All posts by Mike

Sports

Why the Excitement Index Rocks

I blogged last week about the excitement index for MLB post-seasons. Here are the scores for the first round:

New York/Minnesota: 5.43
Philadelphia/Cincinnati: 4.28
Texas/Tampa: 7.33
San Francisco/Atlanta: 9.9

I post this because it demonstrates why I like the system. The Texas/Tampa series went five games, so you would think it was the best. But, in fact, the games weren’t that close. Texas won the first two games easily. Game three was close before Tampa pulled away and neither of the last two games were very close. It was a good series, no question, but not a great one by any means.

The Braves series, as the days shaved off my life can attest, was much more tense. All four were decided by one run, one in the 9th inning, another in extra innings. That makes a very good series, even if it only went four games.

Humor, Politics, Religion, Science and Edumacation

Thursday Linkorama

Non-political links:

  • NSFW. But funny as hell.

    • Political Links:

  • An interesting article about some of the Christians standing up to Fred Phelps.
  • This is one of the chief reasons I’m nervous about the GOP taking power and am not prepared for them to win the White House in 2012. When a party is uniformly disputing fairly solid science, that’s disturbing. And anti-conservative. They are essentially saying they’re willing to bit our entire future on the idea that global warming is a myth.
  • You’re Full of It Watch: what is it with Paul Krugman? So much of what he writes is simply factually wrong. Does he think that winning a Nobel precludes him from checking his fantasies with data?
  • Newspapers wuss out on a funny cartoon.
    • Politics

    The Paper of No Record

    Liberals often scoff at the conservative idea that the mainstream media is “leftist” or partisan. I think that’s a blinkered view — coming from thinking that leftist views are inherently reasonable and rational. The media doesn’t seem biased because “everyone” agrees on the sensible point of view.

    A perfect example of how bias is missed? The NYT today ran a story on the recent spate of conservatives excoriating Woodrow Wilson as a terrible President. The NYT’s “debate” consists of five scholars defending Wilson and mocking his detractors in condescending tones. And they have one guy who sort of explains the connection, but doesn’t add anything.

    That’s “balance” to the New York Times: six people not really addressing the criticisms made of Wilson. That’s why, if you want real balance, you have to go elsewhere. Somewhere like Radley Balko:

    He dishonestly led us into a pointless, costly, destructive war, and assumed control over huge sectors of the economy to wage it. He seized railroads, food and energy production, and implemented price controls.

    He suppressed dissent and imprisoned war critics. Said Wilson, “Conformity will be the only virtue. And every man who refuses to conform will have to pay the penalty.” He signed the Espionage and Sedition Acts, the latter of which made it a criminal offense to “oppose the cause of the United States.” He retaliated against critical newspapers, and directed the U.S. Postal Service to stop delivering mail determined to be critical of the war effort.

    Wilson not only continued existing racial segregation of federal government workers, he extended it.

    He instituted the first military draft since the Civil War.

    He signed the first federal drug prohibition.

    He reinstituted the federal income tax.

    A few more, from Gene Healy’s book, The Cult of the Presidency:

    Wilson believed in an activist, imperialist presidency. In his 1909 book Constitutional Government, he made the case against checks and balances and the separation of powers. The government, Wilson argued, is a living organism, and “no living thing can have its organs offset against each other as checks, and live.”

    He ordered unconstitutional, unilateral military interventions into Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. (He also oversaw military interventions in Panama and Cuba, and instituted American-favored dictators throughout Latin America.)

    Wilson believed God ordained him to be president, and acted accordingly, boasting to one friend in 1913 that “I have been smashing precedents almost daily every since I got here.” Every president since Jefferson had given the State of the Union in writing. Wilson reinstituted what Jefferson derided as the “speech from the Throne,” and ordered Congress assembled to hear him speak, giving rise to the embarrassing spectacle the SOTU has become today.

    He oversaw a massive domestic spying program, and encouraged American citizens to report one another for subversion.

    My biggest problem with what remains of “conservatism” is their tendency to ignore all the dreadful stuff George Bush did because of the stuff they liked: cutting taxes, fighting terrorism and saying what they wanted to hear. The same is true of Wilson: people ignore the terrible stuff he did because of the stuff they liked: the income tax, some worker protections, farm subsidies, the Federal Reserve. (This is assuming you think the income tax and farm subsidies are wonderful things, which I don’t.)

    Time to take off the blinders, guys. Presidents have to be judged by their entire record. And Wilson’s record, as a whole, is awful.

