July 9, 2008
The NFL confronts the Mismatch Problem
The pathological way in which National Football League teams annually evaluate college football players has been a common topic on this blog. So, I thoroughly enjoyed this New Yorker video (H/T Guy Kawasaki) of a recent talk by Clear Thinkers favorite Malcolm Gladwell in which he uses the NFL's new-player evaluation process as an example of a hiring practice that is undermined by the "mismatch problem" -- that is, the tendency of an employer to cling to outmoded employee evaluation variables despite the fast-changing nature of the employer's jobs.
Gladwell's point is that the nature and demands of jobs in American society are becoming increasingly complex. That complexity, in turn, drives employers to desire more certainty in making the right employment decision. However, in striving for that certainty, many employers continue to measure the wrong variables in evaluating prospects and finalizing their employment decisions. Gladwell is currently studying the mismatch problem and has some initial observations on how employers can minimize its effects. Check out his talk.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 1, 2008
Tyson who?
I swear, you can't make this stuff up.
The American Family Association apparently has a policy over at its new outlet, OneNewsNow, never to use the word "gay" in an article. Instead, the AFA always replaces "gay" with the supposedly more proper "homosexual."
Unfortunately for the AFA, someone forgot to check the automated changing of the word "gay" to "homosexual" when the subject of the article was Tyson Gay, who on Sunday nearly set a world record in the 100 meter sprint.
Ed Brayton has the hilarious story, and here is the Google Cache of the article before the AFA caught their blunder and changed it.
Update: By midday today, even the mainstream media was all over the gaffe.
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June 30, 2008
Continuing to suspend reality on financing the soccer stadium
This earlier post addressed the economic absurdity of having financially-strapped Texas Southern University make an investment in the long-proposed Houston Dynamo downtown soccer stadium.
However, why is it that common sense seems to evaporate into thin air whenever either TSU or the soccer stadium is mentioned? Buried in this Chronicle article about TSU's failure to prepare its students adequately to pass state licensing examinations is the following gem of analysis on TSU's proposed investment in the Dynamo stadium:
TSU President John Rudley and athletic director Charles McClelland also gave an early report on negotiations to share a new stadium with the Dynamo, Houston's professional soccer team.
McClelland said the proposed $105 million stadium would seat 21,000. In exchange for a $2.5 million investment, TSU would get a 20-year lease, a locker room, 50 percent of concession sales and 100 percent of the profit on TSU merchandise sold there, he said.
The deal is preliminary, and regents won't vote for a while. The stadium won't be completed until 2010 or 2011, he said.
McClelland, on the job just a few months, said the deal would be a good investment for the university, whose football team plays mostly at the University of Houston's Robertson Stadium, at a cost of $40,000 a game.
The Tigers occasionally rent Reliant Stadium, which costs $115,000 a game, he said.
Investing in a new stadium would be cheaper in the long term, he said.
TSU has a stadium, but it seats only 4,500 — too small for the competitive football program McClelland has promised to build — and lacks the amenities people expect.
Let's see now. In return for pre-paid rent of $2.5 million (which TSU really doesn't have to throw around right now), TSU gets a 20-year lease, 50% of concession sales (on only its games or on all events of any type?), a locker room, 100% of TSU merchandise sales and a pink slip at the end of the 20-year lease term. I hope that locker room is really nice.
Meanwhile, without paying a dime up front, TSU can continue to lease Robertson Stadium on the University of Houston campus for about $200,000 per year (5 home games x $40,000) or $4 million over a 20-year term. While playing at Robertson, TSU could invest the $2.5 million that it wouldn't have to pay the Dynamo and easily generate at least another $2.5 million off that investment over the 20-year lease term. At the end of 20 years of playing at Robertson, TSU would have a net surplus of at least $1 million to play with.
So, in view of the foregoing, my question is this: How could any reasonably responsible TSU leader even consider using the scant existing financial resources of that institution to invest in the Dynamo soccer stadium?
Perhaps the answer is revealed in the last paragraph of the Chron article:
Regents cautioned Rudley and McClelland to make sure TSU has good representation in the negotiations. "They're sharks," Javier Loya said of the Dynamo's leadership.
Update: Some folks actually think this is a good deal for TSU!
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May 26, 2008
Dragged into the mud
The collateral damage of Roger Clemens' questionable approach to disputing his use of performance-enhancing drugs is already extensive. It now appears that the best player in Stros history may get pulled into the public fray. As this post from a couple of years ago noted, the rumors about Bags and other Stros using PED's have been around for years.
Regardless of the foregoing, I can sure think of more productive things to do in regard to understanding the perverse Major League Baseball PED culture than dragging decent men such as Jeff Bagwell through the mud.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 21, 2008
Overrated
While this Golf.com article surveys the most overrated professional golfers, this Dave Berri post analyzes the most overpaid NBA players.
Guess who made the latter list?
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May 2, 2008
The Rockets Narrative
As the Houston Rockets face the beginning of their straight decade of failing to get out of the first round of the NBA playoffs, the familiar mainstream media narrative regarding the team's probable playoff loss to Utah is all around us -- Superstar Tracy McGrady folds during crunch time at the end of close games and is simply not the type of true superstar who can carry his team to greater success.
