What to make of Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin?
The Democrats have helpfully given me their opinion. Everyone from Chuck Schumer to Rahm Emanuel to an Obama spokesman have attacked Palin’s lack of experience – a potentially risky strategy for the party whose ticket topper was sworn in as Senator, bought supplies for his Senate office, and on the way back from Staples announced his Presidential candidacy.
And I caught a little bit of conservative talk radio on the way home yesterday and Sean Hannity was talking as if Governor Palin was the reincarnated combination of Ronald Reagan, Annie Oakley, and the Statue of Liberty.
So you need an unbiased, objective opinion, and that’s what I’m here to offer. Well, maybe not objective, and certainly not unbiased – but unlike the folks above, it’s at least honest.*
* I mean, really, doesn’t it get embarrassing being a partisan sometimes? Every Democrat in America has been loudly proclaiming for months that Obama’s lack of experience doesn’t matter, and now they will all take to the airwaves and cocktail parties and blogosphere assailing Palin’s inexperience. And every Republican in America has been loudly proclaiming for months that Obama’s lack of experience is a terrible risk, and now they will all take to the airwaves and cocktail parties and blogosphere proclaiming that the PTA Presidency is excellent experience for the American Presidency. The intellectual dishonesty is staggering.
Anyway, back to my opinion. I’ve given it some thought, and can state with certitude and authority that the selection of Governor Palin as nominee for Vice-President of the United States is the most brilliant stroke of American political genius in the 21st century…or the stupidest freakin’ thing a major political party has ever done. It’s definitely one of those things.
Unlike professional politicians, whose opinions shift hourly depending on circumstances, I have long held that experience in the White House is of dubious value. Some of our greatest Presidents have had scant political experience, and some of our weakest were (to borrow David Brooks’ phrase) Resume Gods. Because of that, predicting a President’s success or failure is fool’s work – so this piece will focus strictly on whether or not it was a smart political move.
The Case Against
I’m not sure if you’ve heard this, but John McCain is old. How old? Lou Gehrig won the MVP the year he was born. Winston Churchill was still four years away from becoming Prime Minister. When a young Brett Favre won his first Super Bowl, McCain already qualified for senior tickets at the movies. If McCain serves two terms, he’ll celebrate his 80th birthday in the White House. These are not Jay Leno jokes – these are actual facts. The dude’s old.
So I always assumed that he absolutely must choose as his running mate a person that Americans believe is White House-ready. And Governor Palin’s resume is not reassuring on that count.
Further, it makes it harder for McCain to hit Obama too hard on the experience front – which is clearly McCain’s biggest strength. It’s as if the Lone Ranger threw away his Silver Bullet.
The Case For
Now it gets interesting.
First of all, her inexperience is mitigated by Obama’s own inexperience. Obama has been in the Senate two years longer than Palin was Governor, but the Governorship is executive experience, and Obama has spent nearly his entire Senate "career" running for President. Only one of them has ever run anything of any size, and it’s Palin.
Second, her biography is compelling. A son going to Iraq on September 11? Another with Down’s Syndrome? A husband who is a champion snow machine racer? (I don’t know what that is exactly, but I’m almost certain it’s more manly than spin class). Her own skyrocketing rise from City Council to the Governorship to the Vice-Presidency? It’s exciting stuff, and will engage a voting public who may have Obama/McCain fatigue and is already bored by Joe Biden.
Third, she’s a woman. It’s a bold play for the millions of Hillary voters who haven’t warmed to Obama and guarantees that the Republican ticket, if victorious, will be nearly as historic as the Democratic ticket.
Fourth, her socially conservative views, to judge from early accounts, will help McCain with the conservative wing of his party, where he is weakest.
Fifth, she’ll be hard to attack. Let’s face it – you go after the mother of five whose son is in Iraq the way you might go after a Dick Cheney, and the voters will not approve. The Democrats need to be as careful with Palin as Republicans have been with Obama.
And sixth, it reminds everyone that John McCain is a maverick. Much of the Obama strategy depends on linking McCain with Bush, which always struck me as a stretch. McCain’s personal biography, his long-documented history of working with Democrats, his party’s own ambivalence towards him, and his bitter Bush battles in 2000, all argue against a McCain Administration being the second coming of Dubya. An unconventional pick like Sarah Palin reminds everyone that McCain is not the product of focus groups or Rove-like puppeteers.
Presence & Gaffes
Voters and pundits often underestimate how important physical presence is in national candidates. Most are tall, reasonably attractive, have good voices. Unlike our Senators and Governors, we have to actually live with these people for years. I have long felt that Hillary Clinton’s national ambitions were doomed in part because of a grating public speaking voice.
Palin looks like Tina Fey with good posture (that’s a compliment). And she impressed me in her appearance with McCain yesterday – she delivered her speech with a pleasant and natural speaking voice. This can go a long way.
So, in conclusion, she can be an impressive wild card that tips a close election, especially if she can draw in only a fraction of the Hillary votes.
But if she has a terrible gaffe – says the Iranians are Sunni, for example, or confuses the Federal Reserve with the Treasury Department – or if McCain has a health scare – this will be an election-losing choice.
This election keeps getting better, don't it?
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Good Night Everybody!!
I was born in the 60’s, raised in the 70’s, educated in the 80’s, married in the 90’s, and find myself staggering toward early middle-age here in the 2000’s. So you’d think I’ve seen my share of divorce.
But I haven’t. None of my closest twenty friends, including my entire college crowd, have cut the marital bonds. None of my siblings, or my wife’s siblings, or their spouse’s siblings, have torn asunder what God joined together. All of the couples in my friendly neighborhood are on their first marriage. To the best of my knowledge the parents of all of these people have stayed together till death do they part. I am surprisingly innocent of the pains of divorce.
Maybe that’s why the breakup of Mike and the Mad Dog hit me so hard.
For my buddies and I, Mike and the Mad Dog, aka Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, have played a surprisingly large role in our lives. As drive-time hosts on the first and still-largest sports radio station in the country, they have done as much as anyone, maybe more than everyone, to define – nay, to create sports talk radio.