    Politics, Science and Edumacation, Sports, Taxes and Spending, The Nanny State

    Friday Linkorama

    Non-political links:

  • Yeah, I love archeology.
  • Really? What kind of busy body are you?
  • I love it when facts trump common wisdom. Freakonomics dismantles the idea that steroid testing is why run-scoring is down. One of the things I didn’t like about Ken Burns’ Tenth Inning was that it accepted as gospel the idea that steroids produced the recent offensive explosion.
  • “Safety” does not make us safe.

    • Political Links:

  • I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t like Dick Blumenthal. Watch here as Linda McMahon — of the WWE — cleans his clock on how jobs are created. She says it better in ten seconds than he does in almost two minutes of burbling.
  • Seems like Lou Dobbs is every kind of hypocrite.
  • You’re Full of It Watch: the anti-Prop 19ers.
  • So what do you do when your Keynesian economic plan has failed? Blame foreigners.
  • Ah, redevelopment. What a scam.
  • You know, I remember when “binge drinking” actually meant binge drinking, not just drinking.
    • Sports

    Coach? What Coach

    In reading the account of the comedy of errors that ending the Tennessee-LSU game, I was struck by this:

    LSU coach Les Miles had already tossed his headset aside, cutting him off from communication with offensive coordinator Gary Crowton, while he sought out an official on the field to see what the flag was for.

    “I had to call a play because I had nobody to talk to,” Miles said.

    Have we gotten to the point where it’s unusual for a head coach to call a play?

    Sports

    The Excitement Index, 2010 Edition

    A few years ago, I developed a very simple system for measuring how exciting a baseball post-season is.

    I wanted to check just how boring 2007 was turning out so I devised a quick and dirty way to rank the post-seasons. It works like this:

    Every game played gets 1 point.

    Each game get 0.2 extra points for a lead change or tie. So tonight the Sox led 1-0. The Tribe tied it. Then the Sox took the lead for good. 0.4 points. Now if the Tribe had scored a run in the 1st and another in the second, that would have been 0.4 points; but had they taken the lead with two in the 1st, that would have only been 0.2 points. The system rewards a little drawing out of the game.

    Extra innings or a last at-bat victory is worth an extra 0.5 points.
    Finally, the game is credited with 1/(margin of victory). So a 1-run game gets an extra point. A five-run game only gets 0.2 points.

    It’s arbitary, I know. It gives the same weight to an 18-inning game as a 10-inning game. It weights early rallies as much as late ones. It doesn’t account for runners left on base, which is why Game 7 of the 1991 World Series comes in at only 2.50. It weights an exciting game one as much as an exciting game seven. It doesn’t care if a team has come back from being down 3-0.

    In other words, it’s quick and dirty.

    I’m not really looking to rank the greatest game in baseball history. What I’m looking for are series — and post-seasons full of series — that go the distance with lots of exciting close games. And I don’t have the computer resources to do a more thorough job. This one can be calculated just by looking at the line score.

    After tonight, I would add that it doesn’t take into account no-hitters.

    I’ve now expanded the database to go all the way back to 1976. A few highlights:

  • To give you a sense of scale. The average games scores 1.9 points. The average 5-games series scores 7.2. The average 7-game series 10.8. The average modern post-season scores 60 points.
  • The most exciting post-season in history was 2003, which came in at a whopping 74.1 points. You may remember this one as the year both the Red Sox and Cubs were five outs away from a pennant and blew it. Pro-rated, however, the 1991 post-season comes in slightly better (40.2 points pro-rated to 78.5). That was the year the Braves came from nowhere to take the Pirates and then the Twins to seven games.
  • The most boring post-season, as I noted above, was 2007. Five series sweeps and a surprisingly dull 7-game ALCS. It game in at 47.6.
  • The most exciting 7-game series was the 1991 World Series (17.2). As a survivor of that, who watched the greatest Cinderella team ever lose a 7-game heart-breaker, I can vouch for that one. Coming in second is the 2001 World Series (16.1).
  • The dullest 7-game series was 1989’s blowout of San Francisco by Oakland in which the Giants never took a lead. It scored a pathetic 5.4.
  • The most exciting 5-game series was 1980’s Philadelphia-Houston epic ALCS which featured four extra-inning game. At 13.5, it outdid most 7-game series.
  • The most boring 5-gamer was St. Louis blowing out San Diego in the 2005 NLDS. There have been games that have scored better than the 3.9 the whole series did.
  • The most-exciting game, at a whopping 4.1, was game two of the 1997 NLDS. Huh? That game featured 8 ties or lead changes and was won on a walk-off single by Moises Alou. I’m inclined to think this a quirk of the system. Even though game seven of the 2001 world series only score 3.3, I would give that the nod as the greatest game.
  • There are many candidates for boring games. Technically, game seven of the 1996 NLCS scored the lowest (1.06). But the Braves’ 15-0 victory capped a comeback from a 1-3 series deficit. Game five of that series (a 14-0 blowout, 1.07 in the system) is another candidate, as is game one of the World Series that year. But I would probably go with game one of the 2005 ALDS (1.08), Chicago’s 14-2 blowout of Boston.

