John Talks About Sports
4/30/2007 Slow Down, Sportscenter
The other night Sportscenter led off with NFL draft coverage. They spent easily 5 minutes talking about Brady Quinn. Yep, 5 minutes about the 22nd draft pick.
They then took a break and came back with... more... draft... coverage...
This brings to light a huge problem with sports coverage. On a night where there were 4 NBA playoff games, 2 NHL playoff games (one of which went to double OT), and 15 baseball games, Sportscenter lead off and spent the majority of time talking about the NFL draft. An event which has no direct impact on games. People can debate me on that but there is no way to determine right now how these picks will turn out. Therefore, this draft does not directly influence the results of games/standings/championships in any way to possibly know right now.
Last year Matt Leinart was drafted to be a backup QB and learn the game from Kurt Warner. Since Kurt Warner's football deal with Jesus ran out, they needed Leinart to step up and be a starter. He did and did a good job. Marques Colston was the last pick of the entire draft and was a huge part of the Saints rejuvenation. No one could have/should have predicted that. People thought Reggie Bush would step in and make an immediate impact. It took him half a season to adjust to the Pro game.
Sports coverage has become predominantly predictive. I understand looking at teams and giving analysis as to why one might think someone is good. But outside of "I think the Brewers finally have the young talent in the field, pitching staff put together, and weak competition in the NL Central that they can have a real shot at the division title this year" is just talking for the sake of talking. What someone thinks will happen is not what will happen.
Now for why. That's right, I don't just complain, I offer reasons. The need for the highlight has deminished with the proliferation of the internet. You can go to Youtube to see Troy Tuwolitzki's unassisted triple play (correction: You could until MLB removed it like a bunch of jerks and now I can't see it at MLB.com. Way to promote your sport). You can go to MLB.com or ESPN.com to see highlights of major events.
What it appears ESPN and others have done is tried to make their analysis their valuable commodity. Which is fine, however the predictive analysis they continue to do doesn't deepen the understanding of the game. Rather than watching a game and breaking down the key plays and dynamics that influenced the outcome in a meaningful manner, we're left with responsibility free speculation. There are definitive things that lead to an outcome of a competition. What a player will do is a consequence free zone because we all agree there is no way to know for sure. It's a completely pointless practice that does nothing but offer a consequence free way of sounding smart. I think we should start holding sports coverage people to a percent of being correct. In all their weird predictions they have to be right 90% of the time or they lose their job. 90% because that is about an A average in school and they are supposed to be pros.
I would rather we just switch to analyzing games played. Trying to guess what happens is a utile effort that no one should value too much. Of course, some people do, but they don't count because they are irrational.
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4/29/2007 Someone Has a Math Problem... and Is a Drunk.
I was trying to figure out a way to be clever with this title, a la "Chicago is a drinking town with a baseball problem" but I am sleepy and did this instead.
Anyhoosiers, there is a Uni Watch article at ESPN page 2. Click on this almost impossible to see sentence to read it. It's a real interesting article about why certain players chose their numbers. This was right in my wheelhouse.
The point though that made me kinda rethink my life was Tedy Bruschi (#54). Allow me to quote a quote: "As explained on PatriotWorld.com: "Five and four add up to nine and my mom told me in numerology that nine is the perfect number. I was born June 9, my anniversary is the 27th, and 2 and 7 are 9, and 54 is the actual number of sacks I had in college, because I had 52 and then two in an all-star game.""
After the 2 and 7 being nine sentence, my immediate thought was "27 is also the perfect cube of 3. 3 to the 3rd, and then 3 times 3 equals 9. So, ya know, that's part of it too." I am not surprised I did that, just interesting insight into how much of a nerd I can be sometimes.
For those curious, Bruschi is not allowed to be 27 or 9. Numbers in football are assigned by position. Since he is a linebacker, there are only certain numbers he can have.
I was disappointed in the 81 section of this article. To explain, when I play sports I choose 81. "Why John? Please bore us with your inane math". Ok, fine reader, I will.
I was born in 1981, so 81. Then 8 plus 1 is 9. 9 for Gordie Howe. 8 minus 1 is 7, Phil Esposito. 8 times 1 or 8 divided by 1 is 8, my man Cam Neely's number. 81 is 9 squared, 9 times 9, put those two nines next to each other and you get 99, Wayne Gretzky. Also, my formerly favorite goalie, John Vanbiesbrouck was 34. 3 to the 4th power equals 81. So there you go. Fun with numbers. I should have probably prefaced this by saying it was based on hockey.
If I go more conservative with numbers I go for 5 because I like the way the number looks (right angles and curves all in one number!), 18 (reverse 81) or 19 (for numerous hockey guys).
What's sad is I have more, but I think this suffices for now and is related to the article I read. I highly recommend Paul Lukas's writing. It is entertaining and really interesting.
Since I am trying to end my entries to sound "articley": I would give it a10. (cue wert weir sound)
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3/31/2007 Greg Gumbel
Was watching some hoops tonight and I realized that Greg Gumbel looks like the main character in the movie "Soul Man" if he had decided to keep pretending to be black and then grew old and let himself go.
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