And what have they created, exactly? I would describe the M&MD formula as follows:
4 parts Knowledge
Whatever else you might say about Mike & Chris, they know their stuff. Francesa can reel off the starting offensive line for the 1971 Cowboys, and tell you which college those lineman came from. Russo can remember detailed pitch sequences from a late September game in 1997. They have huge gaps to be sure, as my hockey-loving friends will attest; and they are often wrong, particularly when they try to turn their knowledge to analysis. But I’d be reluctant to take them on in Sports Jeopardy.
1 part Smugness
If Mike got one of those colleges wrong – said, perhaps, that guard John Niland went to Iona instead of Iowa, he would dismiss the caller who phoned in to correct him with a lofty condescension worthy of a Renaissance noble speaking to the boy who cleaned his slop bucket.
Mike’s greatest smugness was about the Yankees. One of his best lines was about the Mets as they prepared to meet his beloved Yankees in the World Series: Congratulations to the Mets. Now they play the Varsity.
2 parts Genuine Anger
Check out this tirade from Russo to get an idea how he earned his nickname.
1 part Feigned Anger
One of my personal favorite Mad Dog moments: late September, 1998, the Yankees magical season. Shane Spencer comes up from the minors and hits a bunch of home runs. The whole town, even Yankee haters, loves the kid. He looks like he came straight out of an old movie, the country kid who finally gets out of the minors and has success in the biggest spotlight of all.
And one Saturday morning, Mad Dog goes off on him. The thrust of his spittle-flecked argument was that Spencer was a phony, since he claimed that Mickey Mantle was a hero of his.
“Mickey Mantle!?” sputtered Mad Dog. “Mickey Mantle?!?! Shane Spencer grew up in North Carolina in the 1970’s!!! You’re gonna tell me his favorite player was someone from Oklahoma who played in New York in the 50’s!!!!!!!!!!! What a phoney!!!!”
A pause, then what sounded like a slight chuckle as he muttered, “Back on the FAN.” Enraged Yankee fans called in for the next two hours, defending Spencer’s honor. Great stuff.
2 parts Completely Random Non-Sports Content, Delivered in Same Manner as Sports Content
Russo on how Thanksgiving has become an overlooked holiday: "Bottom line, Mike... come the morning of the parade, Santa Claus is officially in the mix. Here’s Mink with the flash."
And on a more serious topic, Francesa sometime after 9/11 discussing the need to capture Osama Bin Laden: “It's simple, Dog, you have to go after the quarterback.”
1 part Possibly Apocryphal but Utterly Plausible Non-Sports (but with a thin sports connection) Content Delivered in Same Manner as Sports Content
Mike and the Mad Dog are discussing Pope John Paul II’s cancellation of a Mass that was to be given at Yankee Stadium on account of rain: “I gotta tell ya, Mikey, that’s a bad job by the Pope.”
But I haven’t. None of my closest twenty friends, including my entire college crowd, have cut the marital bonds. None of my siblings, or my wife’s siblings, or their spouse’s siblings, have torn asunder what God joined together. All of the couples in my friendly neighborhood are on their first marriage. To the best of my knowledge the parents of all of these people have stayed together till death do they part. I am surprisingly innocent of the pains of divorce.
Maybe that’s why the breakup of Mike and the Mad Dog hit me so hard.
For my buddies and I, Mike and the Mad Dog, aka Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, have played a surprisingly large role in our lives. As drive-time hosts on the first and still-largest sports radio station in the country, they have done as much as anyone, maybe more than everyone, to define – nay, to create sports talk radio.
And what have they created, exactly? I would describe the M&MD formula as follows:
4 parts Knowledge
Whatever else you might say about Mike & Chris, they know their stuff. Francesa can reel off the starting offensive line for the 1971 Cowboys, and tell you which college those lineman came from. Russo can remember detailed pitch sequences from a late September game in 1997. They have huge gaps to be sure, as my hockey-loving friends will attest; and they are often wrong, particularly when they try to turn their knowledge to analysis. But I’d be reluctant to take them on in Sports Jeopardy.
1 part Smugness
If Mike got one of those colleges wrong – said, perhaps, that guard John Niland went to Iona instead of Iowa, he would dismiss the caller who phoned in to correct him with a lofty condescension worthy of a Renaissance noble speaking to the boy who cleaned his slop bucket.
Mike’s greatest smugness was about the Yankees. One of his best lines was about the Mets as they prepared to meet his beloved Yankees in the World Series: Congratulations to the Mets. Now they play the Varsity.
2 parts Genuine Anger
Check out this tirade from Russo to get an idea how he earned his nickname.
1 part Feigned Anger
One of my personal favorite Mad Dog moments: late September, 1998, the Yankees magical season. Shane Spencer comes up from the minors and hits a bunch of home runs. The whole town, even Yankee haters, loves the kid. He looks like he came straight out of an old movie, the country kid who finally gets out of the minors and has success in the biggest spotlight of all.
And one Saturday morning, Mad Dog goes off on him. The thrust of his spittle-flecked argument was that Spencer was a phony, since he claimed that Mickey Mantle was a hero of his.
“Mickey Mantle!?” sputtered Mad Dog. “Mickey Mantle?!?! Shane Spencer grew up in North Carolina in the 1970’s!!! You’re gonna tell me his favorite player was someone from Oklahoma who played in New York in the 50’s!!!!!!!!!!! What a phoney!!!!”
A pause, then what sounded like a slight chuckle as he muttered, “Back on the FAN.” Enraged Yankee fans called in for the next two hours, defending Spencer’s honor. Great stuff.
2 parts Completely Random Non-Sports Content, Delivered in Same Manner as Sports Content
Russo on how Thanksgiving has become an overlooked holiday: "Bottom line, Mike... come the morning of the parade, Santa Claus is officially in the mix. Here’s Mink with the flash."
And on a more serious topic, Francesa sometime after 9/11 discussing the need to capture Osama Bin Laden: “It's simple, Dog, you have to go after the quarterback.”