However, reality is much different. Rather than underachievers, this season's Rockets overachieved, somehow winning 55 games during the regular season despite having only two players on the team who were in the top 15 of NBA players at their position in terms of wins-produced. And those two players -- injured center Yao Ming and relatively little-used power forward Chuck Hayes -- are only ranked 14th and 15th respectively at their position. Not only is McGrady no longer a superstar player, there are dozens of players in the NBA who produced more wins for their team this season than the just-above league average McGrady.
Given this quality of analysis in the local mainstream media, don't expect the familiar narrative regarding the Rockets to change any time soon. But the truth is that this Rockets team -- relative to their talent level -- had one of the best seasons of any team in the NBA this season. It's just that the club needs to find or develop a couple more above-league average players before it can get beyond the first round of the playoffs.
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March 29, 2008
Thoughts about basketball at Reliant
My friend John Stevenson graciously hosted a couple of friends and me at last night's NCAA South Regional semi-final basketball games at Reliant Stadium. Although the company and conversation was a solid A+, my grade for Reliant Stadium's performance in hosting its first big-time basketball tournament is a rather pedestrian C- (the Chronicle's David Barron has a more favorable review here). Here are my observations:
1. First, the good. The configuration of the stadium into a 43,000 seat basketball arena is not bad, at least for a football stadium hosting basketball games. We sat in the first row of the club section and the sight lines were fine, although we all used our opera binoculars from time to time. I do think that it would be possible to arrange more seats closer to the floor, particularly on the ends, without giving up much from the nose-bleed seats.
2. But now for the bad. As has been the tradition at Reliant Park since the opening of the Astrodome over 50 years ago, parking was Byzantine. Although Reliant Park is blessed with plenty of on-site parking, the facility's parking areas were originally designed with narrow entry points that funnel autos to relatively few parking ticket agents that take a parking fee from the driver of each auto entering the facility. This has always been a horrible idea and it's incomprehensible that Reliant Park officials have not changed it after decades of fan frustration. With tens of thousands of autos descending upon the facility within an hour or so of a big game, traffic around the facility slows to a crawl as autos line up for miles at the most popular entry points waiting for drivers to stop, pay the parking charge and then move on to park. To make matters worse, the narrow entry points are converted to too-narrow exit points after the game, so traffic also stacks up in the parking lots after the game.
What should be done is simple. All of the entry points should be widened to facilitate traffic flow and, at least for big events, there should be no parking charge taken at the facility (the parking charge should be included in the price of the ticket -- with tickets already priced at $156 for the South Regional, charging an additional $20 to park at Reliant is outrageous). With widened entry points and no stoppage for payment of a parking fee, parking lot attendants could then concentrate on moving drivers quickly into the parking areas. Traffic backups would be greatly reduced.
Being old-timers in attending events at Reliant Park, our group avoided the traffic bottleneck by entering Reliant Park off of little-used Stadium Drive on the north end. However, when we entered an hour before game time, automobiles were already backed up for miles on Kirby and the other west-side entry points. That bottleneck caused many fans to miss a good part of the first half of the opening game between Texas and Stanford.
3. How on earth could Reliant Stadium not have sufficient concession workers and supplies available for an event as prestigious as an NCAA Regional? In the club section, there were so few concession areas available that the lines required a half hour wait throughout and after the Texas-Stanford game. There were no individual concession vendors. By the time that the lines had dwindled midway through the second game between Memphis and Michigan State, many of the concession areas had run out of bottled water. Finally, although it's not a big deal with me, isn't it a bit odd that a fan can't buy a beer while attending a basketball event that lasts over five hours?
4. The Reliant Park overhead video screens were nice, but provided sophomoric information about the players and showed too few replays of exciting and controversial plays. The folks at Reliant Park need to check out how the Toyota Center operates its overhead video screens, which provide much better information and more replays.
5. Pricing of the tickets is definitely an issue. It's my understanding that Reliant Park and the NCAA priced the tickets for the three South Regional games at a total of $156 on the thought that the basketball configuration would be limited to about 25,000 seats. When hometown favorite Texas was given the second seed in the South Regional and then won a spot in the South Regional semi-finals, Reliant Park and the NCAA modified the configuration to its present 43,000 seat configuration to accommodate the increased demand for tickets from Texas fans (they also sold tickets at $78 for only the two Friday night semi-final games). Although almost 33,000 attended last night's games, my sense is that even more would have done so if the nose-bleed tickets had been priced at more reasonable levels.
By the way, I've got Memphis in my bracket winning the South Regional final tomorrow against Texas. Although the Horns are solid, nothing that I saw in the two Friday night games has changed my opinion that Memphis will prevail.
Posted by Tom at 9:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
March 25, 2008
Reliant Stadium, South Regional-style
Check out the Chronicle's nifty rendering of the new basketball configuration that will be used this weekend at Houston's Reliant Stadium for the NCAA Basketball Tournament South Regional. The Reliant Park ticket seating chart for the basketball configuration is here.
This particular configuration provides about 40,000 seats for the South Regional. A different configuration that will seat 72,000 will be used when Reliant Stadium hosts the NCAA Final Four in 2011.
