Why Allen Iverson Should Join the Rochester Lancers

You would think that the Rochester Lancers tattoo
means that he already made his decision.

The Rochester Lancers have made a very public offer to Allen Iverson to play indoor soccer. Part of the reason why this has received so much attention is the easy opportunity to make AI puns. I don't have the answer to why every person with a blog or twitter feels this is necessary. Maybe they just need more practice writing.

This offer is extremely embarrassing for Allen. It draws more attention to his debt. He would be a publicity stunt, playing something he has never played before against professionals. If there's one thing that Iverson does, it's do what he wants. Appearance fees are standard, but appearance fees masked as a contract are not.

On the other hand, the team is willing to be extremely accomodating and has offered a significant amount of money. Despite having missed Monster Jam Thunder Nationals in Rochester by over a month, Allen Iverson should accept the contract for the following reasons:

1. The fans are going to love him. Rochester has been starved of a major 4 pro sports team since the Rochester Royals moved to Cincinnati in 1957. The fans recognize when something is worth going to: Strasburg starting at AAA was standing room only.

2. Indoor soccer is all the good parts of soccer without the bad parts. Goodbye, low scoring and limited substitutions. Hello, 2 pointers.

3. He would get to play with Rochester legend Doug Miller. Miller led the Rochester Rhinos to the 1999 US Open Cup title while winning the Open Cup MVP. The Rhinos are the only non-MLS team to win the Open Cup since the MLS began in 1996, defeating 4 MLS teams along the way. Doug Miller is also remembered for his signature move of taking off his shirt after scoring. Later on, he had to wear a pinny underneath to avoid being carded. Stevie Johnson attempted to honor Doug Miller this season by lifting up his jersey to reveal, "Happy New Year." Stevie recieved a 15 yard penalty for it.

4. He gets to live in Rochester. Unlike Buffalo, Rochester has nice hotels that the team will put him up in. Unlike Turkey, Rochester is in America. Garbage plates. Genny Light. American history. Birthplace of amateur photography. You're welcome.

5. The Lancers are a storied franchise. They won the NASL championship in 1970 before the New York Cosmos began a spending spree, signing Pele and Franz Beckenbauer among others, that led to the league's demise. Through a series of league mergers and realignment, the Rochester Lancers have seemlessly transitioned to indoor soccer.

6. The playoffs are starting next week. He's not even going to play.

7. Chad Ochocinco would pay for this type of publicity. No experience? No problem. Danger? Bring it on.

8. This would be a laugh with him, not laugh at him situation. Everyone knows that he needs the money and it's unfortunate that he has to resort to consider playing made-up sports that he's never played before. However, everyone wants to see him succeed. It's like when Billy Crystal pinch hit for the Yankees in Spring Training. A 60 year old Billy Crystal cannot compete against the best baseball players in the world, but everyone wanted to see him get a hit.

AI probably passes up the offer and no one talks about this offer again. However, if he sucks up his pride and accepts it, Rochester will support him like a 4 time NBA scoring champion doing something new, not a past-his-prime athlete trying to chip away at his debt.

Why I Still Use the Oxford Comma

Dear Diary, Monster Trucks Are Awesome

A marvel of modern technology.

Dear diary,

Monster trucks are awesome. I went to Thunder Nationals Monster Jam on Friday and it was the best sporting event ever. It had everything I've always wanted and more.

Doing the pregame activities properly was essential. We went to Goodwill to find clothes to fit in at the rally. We were both able to put together quality outfits to blend in for under $10. The less you spend on an outfit, the better. The pregame activities were capped off with a tailgate. I don't want to watch monster trucks on an empty stomach.

The event was very affordable; thus, everyone who wanted to go was able to go. Kids seats were still just $5! Tickets on the street in the lower level were $10. This wasn't the Super Bowl crowd. I would guess that only 25% of the crowd was there on business or got corporate tickets. Accordingly, it was rowdy.

Monster trucks are the most unpredictable sporting event. I didn't even know what events would be included. Last year, they had go kart races and the sphere of death. This year, they blew a guy up in a box and shot a lady out of a cannon! With no prior knowledge of any of the trucks, I had no idea who would win. Grave Digger was the overwhelming crowd favorite, even more popular than Spiderman. I was surprised that there were more Dave Matthews Band fans than action hero movie fans at this type of event. However, popularity doesn't mean wins outside of pro wrestling. Grave Digger didn't even win his heat.