1 part Possibly Apocryphal but Utterly Plausible Non-Sports (but with a thin sports connection) Content Delivered in Same Manner as Sports Content
Mike and the Mad Dog are discussing Pope John Paul II’s cancellation of a Mass that was to be given at Yankee Stadium on account of rain: “I gotta tell ya, Mikey, that’s a bad job by the Pope.”
My friends and I use this line more than all the lines from Caddyshack put together, and we don't even know if it was actually said. But we choose to believe it is.
5 parts Love of Sports
Many sportswriters, like Ian O’Connor and George Vecsey, write as if they hate professional sports. Maybe they spent too much time in locker rooms waiting for wealthy arrogant and stupid jocks to give them the time of day and now that they have columns can exact their revenge.
Many other sportswriters, like most of the profile writers Sports Illustrated has hired through the years, write about their subjects as if they are some combination of King Arthur, Hercules, and Mozart. Maybe those same wealthy arrogant and stupid jocks were told by their agents to be really nice to the guy from SI.
But Mike and the Mad Dog are sports fans. They are knowledgeable and passionate, they get angry and excited, they root. In the age of the internet, particularly sports blogging, we are now used to this. The Sports Guy, a professed Mike and the Mad Dog fan, has perfected the art. But Mike and Chris were pioneers in the field – at least, they did it better early than anyone else.
1 part Schadenfreude
Nothing better than the Mad Dog the day after a big Yankee loss.
5 parts Great Interviews
Radio’s greatest strength is its intimacy – it’s you alone in the car with the host(s) and the guest. As I wrote back in a piece on Imus, it bothered me that none of the coverage of the Imus scandal last year even mentioned that the Imus show was one of the only mediums outside NPR that allowed authors of actual books – serious books! – to speak at length about their work.
Don Imus was mentor to Mike and the Mad Dog, and his success very much enabled the FAN to become the powerhouse that it is. And they learned from him. One of the greatest interviews I’ve ever heard – one where I sat in my parked car in front of my house for a half hour – was Mike and the Mad Dog with Bill Parcells on the occasion of Lawrence Taylor’s retirement.
Many of the best Mike and the Mad Dog stories focus on the Dog – but Mike was the better interviewer, and Mike was the guy who got the guests, I think. He was more respected among the sports elite than the Dog was, perhaps, or maybe just a better reporter.
Now What?
If my friends and I are the children of this divorce, we’re in nearly unanimous agreement that we got stuck with the lesser parent. Mad Dog gave us our joy, and he heads off to satellite radio leaving us with the smug one. But Mad Dog may struggle on a national show.
One friend of mine, a professional sportscaster himself, noted how truly local the show is. On a local show, especially when the locality is New York, you could do a whole week’s worth of shows on Joba Chamberlain’s pitch counts, Jose Reyes’ on-field demeanor, or Michael Strahan’s hold-out.
A national broadcast will force him to increase the breadth of his topics, especially into areas he is weak. He is surely the accredited Heisman Trophy voter who watches the fewest college football games, which will hurt him in many parts of the country.
And Mike? He’s just not funny. All of the catchphrases, all the antic moments, all the truly classic lines of the show came from the Angry Puppy. (Even my wife, as apathetic towards sports as any person alive, will throw out the ocassional "Fair point, Mikey.") So yeah, I’ll tune in occasionally, and I’ll hope he finds his partner with whom he can bond in the same way.
But I need to accept that they aren’t getting back together, and life will never be the same.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Fixing Softball
Some sports, like swimming and golfing and nearly all track and field events, feature an athlete competing against himself. You put up the best score or time possible and hope it is good enough to be the best.
But in many other sports, like boxing and tennis and nearly all team sports, you compete against another team or athlete, and react to their actions. In those cases, the entertainment value rests largely on the maintenance of a balance of power.
For example, baseball has been played professionally for over a century, and generally speaking balance has been maintained between run prevention (pitching and fielding) and run creation (hitting and running). Pitchers have occasionally gotten the upper hand (like in the 60’s) and hitters have occasionally gotten the upper hand (recently), but the sport tends to do little tweaks like lowering the mound or cracking down on steroids when these things get out of hand.
In Stephen Jay Gould’s book Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, he shows how, even as .400 hitters have disappeared from baseball, the league batting average has remained an almost constant .272. That is balance.
So, too, in football. As defensive players get bigger and stronger and more lethal, and as defensive schemes get more complicated, the NFL makes little tweaks to the rules to keep the offense up to speed. (And yes, in both baseball and football, the rules-makers tend to, if anything, give an edge to the scorers, as that’s what people like to see).
And some times, the balance is threatened by advances in equipment. The ability of male tennis players to crush 150 mile per hour serves with larger racquets forced the governing bodies to tweak their rules to allow for longer volleys.
This is a rather longwinded way of saying that in some sports the balance has been lost, making the game boring, saddled with odd rules to address the balance problem, or both. Welcome to Women’s Softball.
The Hurler’s Dominance
This is the part of the article where I intended to present you with statistics demonstrating how pitchers utterly and completely dominate softball, and then attempt some sort of explanation as to why this is so. So I began googling around for statistics and found a piece by Rob Neyer, a baseball writer at whose altar I worship. So I will liberally quote from his piece, The Softer They Come: Why is it So Hard to Hit a Softball:
Ted Williams was fond of saying that the toughest thing in sports is hitting a round ball with a round bat. Williams was right, just not as precise as he could have been. The toughest thing in sports is to hit a round ball with a round bat when the round ball is thrown underhand from 40 feet away...In the 2000 Olympics, the gold-medal-winning U.S. softball team allowed only seven runs and 24 hits in 10 games.
This year, Team USA won again and was even more dominant. In nine games, the Americans allowed one run and 18 hits... But it's usually not just Team USA's opponents who struggle to score. In 2000, in their six games against China, Japan, and Australia—arguably the Americans' toughest competition—the U.S. team scored only six runs...Though the Americans did much better this time around with 51 runs in nine games, when great players face off, softball is clearly a pitcher's game. In this year's Olympics, there were 19 games that didn't include weak sisters Greece and Italy. In those games, an average of 3.8 runs were scored per seven innings.
