CapitalistImperialistPig

I think I read that Jimmy the Greek got fired from his sports job for saying that blacks dominate American sports because they have more talent. It's probably more complicated than that but the science of human genetic differences is controversial mainly because of its potential implications for the subject of racial differences. What with White Supremacists and Nazis making a comeback, it's hardly possible to dispassionately discuss such matters. The standard line on the left, I think, is that race is a social construct. Well, of course, but that doesn't mean that it isn't related to biological history. I think that the left - and I'm slightly left myself - overplays its hand when it insists that noticing differences correlated with race is evidence of racism or other dastardly crimes against propriety. If you publicly insist on a claim that anyone can see is false you discredit yourself more than anyone else. I would guess that anyone who follows sports in ...

After losing, US goalie Hope Solo apparently accused the Swedish team of playing "cowardly soccer." Of course what they really did was play defensive soccer, the strategy that they correctly thought would give them the best chance of winning. There is nothing illegal, unethical, or unsportsmanlike about this, but it does tend to make for boring soccer, and produced the dreaded penalty shootout, which is always a bit like deciding the game by a coin toss. The biggest problem with soccer has long been its defensive predominance. One can't imagine an American football game remaining competitive if one side had been reduced to ten players, for example. Because the defense has such a strong advantage, there is always the temptation for the weaker team to sit back and tempt the stronger team into over-committing, or just wait for the coin-flip like penalty shootout. I suggest one modest change in the Olympic and World Cup rules which would get rid of the penalty shootout ...

Sweden wins on penalties, in a game in which both sides got swindled by the refs. The US failure to shoot straight made the difference in a game in which it dominated possessions and shots but couldn't manage to convert. It looks like the era of US dominance in women's soccer is over. Maybe Trump could build a wall...

University students and protest go together like beer and Pizza. A relatively privileged group with lots of time* and freedom, it's natural for students to find something get upset about and organize against it. Universities are used to this and usually take it in stride, though every once in a while a nutjob like Reagan will call out the air force to bomb the students into submission. The shocking thing about the University of Missouri protests is how quickly they brought about the University's abject surrender, with President and Chancellor resigning. This happened because and only because the football team made itself the core of the protest. The team's threatened strike brought the U to its knees. The American University is in many ways a slave to its football program, and to the financial benefits it accrues by virtue of having the free labor of its athletes. It would be surprising if football players don't take the obvious lesson from this and realize their...

Hurrah! The US squeezes out an improbable 2-1 victory against Ghana, despite losing our best striker early and our seemingly congenital national inability to dribble, put 3 consecutive touches together, or otherwise possess the ball. A satisfying victory after a couple of drubbings by Ghana in previous World Cups. Of course Germany and Portugal await.

So far this year's World Cup has been relatively exciting - at least compared to the previous iteration, which was roughly as exciting as watching grass grow. Which is what one is reduced to when teams play to a 120 minute scoreless tie. The exciting moments in soccer are exactly those in which the ball and offensive players enter the penalty box. The really boring moments are those in which a team kicks the ball around in its own end. So here are a few suggestions to breathe some life into the world's favorite boring sport. The pitch is currently divided into two halves. The offside rule only applies in the offensive half. Suggestion: (1) divide the field into thirds, with the offside rule only applying in the offensive third. In basketball, teams have limited time to bring the ball beyond the half line and lose the ball if they subsequently reverse that. Sugg (2)Limit the time in which a team can hold the ball in the defensive third and forbid returning it. Violatio...

The usual morons, I mean the dimmer witted sportswriters, are bashing Lebron James for not being ready for the AC to be off in San Antonio in Game 1 of the NBA finals. So why did the best athlete in the sport cramp up when lesser athletes didn't? Mostly, I think, its a matter of physics. Lebron is a very large guy, and he plays with the intensity of a great small guard. Those huge muscles that let him finish through foul and obstruction generate a terrific amount of heat. Maybe if his coach had been strong willed enough, and far sighted enough, he would have sat the big guy more and earlier the third quarter. Everybody had to play in the same heat, but the effects are different for different players.

Basketball is an arena where big talents tend to be identified early - sometimes before junior high school. Jeremy Lin was not exactly invisible in high school - he was High School Player of the year in California - but he was lightly recruited out of high school and was a star a Harvard, which, unfortunately, is a bit like being the best actor in Abilene. The NBA usually drafts enough college players to fill three leagues each year, but Lin wasn't one of them. He did manage to get on an NBA team, where he saw little action in his first season. After being waived a couple of times, he got on with the New York Knicks, where he once again occupied the far end of the bench. Until nine games ago, when he got his very first NBA start. Since that time, he and the previously hapless Knicks have exploded, winning eight of nine, and Lin has been putting up superstar numbers. I saw him play for the first time today (on television) and he once again played like a champ, scoring 28 point...