    • We’ll see how this season shapes up.

    Cool Stuff, Politics, Science and Edumacation

    Tuesday Linkorama

    Non-political Links:

  • View of a real estate market. The Big Picture is such a wonderful website.
  • Volcano power. I do worry, however, about the potential for a man-made natural disaster.
  • The net worth of our Presidents. I find the historical trends fascinating. Basically, they were all rich until the mid-19th century, then became rich again in the mid-20th.
  • Super Wi!

    • Political Links

  • America’s legal system: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
  • I am Mike’s total lack of surprise.
  • Amazing: texting bans increase texting accidents.
    • Politics

    Statistical Malpractice Watch

    I’ve seen the claim that we have troops in 156 countries in numerous places, most recently Radley Balko’s awesome blog. But I have to take some issue with it. From my comments:

    Not to [get] too deep into this, but that map of 156 countries with US troops looks very suspicious to me, and not just because their color coding is garbage — Europe is white while other countries are two tones.

    I’ve looked over the CDI website and found the map source (http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst0609.pdf). Many of those 156 countries have single-digit or double-digit US personnel in them. For example, they list almost all countries in Africa, but only Djibouti has a significant presence. If you’re talking 10,000 or more, the list is Germany, Italy, UK, Japan, South Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq.

    What’s the comparison? Do the UK or China have similar “deployments”? Are these military personnel assigned to embassies? Maybe it’s just me, but having two military personnel stationed in Antigua does not seems like an extension of our Empire.

    I don’t disagree that we should pare down our foreign involvements. But let’s have an honest debate. The US is not occupying 3/4 of the world.

    Civil Liberties, Cool Stuff, Fair Tax, Politics

    Thursday Linkorama

  • Heh.
  • Old trees in danger.
  • In praise of frozen veggies.
  • Our long nightmare is finally over.
  • Hotel death ray!

    • Political Links:

  • Great news. The Maryland cyclist who recorded a cop has been vindicated. Photography is not a crime.
  • Once again, Neal Boortz proves he can’t do the math on the Fair Tax. If wages go up, so do prices, Neal. And that is the most likely outcome of implementing the Fair Tax.
  • You’re Full of Shit Watch: Dahlia Lithwick. This one particularly gets my goat because all branches of government are supposed to defend our rights. Congress can not pass, the President can not execute and the Courts must not convict on laws that violate the Constitution. Pretty simple, no? No? I guess not.
  • More on Elizabeth Warren’s research. Just to be clear: I don’t think her studies are deliberately misleading; I just think they’re flawed. But that doesn’t matter because she’s very popular among Democrats. And her research reinforces their views.
    • 'Culture', Cool Stuff, Politics

    Weekend Linkorama

    Non-political links (sort of):

  • I love the idea of Dan Savage’s it gets better project to encourage gay teens to survive their teenage years. But I agree with McArdle; this should be a universal meme. Teenage years are tough for everyone (although obviously worse for gay teens in oppressive environments). They should all be told it gets better. I was about as miserable as a well-off white kid can get as a teenager. But I’m happy now.
  • I’ve been sitting on this for a while, trying to think of something profound to say. But there really isn’t anything to add. By any standard, the last decade was the best in human history. But no one can believe this because we have a media and a populace always focused on the negative.
  • A wonderful review of the iphone … from a blind man.

    • Political Links:

  • Great. Dim-bulb legislators in my state want to ban research on synthetic cannaboids. Nice. Better dead than high, I guess.
  • I’m not going to mince words: Richard Blumenthal is scum. His record is that of an attention-grabbing attorney who sees no limit to the power of the state and has tried to leverage his legal career into a political one. Earlier this year, like most moral crusaders, he was caught lying about his past. Now he has managed to bully Craiglist into sending adult services back underground beneath the reach of the law. Thanks goodness the Village Voice won’t be bullied. I never thought I’d be pulling for one of the founders of WWF to win an election; but that’s what I’m doing. This man can not be given any more power.