Why is it so hard to hit a softball? Distance, time, and uncertainty. In international competition, the pitcher's plate (or "rubber," as baseball fans know it) is only 43 feet from home plate. What's more, thanks to liberal rules, softball pitchers release the ball from even closer than that, slightly less than 40 feet—about 20 feet closer than a baseball pitcher. Top softball pitchers like Jennie Finch can throw roughly 70 miles per hour, the equivalent of a low-90s fastball thrown from 60 feet away. There are, of course, many hundreds of human beings who can hit a low-90s fastball. But most of them play professional baseball, and nearly all of them are men. And anyway, fast-pitch pitchers don't just throw fastballs. They keep the batters guessing with rise balls, drop balls, curves, and in-shoots. Pitchers with speed and a varied repertoire—like current U.S. Olympians Finch, Lisa Fernandez, and Cat Osterman—make life almost impossible for even the best hitters.
In softball, there are no famous hitters, only famous pitchers.
I couldn’t say it better myself.
The FixLuckily, I’m here to offer my free advice. The powers that be in softball have come up with one fix, a silly one, to address its problems. Realizing that low-scoring games could go on for weeks and weeks as overmatched hitters helplessly flail at lightning fast rise balls, they actually begin extra innings with a runner on second. Yes, you read that right: as the players take the field to begin a half inning, there’s a guy (well, a gal actually) at second. This is an abomination.
There’s a much easier fix, and I offer it now in all its elegant simplity: move the mound back.
Sadly, my advice comes too late: softball is not returning as an Olympic event. For the fascinating backstory, click here.
Other Stories in the Volunteer Commissioner series:
Note: This is part of the Volunteer Commissioner series, in which I graciously fix problems in various sports. The others posts in the series are:
Fixing Softball (Women's softball)
The Loser's Out Manifesto (Pick-up basketball)
The Beautiful Game's Flaw (soccer)
The Slowest Game (lacrosse).
Swimming is Boring (Swimming)
The Winter Classic (Baseball)
You’re welcome. Unfortunately, swimming is unfixable.]
But in many other sports, like boxing and tennis and nearly all team sports, you compete against another team or athlete, and react to their actions. In those cases, the entertainment value rests largely on the maintenance of a balance of power.
For example, baseball has been played professionally for over a century, and generally speaking balance has been maintained between run prevention (pitching and fielding) and run creation (hitting and running). Pitchers have occasionally gotten the upper hand (like in the 60’s) and hitters have occasionally gotten the upper hand (recently), but the sport tends to do little tweaks like lowering the mound or cracking down on steroids when these things get out of hand.
In Stephen Jay Gould’s book Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, he shows how, even as .400 hitters have disappeared from baseball, the league batting average has remained an almost constant .272. That is balance.
So, too, in football. As defensive players get bigger and stronger and more lethal, and as defensive schemes get more complicated, the NFL makes little tweaks to the rules to keep the offense up to speed. (And yes, in both baseball and football, the rules-makers tend to, if anything, give an edge to the scorers, as that’s what people like to see).
And some times, the balance is threatened by advances in equipment. The ability of male tennis players to crush 150 mile per hour serves with larger racquets forced the governing bodies to tweak their rules to allow for longer volleys.
This is a rather longwinded way of saying that in some sports the balance has been lost, making the game boring, saddled with odd rules to address the balance problem, or both. Welcome to Women’s Softball.
The Hurler’s Dominance
This is the part of the article where I intended to present you with statistics demonstrating how pitchers utterly and completely dominate softball, and then attempt some sort of explanation as to why this is so. So I began googling around for statistics and found a piece by Rob Neyer, a baseball writer at whose altar I worship. So I will liberally quote from his piece, The Softer They Come: Why is it So Hard to Hit a Softball:
Ted Williams was fond of saying that the toughest thing in sports is hitting a round ball with a round bat. Williams was right, just not as precise as he could have been. The toughest thing in sports is to hit a round ball with a round bat when the round ball is thrown underhand from 40 feet away...In the 2000 Olympics, the gold-medal-winning U.S. softball team allowed only seven runs and 24 hits in 10 games.
This year, Team USA won again and was even more dominant. In nine games, the Americans allowed one run and 18 hits... But it's usually not just Team USA's opponents who struggle to score. In 2000, in their six games against China, Japan, and Australia—arguably the Americans' toughest competition—the U.S. team scored only six runs...Though the Americans did much better this time around with 51 runs in nine games, when great players face off, softball is clearly a pitcher's game. In this year's Olympics, there were 19 games that didn't include weak sisters Greece and Italy. In those games, an average of 3.8 runs were scored per seven innings.
Why is it so hard to hit a softball? Distance, time, and uncertainty. In international competition, the pitcher's plate (or "rubber," as baseball fans know it) is only 43 feet from home plate. What's more, thanks to liberal rules, softball pitchers release the ball from even closer than that, slightly less than 40 feet—about 20 feet closer than a baseball pitcher. Top softball pitchers like Jennie Finch can throw roughly 70 miles per hour, the equivalent of a low-90s fastball thrown from 60 feet away. There are, of course, many hundreds of human beings who can hit a low-90s fastball. But most of them play professional baseball, and nearly all of them are men. And anyway, fast-pitch pitchers don't just throw fastballs. They keep the batters guessing with rise balls, drop balls, curves, and in-shoots. Pitchers with speed and a varied repertoire—like current U.S. Olympians Finch, Lisa Fernandez, and Cat Osterman—make life almost impossible for even the best hitters.
In softball, there are no famous hitters, only famous pitchers.
I couldn’t say it better myself.