Lastly, the event organizers know how to give the audience what they want. The action is exciting. The cars are loud. Forget people competing; it's about machines competing now. Beyond the quality of the product, the fans got what they want. After the actual monster truck competition, there was a freestyle competition. Give each truck a minute to do whatever it wants, which means run over cars and do donuts. I can't think of anything else I would rather watch, except maybe someone being shot out of a cannon. Oh wait, they already did that.

I can't wait for Thunder Nationals next year!

Very affectionately,
Big Russ

The Greatest Athlete of All Time: Kim Jong-il

Last name General. First name Invincible and Ever-Triumphant.

Although he never went to the bathroom, The Beloved and Respected Father was too busy kidnapping movie stars, being a world class dj, inventing hamburgers, and saving his country from famine by breeding giant rabbits to go pro. There is no doubt that the world benefited from his selfless decision to steer clear of pro sports and instead dictate the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea. Despite never playing professionally, Kim Jong-Il, The Great Sun of Life, is the greatest athlete in history.

The first criteria for the greatest athlete is dominance in his sport(s). The greatest athlete is not the best in a made up event that awards sub-world-class skill in a number of sports; as they say: jack of all trades, master of none. He is so good at the sports that he competes in that no one cares about his ability in other sports.

The second criteria is talent in multiple sports. The greatest athlete needs to have a wide range of skills that cover a wide range of sports. Being good at football and rugby, or bocce ball and curling, earns no extra points. On the contrary, baseball and football require vastly different skill sets and thus require a great athlete to excel at both.

The third criteria is playing sports that people have access to. Success in sports with location or money barriers to playing are discounted. An athlete who is dominant in a sport that has a low participation rate would probably not be professional if other people tried it, and he also doesn't get paid. Athletes in sports that aren't played in America are immediately removed from consideration because the best non-American at something is probably about the hundredth best in the world. Sorry, men's field hockey.

The Ever-Victorious, Iron-Willed Commander sweeps all three criteria. The first time he golfed, he shot a 34 (-38) with 11 holes-in-one at the 7,700 yard Pyongyang Golf Course. No PGA golfer could beat that score in mini golf. More impressive, The Great Sun of the Nation did this at age 52. His natural athleticism was so overwhelming that it transcended both age and preparation. Naturally, his athleticism was too much for the low ceiling of bowling. In his first game at Pyongyang Lanes, The Bright Sun of the 21st Century rolled a 300. Just like when you stop playing baseball in your friend's backyard because it's too easy to hit a homerun, The Great Man Who Descended From Heaven never returned to bowling. Although golf and bowling are not very popular sports, they cover a large part of the American population because there is little overlap between participants. Who goes from the country club to $3 pitcher night at the alley? While golf has a cost barrier to entry that prohibits young potential athletes, the barrier's effect is minimized because all professional athletes golf after their season ends; not all potential athletes golf, but all proven ones do.

Penalty Shootouts

Soccer is a team sport in which the most important games
are settled with 10/11 of the team watching what happens from midfield.

Before I was old enough to form independent opinions, I thought penalty shootouts were the best part of the World Cup. As much as I loved watching actual soccer, there was something irresistible about letting five minutes trump the previous 120. Clean slates. New rules. Same outcomes. Since then, I have added "fair" and "manufactured excitement" to my vocabulary. Shootouts have a time and a place, but they have no place in important sporting events such as the World Cup, Champions League, the Olympics, and the MLS Cup Playoffs because the importance of determining a deserving winner and the need to do this by continuing the original sport outweigh the benefits of saving time and the excitement of this premature and abrupt finish.

Big time sporting events value the ability to schedule events for known time intervals to allow for multiple use of the same facilities and the simplification of television coverage. The Olympics would likely have difficulty in implementing sudden death overtime for these reasons. The honorable and respectable soccer governing board, FIFA, on the other hand, is largely unaffected by this concerns. Scheduling matches with the potential for overtime in a manner to avoid conflicting with later events that require the same facility and utilizing online streaming and the increasing number of channels would avoid these concerns.