Joe Nocera, writing in the New York Times , talks about the obvious but rarely mentioned: Twice a year in Vienna, the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries gather to decide on the short-term direction of oil prices .. Indeed, collusion and price-fixing are the main reasons cartels exist — and why they are illegal in America. Yet, in Indianapolis a few weeks from now, a home-grown cartel will hold its annual meeting, where it, too, will be working to collude and fix prices. This cartel is the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The N.C.A.A. would have you believe that it is the great protector of amateur athletics, preventing college athletes from being tainted by the river of money pouring over college sports. In fact, the N.C.A.A.’s real role is to oversee the collusion of university athletic departments, whose goal is to maximize revenue and suppress the wages of its captive labor force, a k a the players. Rarely, however, will the cartel nature...

The NYT has a multi-part series on the life and death of feared hockey enforcer Derek Boogaard, dead of drug overdose at 28. At 28 his brain was already in advanced state of destruction by chronic traumatic encephalopathy - likely the result of repeated concussions. His path was an accelerated version of that of many hockey enforcers, combat, brain damage, personality change, addiction and death. Unfortunately, hockey is not the only sport where athletes are battered to an early and often agonizing death - boxing and football frequently suffer similarly serious brain damage. Even the relatively gentler sport of soccer tends fo inflict head injury, albeit in a less direct fashion. Repeatedly heading a soccer ball can cause brain damage too. Ironically, hockey, one of the most dangerous sports, would be relatively easy to make safer - just adopt strong penalties against fighting. This won't happen from inside the NHL, because the league and it's owners think blood on the s...

One of the unhappiest marriages of modern technology is that of economists and multiple regression. With the aid of a computer, multiple regression is simple enough for anyone to do it, and far too many of them do. Another egregious example seems to be Dr Dave Berri (with details here ). His technique produces a number of counterintuitive results - for example, he rates Derek Fisher of LA as the least productive player on a winning team. This is sufficient evidence for me to rate Berri as an idiot among economist multi-regressors. The are several kinds of pitfall for multiple regression, prominent among them neglect of correlations and of variables not in the regression. This sort of thing is especially evident in the kinds of statistics Berri uses. Key stats are what he calls "defensive efficiency" which is essentially just points scoring of the guy you are guarding and "offensive efficiency," scoring per unit time. These stats are very easily contaminated. If yo...

Wade + Bosh + James - a ton of offense, but will they have a team?

From Slate . Probably not for the squeamish cat lover: What if I told you that last week I predicted all eight winners of a round of the World Cup? And that instead of rankings or divination all I did was look up how many people in each team's home country had a tiny parasite lurking in their amygdalas? Would you believe me? A decade ago, Discover Magazine concluded that parasites ruled the world, and now I'm going to try to tell you that, at the very least, parasites rule the World Cup. Follow the link for an improbable but tantalyzingly suggestive story.

The German blitzkreig (if I may call it that) annihilated what had previously looked like a very impressive Agentine team. Great speed, energy, and precision. Spain was a bit lucky to eke out a win against Paraguay. A Paraguay goal was called off on a perhaps dubious offside call. Spain - Germany should be a good game, but is hard to pick against the Germans at this point. That Brazil-Argentina final we all liked two days ago? Might be Dutch v. Deutsch today.

Let the two teams kick the ball around for ninety minutes, then the referee could blow his whistle and flip a coin, after which some sighted person could tell him which side is up - and thus the winner. Because actually checking whether goals were scored would do too much violence to the game.

Will we ever learn to play this game? Signs to date are not promising. As usual - horrible and horribly weak start, early goal conceded, comeback with lots of chances. Ghana had relatively few chances but exploited them beautifully. The US had many chances but could not finish - the only goal was a penalty kick and that was nearly a miss.

Another last minute miracle was needed to save the day, but the US side managed. England gets Germany in the next round, we get Ghana. The ancient Meso-Americans built some immense stadia for their soccer like ball game. At the conclusion of a match, according to various traditions and analyses, the losing team, the winning team, or maybe just the MVP were ritually sacrificed. My nominee would be the ref.

FIFA sucks. The US and other countries swindled by the archaic and incompetent refereeing of FIFA should secede and promote an improved soccer game. More refs, electronic scoring and review of goals, electronic determination of offsides, replacement of throwins with kick ins and a few other modifications would make for a much better game.