The FixLuckily, I’m here to offer my free advice. The powers that be in softball have come up with one fix, a silly one, to address its problems. Realizing that low-scoring games could go on for weeks and weeks as overmatched hitters helplessly flail at lightning fast rise balls, they actually begin extra innings with a runner on second. Yes, you read that right: as the players take the field to begin a half inning, there’s a guy (well, a gal actually) at second. This is an abomination.
There’s a much easier fix, and I offer it now in all its elegant simplity: move the mound back.
Sadly, my advice comes too late: softball is not returning as an Olympic event. For the fascinating backstory, click here.
Other Stories in the Volunteer Commissioner series:
Note: This is part of the Volunteer Commissioner series, in which I graciously fix problems in various sports. The others posts in the series are:
Fixing Softball (Women's softball)
The Loser's Out Manifesto (Pick-up basketball)
The Beautiful Game's Flaw (soccer)
The Slowest Game (lacrosse).
Swimming is Boring (Swimming)
The Winter Classic (Baseball)
You’re welcome. Unfortunately, swimming is unfixable.]
Friday, August 15, 2008
Swimming is Boring
I’m trying to get into this Michael Phelps thing. I really am. But I just can’t shake the fact that swimming is kind of, well, boring.
Here’s what I see when I watch a swim meet: a bunch of guys who look exactly alike (long, lean, hairless and white), all doing exactly the same thing, all at roughly the same speed. Then one of the guys, who NBC helpfully informs me is Phelps (because really, how else would I know?) touches the wall a little ahead of all the other guys. Rinse and repeat.
It has so few of the elements that makes watching sports fun. There has never been, in the entire history of swimming, a great play. There is very rarely (the freestyle relay an exception) a dramatic comeback. A swimmer never has to adjust to anything unexpected, the way most athletes have to adjust to an opponents’ play, or a golfer has to adjust to wind or a shot he’s never seen before. You can't fall in a pool, so swimming doesn't have heartbreaking moments like the Olympic skier or gymnast, whose dreams come crashing down because of a momentary lack of concentration.
It has none of the eye-popping 'how do they do that?' wonder of gymnastics or diving. It's just, you know, the breaststroke. I can do that. Not that fast, to be sure, or that graceful. And nobody wants to see me in a Speedo. But it's not as unimaginable as 3 somersaults, 2 corkscrews and a tuck off a 20 meter platform without making a splash.
Even the speed doesn’t dazzle, like the 100 yard dash. If my 8 year old daughter was running alongside the pool she can probably take all those guys, what with the water slowing them down and all.
And I’m pretty sure that swimming isn’t one of those sports that, if I only understood the complexities and subtleties and strategies and tactics better, I’d truly appreciate. For example, I don’t like NASCAR. All I see is a bunch of cars festooned with ads driving in circles. But I know that NASCAR fans are seeing much more. They understand the strategies, tactics, and differing styles that are being employed throughout the race, and are therefore enjoying it far more than I could.
But I don’t think that’s really true of swimming. You push off, swim fast, turn, push again, get to the other side. Did I miss anything? I guess you have to pace yourself a bit, but it’s only one to two hundred meters – you can pretty much let it all hang out, can’t you?
Don’t get me wrong. I respect the greatness of Phelps’ accomplishment. It has everything you associate with true athleticism: speed, strength, grace, skill, commitment, desire.
And I admire the fact that Phelps is the sole architect of his greatness. Many American football fans think Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback ever. But if he hadn’t been given the greatest offensive coach ever, the greatest wide receiver ever, one of the greatest receiving backs ever, and oh by the way, a consistently great defense, he might have had Bert Jones’ career. Phelps doesn’t rely on teammates, systems, equipment, or coaches. It is the human body against one of Nature’s elements.
So, I will be rooting hard for Michael Phelps to win his 7th Gold tonight, and his 8th tomorrow night. And I’ll probably even watch it.
But I’ll thank all of the Gods on Mount Olympus that it will only take a few minutes of my time. Then I’ll put on the Mets game.
Here’s what I see when I watch a swim meet: a bunch of guys who look exactly alike (long, lean, hairless and white), all doing exactly the same thing, all at roughly the same speed. Then one of the guys, who NBC helpfully informs me is Phelps (because really, how else would I know?) touches the wall a little ahead of all the other guys. Rinse and repeat.
It has so few of the elements that makes watching sports fun. There has never been, in the entire history of swimming, a great play. There is very rarely (the freestyle relay an exception) a dramatic comeback. A swimmer never has to adjust to anything unexpected, the way most athletes have to adjust to an opponents’ play, or a golfer has to adjust to wind or a shot he’s never seen before. You can't fall in a pool, so swimming doesn't have heartbreaking moments like the Olympic skier or gymnast, whose dreams come crashing down because of a momentary lack of concentration.
It has none of the eye-popping 'how do they do that?' wonder of gymnastics or diving. It's just, you know, the breaststroke. I can do that. Not that fast, to be sure, or that graceful. And nobody wants to see me in a Speedo. But it's not as unimaginable as 3 somersaults, 2 corkscrews and a tuck off a 20 meter platform without making a splash.
Even the speed doesn’t dazzle, like the 100 yard dash. If my 8 year old daughter was running alongside the pool she can probably take all those guys, what with the water slowing them down and all.
And I’m pretty sure that swimming isn’t one of those sports that, if I only understood the complexities and subtleties and strategies and tactics better, I’d truly appreciate. For example, I don’t like NASCAR. All I see is a bunch of cars festooned with ads driving in circles. But I know that NASCAR fans are seeing much more. They understand the strategies, tactics, and differing styles that are being employed throughout the race, and are therefore enjoying it far more than I could.
But I don’t think that’s really true of swimming. You push off, swim fast, turn, push again, get to the other side. Did I miss anything? I guess you have to pace yourself a bit, but it’s only one to two hundred meters – you can pretty much let it all hang out, can’t you?
Don’t get me wrong. I respect the greatness of Phelps’ accomplishment. It has everything you associate with true athleticism: speed, strength, grace, skill, commitment, desire.