Posted by Tom at 6:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 19, 2008
T-Mac for MVP?
The incongruity of Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice writing about sports has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I don't much bother anymore keeping up with his often baseless observations about the local sporting scene. However, on the heels of the Houston Rockets' recent 22-game winning streak, I did a double-take when Justice jumped on the bandwagon and started promoting the Rockets' Tracy McGrady for the NBA's Most Valuable Player Award this season.
As noted in this earlier post, as of December 30, McGrady was barely better than a league-average NBA player. There were dozens of players in the Western Conference alone who were having demonstrably better seasons than McGrady. So, at least as of that date, there was simply no objective basis for McGrady being considered the MVP of the NBA this season.
But perhaps McGrady elevated his performance tremendously during the Rockets' subsequent 22-game winning streak? Maybe that improved performance justifies Justice's advocacy of an MVP award for McGrady?
Sorry. As this Dave Berri post points out, McGrady’s production in the second half of the season is essentially the same as it was in the first half. Thus, McGrady is not the reason the Rockets went on their 22-game winning streak. Rather, the primary reason for the Rockets' transformation was the improved play of Carl Landry, Rafer Alston, Shane Battier, Luther Head, Luis Scola and Dikembe Mutumbo, not McGrady.
Berri backs up his position with objective statistical analysis. Justice backs his up with subjective blather. Is that what the Chronicle prefers?
Posted by Tom at 8:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
February 28, 2008
I'm shocked, shocked! There is academic cheating in big-time college football!
The entertaining hypocrisy of big-time college athletics continues at Florida State University. (H/T Jay Christensen). Just like Rick's Cafe, everybody knows what's going on, too.
So, what level of embarrassment in regard to "academic integrity" is it going to take to prompt university presidents to reorganize big-time college football into the professional minor league business that is its true nature?
This imbroglio reminds me of an insight into academia that my late mentor, Ross Lence, passed along to me years ago. As regular readers of this blog know, A Man for All Seasons -- the story of Sir Thomas More's conflict with King Henry VIII -- is one of my favorite movies and it was one of Ross' favorites, too. Ross particularly enjoyed the scene early in the movie when Sir Thomas attempts unsuccessfully to persuade his student, Richard Rich, to eschew a political appointment for a teaching career. After rejecting Sir Thomas' advice, Rich takes a political appointment from Henry's henchman, Thomas Cromwell, in return for agreeing to betray Sir Thomas.
"Sir Thomas knew that Rich had a corrupt heart and would never be able to resist the corrupt temptations of politics," Ross observed to me once with a chuckle. "So he recommended that Rich become a teacher." Then, with a twinkle in his eye, Ross posited the question for discussion:
"But was Sir Thomas suggesting that a corrupt heart is not a problem for an academic?"
Posted by Tom at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 26, 2008
Going for 13 in a row
It's quite rare that one of my predictions about the Rockets actually comes true. But after disposing of the Chicago Bulls on Sunday night, the hometown team is going for its 13th win in a row tonight (and their 17th in their last 18 games) against the Washington Wizards at the Toyota Center.
Dave Berri breaks down one of the main reasons for the Rockets' streak. Turns out that the best NBA rookie from Texas this season may very well not be former UT star Kevin Durant.
Update: As usual, I spoke too soon. The Rockets' surge just hit a very large speed bump this afternoon. All-Star center Yao Ming is out for the season with a stress fracture in his foot. Dave Berri already assesses the probable impact on the Rockets' season.
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 22, 2008
Compensation through resort privileges
Check out the renovated digs for the University of Texas baseball team at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin.
Even the most defensible big-time intercollegiate sport is now funneling compensation to its players through "resort privileges." The renovated locker room at Disch-Falk looks better than most university faculty lounges that I've seen.
Posted by Tom at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 19, 2008
An emerging risk of youth sports
As youth sports become increasingly specialized, a family from The Woodlands is the subject of this Gina Kolata/NY Times article on one of the big risks to children of that trend -- increased torn anterior cruciate ligaments ("ACL"), the main ligament that stabilizes the knee joint:
The standard and effective treatment for such an injury in adults is surgery. But the operation poses a greater risk for children and adolescents who have not finished growing because it involves drilling into a growth plate, an area of still-developing tissue at the end of the leg bone.Although there are no complete or official numbers, orthopedists at leading medical centers estimate that several thousand children and young adolescents are getting A.C.L. tears each year, with the number being diagnosed soaring recently. Some centers that used to see only a few such cases a year are now seeing several each week.
A friend of mine and I were discussing last week how unfortunate it is that most children these days depend on their parents to organize athletic activities for them rather than simply playing sports informally with neighborhood friends. Increased specialization is the natural evolution of organized sports, which means more games, more practice and more pressure on growing muscles, joints and bones. Not a particularly healthy risk in my book.
Posted by Tom at 12:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
February 18, 2008
Local college hoops update
Normally, when a team shoots 4-12 from the field on two-point goals in a college basketball game, that's a pretty good indication that they were thoroughly throttled by the other team.
