includes almost everyone who is actually good enough to play quarterback in the NFL. True, the schlubs who followed the greats listed above were pretty sucky. But if you put a picture of every NFL quarterback from the past 40 years on a wall and threw six darts against the wall, chances are you would hit at least five equally sucky quarterbacks. Maybe, if you were lucky, you would hit a Steve Young one time. But probably you wouldn't.

So, I can understand that running an article whose central thesis is "it's extremely unlikely that any quarterback picked at random (say, Aaron Rodgers) will be anywhere near as good as Brett Favre" won't sell a lot of copies of Sports Illustrated. And I wish Rodgers the best (go Bears!). But it doesn't change the fact that, like so many stories in the sports media, this one is peddling a bullshit psychological explanation for what is simply a statistical near-certainty.