And I admire the fact that Phelps is the sole architect of his greatness. Many American football fans think Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback ever. But if he hadn’t been given the greatest offensive coach ever, the greatest wide receiver ever, one of the greatest receiving backs ever, and oh by the way, a consistently great defense, he might have had Bert Jones’ career. Phelps doesn’t rely on teammates, systems, equipment, or coaches. It is the human body against one of Nature’s elements.
So, I will be rooting hard for Michael Phelps to win his 7th Gold tonight, and his 8th tomorrow night. And I’ll probably even watch it.
But I’ll thank all of the Gods on Mount Olympus that it will only take a few minutes of my time. Then I’ll put on the Mets game.
Update: I watched a lot of swimming last night. I saw Torres win the Silver, get her medal, and rush back to the pool to win another Silver in the Relay. Then I watched the American men win the 4X100 medley relay, Phelps' 8th gold. It was awesome. The sport itself is still boring - it requires the contextual personal drama of stories like Phelps' and Torres' - but I did thoroughly enjoy it.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Jordan's Theory Vindicated
Last Tuesday I wrote a mediocre blog post about traffic in which I shared my buddy Jordan's theory about Wuss Drivers being the primary cause of traffic.
Five days later I get the New York Times Book Review, and on the front cover is a review of a book called Traffic, which proves Jordan's theory (sort of). Here is the opening paragraph:
"Traffic jams are not, by and large, caused by flaws in road design but by flaws in human nature. While this is bad news for drivers — there's not much to be done about human nature — it is good news for readers of Tom Vanderbilt's new book. Traffic is not a dry examination of highway engineering; it's a surprising, enlightening look at the psychology of human beings behind the steering wheels...An alternate title for the book might be Idiots."
Jordan's main point, that traffic is more a result of driving psychology rather than the myriad of other things we tend to blame (congestion, tolls, accidents, construction) is on the money. But Vanderbilt attributes things more to idiocy than wussiness.
The most interesting part of the review (and presumably, the book) is that more accidents occur in "safe" driving conditions than "dangerous" ones, because that is when drivers get lazy and stop paying attention. In fact, engineers sometimes build curves into roads just to keep drivers on the ball.
I can't imagine reading a whole book about traffic, but it's definitely worth reading the review.
Five days later I get the New York Times Book Review, and on the front cover is a review of a book called Traffic, which proves Jordan's theory (sort of). Here is the opening paragraph:
"Traffic jams are not, by and large, caused by flaws in road design but by flaws in human nature. While this is bad news for drivers — there's not much to be done about human nature — it is good news for readers of Tom Vanderbilt's new book. Traffic is not a dry examination of highway engineering; it's a surprising, enlightening look at the psychology of human beings behind the steering wheels...An alternate title for the book might be Idiots."
Jordan's main point, that traffic is more a result of driving psychology rather than the myriad of other things we tend to blame (congestion, tolls, accidents, construction) is on the money. But Vanderbilt attributes things more to idiocy than wussiness.
The most interesting part of the review (and presumably, the book) is that more accidents occur in "safe" driving conditions than "dangerous" ones, because that is when drivers get lazy and stop paying attention. In fact, engineers sometimes build curves into roads just to keep drivers on the ball.
I can't imagine reading a whole book about traffic, but it's definitely worth reading the review.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Moose in the Hall?
I’ve always had a soft spot for Mike Mussina. His first full year as a starter, 1992,was the first year I played Rotisserie Baseball. I selected him in the draft that year, proclaiming he would be “the Scott Erickson of 1992”. (That may sound like faint praise, but the year before Erickson exploded on the scene with a 20-8 record). Moose proved me right, going 18-5 with a 2.54 ERA. I continued to pick him for years and felt a sense of ownership with him.
It’s possible I was drawn to Mussina because he reminded me of my boyhood hero, Tom Seaver. Both pitchers combined power and craft, both came out of college ball in California, and both seemed to possess an intellect rarely found in baseball.
Seaver is one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He won three Cy Youngs (and arguably should have won two more, in 71 and 81). He finished in the Top 3 among ERA leaders thirteen times. He had five 20-win seasons. He led the league in strikeouts five times, and set a then-record 9 consecutive seasons with 200+ Ks. He appeared on 12 All Star teams and started seven times. And he finished his career with 311 wins. He not only made it to the Hall of Fame, but he did so with the highest percentage of votes ever given to any player.
Mike Mussina? His case for the Hall isn’t nearly that strong…but interesting nonetheless.
The Case Against
Mussina was no Seaver. He made only 5 All-Star teams (though he did start thrice). No Cy Young trophies adorn his case. He has no ERA titles, no strikeout titles, no Wins titles. He never won 20 games. He did lead the league once in Wins – and is surprisingly doing so again this year.
And he was nowhere near the best pitcher of his era. During his prime, baseball fans were arguably treated to the greatest quartet of starting pitchers that ever played at the same time. (Proving that is something I’ll do at another time, but in an era when offense ruled, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez strung together a run of seasons that rivals or surpasses anything ever seen before.)
And he doesn’t rank particularly high on any of the all-time lists. He’s 37th in Wins and 39th in Win %.
At the time of Goose Gossage’s election, I wrote the following:
In order to win election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY, the highest honor conferred on an American athlete, a player must do at least one of the following:
- Be an elite, dominant, Top 5 guy for a period of about 10 years
- Be a consistently very good player for a very long time, placing high on all-time career lists
Based on my own criteria, Mike Mussina will have to settle for the Stanford University Hall of Fame, because he ain’t going to Cooperstown.
The Case For
And yet…
In any conversation with any reasonable baseball fan, it is agreed that the game has changed and we need to begin revising in our own minds what an all-time great number looks like. 500 homers used to punch your ticket, but now – maybe not.
And Wins? It used to be agreed that 300 Wins got you into the Hall of Fame; even compilers like Don Sutton eventually got in. But the modern game, with 5-man rotations and active bullpens, has significantly cut down on the numbers of decisions – and Wins – that a pitcher can earn.