Unless, that is, the team shoots 18-43 on three-point goals during the same game. Which is what the Houston Cougars did this past Saturday night in pummeling SMU by 22.
The Cougars are now 19-5 (8-2 in Conference USA) and, absent a bad streak at the end of the regular season, appear to be a good bet to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since the 1991-92 season. The Coogs' RPI has settled at 50 for the time being, which should be good enough to qualify for the NCAA tournament so long as the team maintains that RPI for the remainder of the season. Remarkably, it has now been almost a quarter century since the storied University of Houston basketball program last won an NCAA Tournament game.
Meanwhile, down on South Main, Chronicle columnist Jerome Solomon agrees with me regarding Rice basketball coach Willis Wilson. As noted in my earlier post, if Rice fires Wilson before he has had an opportunity to recruit players to -- and have his teams compete in -- a reasonably modern facility, then Rice will make the hypocrisy of former Rice football coach Todd Graham look benign in comparison. Besides, does the Rice Administration really want the Marching Owl Band to have an opportunity to comment on such an unfair firing?
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
February 14, 2008
The charming Bobby Knight
And Larry the Cable Guy's crack on Coach Knight is pretty good, too.
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February 8, 2008
Why betting against Pete Maravich in H-O-R-S-E was not a good idea
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January 31, 2008
The stadium ruse
Something to think about in regard to the City of Houston's latest stadium boondoggle.
Skip Sauer over at The Sports Economist notes this Rick Eckstein op-ed on the myth of economic benefits from the public financing of sports stadiums:
. . . [M]y colleagues and I studied media coverage of 23 publicly financed stadium initiatives in 16 different cities, including Philadelphia. We found that the mainstream media in most of these cities is noticeably biased toward supporting publicly financed stadiums, which has a significant impact on the initiatives' success.This bias usually takes the form of uncritically parroting stadium proponents' economic and social promises, quoting stadium supporters far more frequently than stadium opponents, overlooking the numerous objective academic studies on the topic, and failing to independently examine the multitude of failed stadium-centered promises throughout the country, especially those in oft-cited "success cities" such as Denver and Cleveland.
Meanwhile, Houston is bidding on another Super Bowl (XLVI in 2012). Get those yachts lined up, folks.
Posted by Tom at 12:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
January 30, 2008
The products of an entertaining form of corruption
Inasmuch as the corrupt sponsorship of big-time football and basketball by academic institutions is a common topic on this blog, the following articles caught my eye:
The Chronicle's Richard Justice surveys several of the ugly recent incidents in big-time college football and calls for higher ethical standards. However, he ignores the perverse incentives built into the highly-regulated system that promote the unethical behavior.Meanwhile, one of the coaches who has been accused of being ethically-challenged -- former Texas Aggie coach Dennis Franchione -- turns out to be an over-achiever with an interesting story.
And how exactly is it that Rick Neuheisel was able to persuade UCLA to hire him as its new coach in the face of this curriculum vitae?
Look, June Jones, Rich Rodriguez, Franchione, Neuheisel and the other supposedly unethical coaches of the moment are not, on balance, any more unethical than the rest of us. They are simply the products of a highly-regulated system that creates all sorts of perverse incentives to act badly. Change those incentives and the coaches' behavior will change. A good start would be to quit paying the coaches the excess rents that should be paid to the players whose talents generate them.
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 17, 2008
Signs of a dying regulatory scheme
Regular readers of this blog know that I believe the NCAA's regulation of big-time college sports is hopelessly corrupt, albeit an entertaining form of corruption (see previous posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
That entertaining form of corruption is pretty valuable, too, as this Forbes List of the 20 Most Valuable College Basketball Programs reflects. And even at a top range of $25 million, the top basketball programs lag well behind the top football programs in value.
But one can only estimate how much these programs would be worth if they were unleashed from the obsolescent NCAA regulatory scheme. Particularly one that not only deprives its main income-generators from being paid their true value, but would open up an administrative investigation into an alleged regulatory violation involving a 97-year old icon:
Just before the start of this college basketball season, UCLA received a letter of inquiry from the NCAA, seeking information about possible illegal contact between a recruit and a person representing the interests of the university.The recruit was Kevin Love, now the Bruins' star freshman center.
The person representing the interests of the university was [legendary 97-year old former UCLA coach] John Wooden.
The NCAA has not disclosed who made the complaint.
Love and his family visited Wooden during his recruiting trip. They had a nice chat, Wooden teased the Loves' young daughter, Emily, for being so quiet, and a nice time was had by all. [. . .]
. . . The NCAA, apparently shrugging off common sense and going with protocol, procedures and robot-ism, actually wrote a letter of inquiry to UCLA, requiring the school to investigate.
Posted by Tom at 12:05 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
January 15, 2008
Trashing Tracy
Rockets star Tracy McGrady is not having a good season, which has prompted the inevitable local criticism that McGrady is an overrated player who is not "tough" enough to lead his team to success in the NBA playoffs.
On the other hand, Kobe Bryant is widely considered to be one of the best players in the NBA and far superior to McGrady. Ask your average Rockets fan whether they would trade McGrady for Bryant, most would approve the deal in the proverbial "New York minute."
So, statistician Dave Berri compares the careers of McGrady and Bryant. The result of his analysis may surprise you.
Hint -- peer effects make a big difference in basketball.
Posted by Tom at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 30, 2007
What's wrong with the Houston Rockets?
Dave Berri breaks it down. The bottom line is that no player on the Houston Rockets is playing as well as they did last year. Moreover, Tracy McGrady is no longer a dominant player -- indeed, he is now just another above-average NBA player. Add in the fact that, as of mid-December, Yao Ming ranks as only the 9th most productive center in the NBA so far this season and you have all the ingredients necessary for an underachieving team.
My younger daughter and I took in the Rockets' victory over the Toronto Rapters at Toyota Center on Saturday night, which pulled the Rockets back to a .500 record (15-15) on the season. The Rockets were playing the backend of back-to-back games, so they pulled out the win even though they played without McGrady (who is out for a few games with a sore knee) and were a bit sluggish overall.
However, my sense from watching the game is that Rockets Coach Rick Adelman has finally settled on his rotation. Yao will take most of the minutes at center with Luis Scola taking the balance, Chuck Hayes, Scola and promising newcomer Carl Landry will share the minutes at power forward, McGrady, Bonzi Wells and Shane Battier will share the minutes at small forward, and McGrady, Wells and Luther Head will share the minutes at the two guard. Rafer Alston and speedy rookie Aaron Brooks -- both of whom looked good on Saturday night -- will share the minutes at the point guard position. Once McGrady returns, my bet is that Battier is the one who has his minutes reduced from last season more than anyone else.
That's not a bad rotation. If Adelman sticks with it and barring injury, I will be surprised if the Rockets do not improve their record substantially over the 52-game balance of the season.
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 26, 2007
Damning with faint praise
As this earlier post noted, Houstonians are currently enduring a glut of sports talk radio stations. With the rare exception of a show such as Charlie Pallilo's, the shows on these stations range from merely unlistenable to truly offensive. To make matters worse, Houston's mainstream professional sports teams are currently horrid, from the Texans' historic mediocrity, to the Rockets' decade of playoff incompetence, to the Stros' downward trend. What on earth is there to talk about?
At any rate, while cruising around doing pre-Christmas errands the other day, one of my sons had a local sports talk radio show on his car radio. One of the talk show hosts made the following observation about the Rockets -- who have lost 14 of their last 21 games -- and the Texans, who had just been thoroughly waxed by the Colts:
"Compared to the Rockets, I am quite optimistic about the Texans."
My son and I cracked up laughing. The host, on the other hand, was dead serious. That pretty well sums up the quality of discourse on Houston sports talk radio these days.
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
December 14, 2007
The Aggies are finally number 1!
It's been such a tough run for the Texas A&M football program this decade that some folks are now questioning the legitimacy of the Aggie football heritage. But not to worry. The Aggies are now number 1 -- in bass fishing!
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 9, 2007
The smog Olympics
The photo on the left is from this James Fallows post, which describes the dubious air quality at noon in downtown Beijing, the site of the 2008 Summer Olympics. As Fallows asks:
"But, seriously: how is this not an all-out emergency from the Olympic committee's point of view?"
Posted by Tom at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 7, 2007
Last weekend's truly biggest game
The grudge match between LSU and Alabama was certainly the most watched big college football game of this past weekend. But for my money, the most interesting game of the weekend was Navy's dramatic 46-44 triple overtime victory over Notre Dame at South Bend, ending a 43 year losing streak by the Midshipmen against the Fighting Irish. The win was made even more satisfying for the Middies because a blatant "hometown" pass interference call by one of the referees gave Notre Dame another chance to tie the game at the end of the third overtime, but Navy stuffed the Irish on the retry to preserve the victory.
John Feinstein provides this excellent analysis of what Navy's victory means:
Skeptics will point out that this is a bad (now 1-8) Notre Dame team. It doesn't matter. Every Notre Dame team should dominate Navy on the football field. At one point during the game, NBC -- also known as the Notre Dame Broadcasting Co. because it pays the school millions of dollars a year to televise all its home games -- did a promo for a high school All-Star game it televises in January. Only the country's top-rated high school seniors are invited to play."Twenty-one of the current Irish players have played in that game in past years," NBC play-by-play announcer Tom Hammond said.
That would be exactly 21 more than are currently playing at Navy. Or, as Hammond's partner Pat Haden pointed out: "With all due respect, Navy doesn't get to recruit blue-chip football players."
Just blue-chip people. [. . .]
The best description I ever heard of what it is like to play football at Navy, Army and Air Force came from Fred Goldsmith, who coached at Air Force: "At a civilian school the hardest part of a football player's day is football practice," he said. "At an academy, the easiest part of a football player's day is football practice."
Navy can't possibly beat Notre Dame. Except on Saturday a group of youngsters who were too small or too slow (or both) to play big-time college football did just that.
With all due respect to Notre Dame and all its blue-chip players, Navy's celebration should be our celebration.