Mike Mussina, with 265 Wins (and counting) is the perfect test case for this theory. What is the new 300? 250? 275?
It’s possible I was drawn to Mussina because he reminded me of my boyhood hero, Tom Seaver. Both pitchers combined power and craft, both came out of college ball in California, and both seemed to possess an intellect rarely found in baseball.
Seaver is one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He won three Cy Youngs (and arguably should have won two more, in 71 and 81). He finished in the Top 3 among ERA leaders thirteen times. He had five 20-win seasons. He led the league in strikeouts five times, and set a then-record 9 consecutive seasons with 200+ Ks. He appeared on 12 All Star teams and started seven times. And he finished his career with 311 wins. He not only made it to the Hall of Fame, but he did so with the highest percentage of votes ever given to any player.
Mike Mussina? His case for the Hall isn’t nearly that strong…but interesting nonetheless.
The Case Against
Mussina was no Seaver. He made only 5 All-Star teams (though he did start thrice). No Cy Young trophies adorn his case. He has no ERA titles, no strikeout titles, no Wins titles. He never won 20 games. He did lead the league once in Wins – and is surprisingly doing so again this year.
And he was nowhere near the best pitcher of his era. During his prime, baseball fans were arguably treated to the greatest quartet of starting pitchers that ever played at the same time. (Proving that is something I’ll do at another time, but in an era when offense ruled, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez strung together a run of seasons that rivals or surpasses anything ever seen before.)
And he doesn’t rank particularly high on any of the all-time lists. He’s 37th in Wins and 39th in Win %.
At the time of Goose Gossage’s election, I wrote the following:
In order to win election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY, the highest honor conferred on an American athlete, a player must do at least one of the following:
- Be an elite, dominant, Top 5 guy for a period of about 10 years
- Be a consistently very good player for a very long time, placing high on all-time career lists
Based on my own criteria, Mike Mussina will have to settle for the Stanford University Hall of Fame, because he ain’t going to Cooperstown.
The Case For
And yet…
In any conversation with any reasonable baseball fan, it is agreed that the game has changed and we need to begin revising in our own minds what an all-time great number looks like. 500 homers used to punch your ticket, but now – maybe not.
And Wins? It used to be agreed that 300 Wins got you into the Hall of Fame; even compilers like Don Sutton eventually got in. But the modern game, with 5-man rotations and active bullpens, has significantly cut down on the numbers of decisions – and Wins – that a pitcher can earn.
Mike Mussina, with 265 Wins (and counting) is the perfect test case for this theory. What is the new 300? 250? 275?
He ranks 21st all-time in strikeouts, which is impressive. When thinking about that, along with his 37th in Wins and 39th in Win %, you should know that there are 71 pitchers in the Hall of Fame. Those rankings suddenly look a little better, don't they?
And here’s your stat of the day: According to the New York Times today Mike Mussina just moved into 5th all-time in one of those obscure statistics that Joe Morgan hates but that, when you think about it, is incredibly compelling:
"According to the statistician Lee Sinins, Mike Mussina has moved into fifth on the American League’s career list for the statistic R.S.A.A., or runs saved above average. Mussina trails Lefty Grove, Walter Johnson, Roger Clemens and Pedro MartÃnez. Sinins said the figure 'measures how many runs a pitcher saves or costs his team compared to the average pitcher who pitched the same number of innings in the same offensive context (same league average E.R.A., park adjusted to his home park).'"
In other words Mike Mussina is one of the all-time greatest pitchers at the single-most important thing a pitcher can do - prevent runs - when you compare him to the time and place he worked.
Finally, according to Baseball-Reference, Mussina's career stats are most similar to Juan Marichal and his statistics through age 38 are most similar to Clark Griffith. Marichal (who pitched in a very pitcher-friendly era and park) and Griffith both have plaques in Cooperstown.
One last thing on Mussina's resume: he won 6 Gold Gloves. Gold Glove voting is an absurdity, but it's still worth mentioning.
The Decision
So does he deserve it? I think he's still on the bubble, but getting closer. As much as my rational side opposes arbitrary things like milestone numbers and 20 wins, I can't quite shake my attraction to them.
At the end of last year I would have said he hasn't earned it. But his surprising renaissance in 2008 changes that. He has a shot at 20 wins, he has a shot at a Cy Young, and more importantly he has a shot at extending a career that looked over, which will only push his career numbers higher.
Right now, I don't believe he's earned his plaque. But check back at the end of this season or maybe next, and he may have pushed himself over the top.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Then I Hit the Van Wyck
Got caught in a traffic jam last night.
Landed at JFK around 10:30, with carry-on luggage and my car in short-term parking. I was behind the wheel and zipping out the airport exit by 10:45. Then I hit the Van Wyck.
Suddenly, I was in heartbreaking, bone-crushing, soul-destroying traffic. It took me over an hour to travel the next 3 miles, and finally stumbled into bed after 1.
During that time I did a lot of listening. I listened to the new Yankee reliever, Damaso Marte, give up a walk-off grand slam. I listened to a Bill Bryson book on my iPod. I listened to Van Halen's Ain't Talkin' Bout Love on classic rock radio. I listened to some guy on NPR talk about Solzhenitsyn (it was NPR so the topic was the great dissident's criticism of America, not Russia). I listened, against my will, to the extremely loud Caribbean music blasting through the open windows of the car next to me. I listened to shadow traffic reports, all happily oblivious to the quagmire I was stuck in.
And I thought about traffic, and why it's so infuriating.
It's not just the time that it wastes. In fact, it is my experience that traffic is never quite as bad as it seems. I drive from my home in Rockland County, NY out to Long Island quite often, and hit my share of traffic. But very often I arrive at my destination, announce that the traffic was awful – and realize the trip only took 20 minutes longer than usual.
And it's not just the helplessness – though that is certainly a factor. The male of the species is an incorrigible problem-solver and very often, unless you really know your way around the back roads, there is nothing you can do about the problem of traffic except take it.