By the way, the game included one of the worst coaching calls that I've ever seen. Notre Dame's Charlie Weis decided to go for it on 4th and 8 at the Navy 24 yard line with 45 seconds remaining in regulation instead of attempting a 41-yard field goal that could have won the game. If a 1-8 record at Notre Dame doesn't get Weis fired, then that type of coaching decision almost certainly will.
Posted by Tom at 12:10 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
November 2, 2007
The Rockets' stathead
Check out this excellent Jason Friedman/Houston Press article on new Rockets general manager, Daryl Morey. As noted in this previous post, I liked Les Alexander's decision in hiring Morey, who is a stathead. That quality has been sadly lacking in the Rockets' management suite over the past decade as the team declined from its mid-1990's dominance. Now, if Morey can just find the Rockets an above-average point guard.
By the way, if you want to read a blog that Morey almost certainly reads, then check out Dave Berri's Wages of Wins. Berri is one of the co-authors of the popular Wages of Wins (Stanford 2006) that shows how statistical analysis debunks a large amount of the conventional wisdom regarding professional sports. In this post prompted by Friedman's article on Morey, Berri explains how the traditional basketball boxscore often misleads the reader as to the effectiveness of the participants in a particular game. In my view, Berri is writing the most insightful analysis on the NBA in the blogosphere right now, and his insights on the NFL aren't bad, either.
Posted by Tom at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 24, 2007
Sizing up the 2007-08 Rockets
The beginning of the National Basketball Association's regular season is about a week away yawn, so Dave Berri provides this excellent statistically-based evaluation of the 2007-08 Houston Rockets. Despite the local mainstream media hype, Berri's evaluation of this edition of the Rockets is the same as mine -- probably quite good and better than last season's good team, but likely still not good enough to beat any of the the top three teams in the Western Conference, Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix.
For the record, it's been over a decade since the Rockets won a playoff series.
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A special moment at the sports book
Anyone who has placed a bet or two at one of the sports books in various Las Vegas casinos can relate to the hysteria that was generated by the end of last Saturday's Florida-Kentucky game:
A new, but obscure college football rule caused some confusion and uproar in Las Vegas on Saturday after Florida defeated Kentucky, 45-37, barely covering the seven-point spread.Kentucky scored a touchdown on the game's final play, yet rather than attempt an extra point, the Wildcats, following an NCAA rule put in play last season, walked off the field while the Gators celebrated.
The rule states that "if a touchdown is scored during a down in which time in the fourth period expires, the try shall not be attempted unless the point(s) would affect the outcome of the game."
Las Vegas Hilton sports book director Jay Kornegay said Kentucky backers thought they were going to get a push, and Florida supporters started to deflate.
"That all quickly changed when the crowd began to realize the rule," Kornegay told the Associated Press.
"The reversal of fortune happened within just a few seconds. It was priceless."
Kornegay said the game was probably one of the more heavily bet games of the day and most football fans don't know the rule.
At the MGM Mirage, people went "nuts," sports book manager Jeff Stonebeck said.
Posted by Tom at 12:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 22, 2007
Now even deer hunting regulations are running amok
As deer hunting season approaches, check out what regulations you have to follow simply to bag a deer in Texas these days:
When state game wardens hit the woods and fields in the wake of Texas' Nov. 3 opening of the general deer season, those 500 or so officers can pretty much predict the violations they're most likely to encounter."Tagging is the No. 1 (deer hunting-related) violation we see," said Maj. David Sinclair of TPWD's law enforcement division. [. . .]
In most cases, a hunter taking a deer in Texas must, immediately upon taking possession of the animal, attach to it the appropriate tag from the hunter's license. [. . .]
Deciding which tag to use isn't all that daunting. Five detachable tags valid for tagging whitetails are attached to the perimeter of a Texas hunting license. . . . Three of those whitetail tags are valid for tagging a buck or an antlerless deer, and two are valid only for tagging an antlerless deer.
It's a simple thing to detach the correct tag — a buck tag for a buck whitetail and antlerless tag for a doe.
But then some people drop the ball.
To legally tag a deer, the hunter must fill out, in ink, the requested information on the back of the tag — the name of the ranch or lease on which the deer was taken and the county in which that hunting area is located.
Also, the month and date the deer was taken has to be cut out of the tag. Cut out. Not marked with a pen. Cut out. [. . .]
But the most common deer-related violation was failure to complete the white-tailed deer log on the back of the hunting license.
The deer log was created this decade when the state seemed to be moving away from requiring tags be attached to deer. The log, printed on the back of the license, was seen as a way to keep track of how many deer, buck and doe, a hunter had taken, where they were taken and when.
The move to do away with deer tags has lost momentum. But the deer log remains. And it's surprising how many deer hunters don't know about the log requirement, forget to complete it or ignore it.
This past year, TPWD game wardens issued more than 500 citations for failing to complete the deer log.
As with the other tagging-related violations, hunters charged with not completing the deer log face a Class C misdemeanor. Conviction brings a fine of as much as $500.
Sheesh! Let's hope the regulators don't start piling on similar rules for hunting these.
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October 10, 2007
Thinking about improving the NBA
With the opening of the NBA pre-season tonight ("yawn"), Clear Thinkers favorite Bill James (previous posts here) provides this interesting article on how the study of professional leagues has lagged behind the study of professional teams and how the lack of competitive balance may ultimately undermine a league such as the NBA. David Berri provides this blog post analyzing James' article in which he suggests that the NBA's lack of competitive balance is not really that much of a problem after all. Skip Sauer makes the same point here.
At any rate, regardless of the competitive balance issue, here are my suggestions for improving the NBA, which is often unwatchable before the playoffs:
1. Limit the regular season to 50 games and begin play during or right after the Thanksgiving holiday. Who watches basketball before then anyway?2. Use the regular season to seed the playoffs and to determine home court advantage.
3. All teams make the initial round of the playoffs and all playoff series are best of seven games except for the first round, which would be the best of nine.
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August 23, 2007
Officially neutralizing a scandal
As noted earlier here, I doubted from the beginning that the NBA's latest point-shaving scandal would have much of an impact on the NBA enterprise. Consistent with that prediction, the NBA just announced that it has just taken the standard step of pushing a scandal into the background:
The National Basketball Association has selected a former United States attorney to review its antigambling policies and the league’s overall officiating program.Lawrence B. Pedowitz, a partner at the New York firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz, will conduct the review, which comes in response to the recent scandal surrounding a referee who conspired with professional gamblers.
“There is nothing as important as the integrity of our game and the covenant we have with our fans,” Commissioner David Stern said in a statement. “In order to preserve their trust, we will make every effort possible to ensure that our processes and procedures are the best they can be.”
Translation: "We're going to investigate this matter for a long time and hope you all just forget about it."
Posted by Tom at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 16, 2007
Biased referees and umpires
So, former NBA referee Tim Donaghy finally pleaded guilty to two felonies during a hearing at the United States District Court in Brooklyn yesterday in connection with the NBA gambling scandal that appears to have mostly blown over. As noted earlier here, that NBA insiders engage in gambling is about as surprising as gambling taking place in Rick's Cafe in Casablanca.
At the same time, Skip Sauer passes along this post about research that indicates that baseball umpires are not as pristine as the driven snow, either:
Calling strikes & discrimination in baseballHere is the main finding from a working paper by Parsons, Sulaeman, Yates and Hamermesh:
What are the main results of the study?
There are three. First, umpires are more likely to call strikes for pitchers who share their race/ethnicity. The second result is an extension of the first: Umpires are more likely to express a preference for their own race/ethnicity only when their behavior is less closely scrutinized: 1) in parks where QuesTec (a computerized system set up to monitor and review an umpire’s ball and strike calls) is not installed, 2) in poorly attended games, and 3) on pitches where the umpire’s call cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat. Finally, game outcomes are influenced by the race/ethnicity match between starting pitchers and home-plate umpires. Home teams are more (less) likely to win a game when their starting pitcher and home plate umpire have the same (a different) race/ethnicity.
Skip's post has links to the study and various related information.
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July 23, 2007
The latest point shaving scandal
With the news from Friday that just-resigned National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy bet on NBA games that he officiated over the past couple of seasons, we have been deluged with media predictions over the weekend that the "integrity of the game" has been compromised and that this is a huge problem for the NBA.
Frankly, my reaction was quite similar to that of Captain Renault's in Casablanca after the Nazis ordered him to close down Rick's -- "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" (exclaimed while picking up his winnings).
In short, I don't think the fact that an NBA referee was on the take will affect the entertainment value of the NBA one iota, and Dave Berri's Sports Economist post explains why. My sense is that the biggest problem that the NBA will face in this entire episode is (1) explaining why the league office did not suspend Donaghy when it learned that he had a gambling problem and was somewhat of a loose cannon, and (2) if Donaghy, in an effort to obtain a more favorable sentence, starts fingering other point shaving referees. But as this NY Times article explains, NBA referees are already monitored closely, so the risk that a widespread point shaving problem exists among referees is unlikely.
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July 22, 2007
"Hook'em what?"
This Washington Post article reports on a U.S. Joint Forces Command commissioned Rand Corp. study that examines how U.S. credibility is often undermined when American media images are misinterpreted in foreign countries. Supporters of the University of Oklahoma and Texas A&M University will be happy to learn that the picture on the left of President Bush and others flashing the University of Texas' famous "Hook'em Horns" gesture was used as one of the study's examples, with the following description:
Background: President Bush makes a "hook'em horns" gesture familiar to University of Texas fans during the 2005 inaugural parade.Rand Commentary: "Unfortunately, that particular gesture is not unique to Texas, and it carries different meanings elsewhere in the world. Norwegians seeing the image were shocked to see the president of the United States making the 'Sign of the devil.' Mediterranean viewers and those in parts of Central and South America . . . saw the president indicating that someone's wife was unfaithful."