No, I think the main frustration of traffic is that there is no one to direct your fury at. If you're stuck in a slow line at a store, you can direct your fury at the cashier, chatting on her cell phone as she slowly rings up a customer - or the customer, who waits until everything is rung up to begin searching her pocketbook for a checkbook.
But traffic is a faceless enemy. Indeed, you often are the enemy. You and those other drivers who all decided to be at the same place at the same time. Or the enemy is construction, which you recognize as a necessary evil - plus you're unlikely to flip the bird at the hardhat with the jackhammer. Or the enemy is an accident - and surely the least charitable thought most of us have is that moment in traffic when you spy the emergency lights, possibly signalling the wreckage of someone's life, and can only think, "Yes! It's almost over!"
Wuss Drivers
At 12:37AM, with nothing better to do, I called my buddy Jordan's office number, and left a long voice-mail that roughly mirrors this post. Jordan is a sort of connoisseur of traffic. He studies it, he collects stories about it, he can plumb special depths of rage at it. I once commented that the grip marks on Jordan's steering wheel didn't come that way from the factory - he squeezed them out one day on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Jordan has a special theory about traffic. He believes most traffic is caused by what he calls Wuss Driving. Yes, an accident or construction or weather or tolls or congestion may be the spur, but if the road wasn't filled with Wuss Drivers, we would be able to power through these obstacles and defeat the traffic. He hasn't scientifically tested this thesis, to the best of my knowledge.
Anyway, I made it home eventually. Construction was the cause, though for a few hopeful siren-filled moments I thought there was a terrible accident. Maybe next time I'll avoid the Van Wyck.
Note: Seinfeld fans will recognize the title of this post comes from Elaine, describing her drive to JFK: "I never knew I could drive like that. I was going faster than I've ever gone before and yet, it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. I was seeing three and four moves ahead, weaving in and out of lanes like an Olympic skier on a gold meal run. I knew I was challenging the very laws of physics. At Queens Boulevard, I took the shoulder. At Jewel Avenue, I used the median. I had it. I was there...and then...I hit the Van Wyck. They say no one's ever beaten the Van Wyck, but gentlemen, I tell you this - I came as close as anyone ever has. And if it hadn't been for that five-car pile-up on Rockaway Boulevard, that numbskull would be on a plane for Seattle right now instead of looking for a parking space downstairs."
Landed at JFK around 10:30, with carry-on luggage and my car in short-term parking. I was behind the wheel and zipping out the airport exit by 10:45. Then I hit the Van Wyck.
Suddenly, I was in heartbreaking, bone-crushing, soul-destroying traffic. It took me over an hour to travel the next 3 miles, and finally stumbled into bed after 1.
During that time I did a lot of listening. I listened to the new Yankee reliever, Damaso Marte, give up a walk-off grand slam. I listened to a Bill Bryson book on my iPod. I listened to Van Halen's Ain't Talkin' Bout Love on classic rock radio. I listened to some guy on NPR talk about Solzhenitsyn (it was NPR so the topic was the great dissident's criticism of America, not Russia). I listened, against my will, to the extremely loud Caribbean music blasting through the open windows of the car next to me. I listened to shadow traffic reports, all happily oblivious to the quagmire I was stuck in.
And I thought about traffic, and why it's so infuriating.
It's not just the time that it wastes. In fact, it is my experience that traffic is never quite as bad as it seems. I drive from my home in Rockland County, NY out to Long Island quite often, and hit my share of traffic. But very often I arrive at my destination, announce that the traffic was awful – and realize the trip only took 20 minutes longer than usual.
And it's not just the helplessness – though that is certainly a factor. The male of the species is an incorrigible problem-solver and very often, unless you really know your way around the back roads, there is nothing you can do about the problem of traffic except take it.
No, I think the main frustration of traffic is that there is no one to direct your fury at. If you're stuck in a slow line at a store, you can direct your fury at the cashier, chatting on her cell phone as she slowly rings up a customer - or the customer, who waits until everything is rung up to begin searching her pocketbook for a checkbook.
But traffic is a faceless enemy. Indeed, you often are the enemy. You and those other drivers who all decided to be at the same place at the same time. Or the enemy is construction, which you recognize as a necessary evil - plus you're unlikely to flip the bird at the hardhat with the jackhammer. Or the enemy is an accident - and surely the least charitable thought most of us have is that moment in traffic when you spy the emergency lights, possibly signalling the wreckage of someone's life, and can only think, "Yes! It's almost over!"
Wuss Drivers
At 12:37AM, with nothing better to do, I called my buddy Jordan's office number, and left a long voice-mail that roughly mirrors this post. Jordan is a sort of connoisseur of traffic. He studies it, he collects stories about it, he can plumb special depths of rage at it. I once commented that the grip marks on Jordan's steering wheel didn't come that way from the factory - he squeezed them out one day on the New Jersey Turnpike.
Jordan has a special theory about traffic. He believes most traffic is caused by what he calls Wuss Driving. Yes, an accident or construction or weather or tolls or congestion may be the spur, but if the road wasn't filled with Wuss Drivers, we would be able to power through these obstacles and defeat the traffic. He hasn't scientifically tested this thesis, to the best of my knowledge.
Anyway, I made it home eventually. Construction was the cause, though for a few hopeful siren-filled moments I thought there was a terrible accident. Maybe next time I'll avoid the Van Wyck.
Note: Seinfeld fans will recognize the title of this post comes from Elaine, describing her drive to JFK: "I never knew I could drive like that. I was going faster than I've ever gone before and yet, it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. I was seeing three and four moves ahead, weaving in and out of lanes like an Olympic skier on a gold meal run. I knew I was challenging the very laws of physics. At Queens Boulevard, I took the shoulder. At Jewel Avenue, I used the median. I had it. I was there...and then...I hit the Van Wyck. They say no one's ever beaten the Van Wyck, but gentlemen, I tell you this - I came as close as anyone ever has. And if it hadn't been for that five-car pile-up on Rockaway Boulevard, that numbskull would be on a plane for Seattle right now instead of looking for a parking space downstairs."
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