Also looks like excellent material for the Marching Owl Band's halftime performance during Rice's September 22nd game against UT. ;^)
Posted by Tom at 12:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
June 21, 2007
Want a season ticket? Take out a mortgage
Conde Nast's Megan Barnett reports on how the lion's share of the new Yankee Stadium is apparently going to be financed. The idea is that the seats in the new Yankees Stadium will be sold in advance to investors who will own them in perpetuity. Morgan Stanley and its partner, a start-up entity called Stadium Capital Financing Group, are hoping that their structure becomes the accepted way of privately-financing sports stadiums. They have even applied for a patent regarding the concept, which seems like a stretch. Here's how it would work:
Fans would buy seats for a designated period of time and finance them much like a mortgage. Pricing mechanisms can vary, but the most appealing option for buyers might be a 30-year loan with an annual payment equal to the current price of a season ticket. In exchange, the seat becomes real property, equivalent to, say, a condominium. The team (or university or other owner) receives the principal amount of the loan up front, to put toward construction costs. This arrangement is different from seat licensing, which gives the holder the right to buy a season ticket for a specific seat. . . . Under [the] system, people own seats, not shares of a team. Say, for instance, the current price of a season baseball ticket is $3,240. A 30-year loan at 6 percent interest with an annual payment of $3,240 results in a principal amount of $45,000. Even if the price of the seat doubles in the next 20 years, the seat owner still pays $3,240. Investors will have the option of making annual payments over 30 years, paying the entire amount up front, or something in between. Owners can also sell their seats at any time for market value, but rest assured—the team will get a cut of any profits.
At least one expert on financing stadiums, though, does not believe the financing technique will be all that earth shattering:
Roger Noll, a Stanford University economics professor who has written extensively about stadium financing, says that such an approach might make a dent in required public funding but will never replace it. Noll points out that most teams can't afford to sacrifice future revenues in order to pay for their ball fields. "At the end of the day, stadiums are not good investments," he says. "This isn't going to be a revolution."
H'mm, think this might work to defray the cost of this proposed boondoggle?
Posted by Tom at 4:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
June 20, 2007
Why is Richard Justice analyzing sports?
One of the many curious aspects about the Houston Chronicle is that the local newspaper employs Richard Justice as a sports reporter and columnist. We already know that he has trouble evaluating baseball (see also here) and football. So, today Justice nails the trifecta of incompentence in evaluating Houston's major sports teams with this post about Houston Rockets assistant general manager Dennis Lindsey's decision to leave the Rockets to join the San Antonio Spurs front office:
The San Antonio Spurs have the NBA's smartest front office. The hiring of Dennis Lindsey reenforces that notion. This is a tough loss for the Rockets, a very tough loss. He was excellent at what he did. Carroll Dawson had groomed him to be his successor, but Clueless Les went for Daryl Morey.
Who is calling who "clueless?" As noted in this post from almost three years ago, the Rockets have been mismanaged for a long time. The club has not won a playoff series over the past decade, one of the few NBA teams to hold that distinction. With the exception of Yao Ming, the Rockets' draft picks over that period have been generally mediocre or poor. As a result, the Rockets have gone from being one of the top NBA teams playing in a sold out arena to the third best NBA team in Texas with an arena that often resembles an expensive mausoleum. Although Lindsey is certainly not responsible for all of that decline, his tenure with the Rockets coincided with that downturn.
So, owner Rockets Les Alexander went outside the organization to hire a new general manager. That hire may or may not work out, but it was certainly an understandable decision. Nothing that the Rockets have accomplished during Lindsey's tenure with the club merited that Alexander simply hand him the job. That Lindsey is apparently cordial to Justice -- as was former Stros GM Gerry Hunsicker -- doesn't justify Justice simply ignoring the facts.
Posted by Tom at 4:20 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
May 31, 2007
Voting in the Wiz's Digital Billboard Contest
You can now vote for your favorite submission in Jay Christensen's college football-digital billboard competition (previous posts here and here).
With this late submission, University of Texas supporters now have a tough choice between that one and this earlier submission.
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May 23, 2007
Checking in on the NBA
Rockets owner Les Alexander doesn't have a clue on how to fire a coach properly, but most of Yao Ming's fans are happy with the move, anyway.
Meanwhile, NBA Commissioner David Stern's absurdly stubborn ruling last week that effectively derailed the Phoenix Suns' chances of defeating the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semi-finals has reinforced the overall lack of competitive balance in the NBA:
Of the 30 current N.B.A. teams, 14 have never won a championship. Five franchises — Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, Pistons and Spurs — have won 70 percent of all titles. Although the Celtics and the Lakers were not serious contenders this season, with the defeat of the Mavericks, there is a better chance that the Bulls, the Pistons or the Spurs will once again be crowned champions.This pattern, in which the same franchises keep taking the league’s top prize, is not seen in other sports. In the past 20 years, 11 different N.H.L. teams have hoisted the Stanley Cup. In the N.F.L., 12 different teams have won the Super Bowl. And in baseball, the league in which competitive balance is perpetually thought to be a problem, 14 different teams have won the World Series in the past two decades.
The reason for the imbalance? Somewhat surprisingly, it's simple demographics. Read Dave Berri's explanation here.
Speaking of demographics, did you know that the Spurs are having trouble selling tickets to the Western Conference Finals games against Utah?
Moreover, Kevin Grier over at MR proposes these common sense modifications to the NBA, to which I would add including all teams to the playoffs and using the regular season schedule to seed the playoffs and provide weighted home court advantage (say, the first three home games and the fina