The immediacy of a shootout is pretty sexy, but it lacks the suspense and emotional connection only seen in sudden death overtime. In a shootout, the outcome unfolds over its course, granted quickly, instead of appearing spontaneously; in sudden death, any shot can win it. Further, the highlight goals from a soccer penalty shot are few and far between, although the same can't be said for hockey. Unexpected is exciting, and soccer shootouts fail in this category as well (with the exception of the the three possible kick directions: left, right, or center): the closer the probability of the two potential outcomes is to 50%, the more unexpected the outcome is. Hockey has been able to gain a large national following because of the excitement created by a nearly 50-50 shootout situation. If only there were a way to make this the case for soccer...

Despite the difficulty of scheduling for sudden death matches, and regardless of your opinion on the entertainment value of a shootout, ending a match in one sport with a completely different competition featuring a fraction of the original players and a mild overlap of skills is ridiculous. Beer league kickball allows for chug-offs if a play is challenged--a different contest, beer chugging, is used to decide the outcome of the original game, kickball. This is ok because it is beer league kickball. This is not ok in the belle of world sports. It would be excusable to end soccer with something logical that utilized more relevant skills and included the full team, like mayan deathball, roller derby, or tagteam MMA, but a contest of kicking a ball into a net that is 192 square feet from 12 yards away doesn't cut it. Of all the skills required in soccer, shooting is the one that has the least overlap across all positions, and it isn't even used that much in a game--compare the number of dribbles, passes, or tackles to the number of shots; penalty shot ability is not a good predictor of the quality of a soccer player.

Shootouts are a marginally better method of deciding a match than flipping a coin; they make away goals seem like a good idea. Because soccer and hockey are low scoring, they can't add an additional period to decide a winner immediately like basketball or tennis (depending on where it is played). However, this is not an excuse for not continuing the game until there is a winner. If overtime is too long, people don't have to watch it, and if more people watch overtime than would watch whatever it would be running over, the station should be able to make more money from advertisements. Spectators tend to enjoy the excitement and emotional connection that develops throughout overtime, rather than complain about it taking too long. If they were interested in watching the game when it was less exciting in regulation, they're probably interested in watching overtime. If for whatever reason overtime can not be played, a subjective scoring by judges, like in boxing, or a formula from a regression that weighted the importance of various game statistics, such as possession and shots on goal, in winning a game could get the job done. Shootouts are fine when they have no effect on the course of an 82 game season and are actually entertaining to watch, but elimination games should not be decided by a shootout. Deciding a deserving winner should take precedence over brevity.

Better Headbutt?

Zidane's headbutt somehow managed to claim the top spot of my most memorable World Cup moments.



Patrick Kaleta just happens to be a boss. This is somewhat of old news in the hockey community, but I'm guessing that means this is largely unknown of in the wider sports community.



Kaleta had not one, not two, but three great headbutts. I've never seen someone actually almost get hurt from a headbutt until I saw this.

Continuing with the theme of not actually writing a post and just embedding videos, I'll leave it to the readers (most of the other Sports Casual bloggers and my brother) to debate it in the comments: Who had the better headbutt?

I'm obligated to vote for a gritty Western New Yorker who plays for my favorite hockey team over some French guy who can't take some standard Italian trashtalk, but I recognize that some credit needs to be given to the stage. I'm not sure if Zidane should benefit for headbutting in the most important single sporting match over a four year span, or be penalized for getting a red card in it.

THIS IS SPARTA!!

Chicks dig not wearing sleeves...and knee braces.

300 is a great movie. Everyone who watches it wants to relate to the Spartans, but they have few outlets to prove their toughness. Standing outside in cold weather without a jacket is one of the few remaining outlets. However, we are, in fact, not Spartans. Based on a particularly subjective cost-benefit analysis, playing and watching sports underdressed in bad weather is a poor method of proving toughness.

There is a cost to both athletes and fans for being underdressed: being uncomfortable. Warmth is on the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right next to sex, food, and sleep. Living without something on the bottom of the pyramid is tough, and it doesn’t make sense for a rational human to deprive himself of a fundamental need by choice. Further, being cold hurts on-field performance and makes one more prone to sickness.

The more interesting side of the analysis is the lack of any benefit for almost everyone that does it. Flexibility in cold weather gear is no longer an issue. If you’re a defensive lineman and playing without sleeves helps you play with a sense of urgency and desire to make the other team go three-and-out on every possession, then go for it, but looking tough to intimidate your opponent is a dubious motive without benefit. However, a few athletes monetize their toughness with endorsements, but endorsements and linemen don't have much of a history. For the fan and non-professional athlete, despite their beliefs of what impresses girls, the benefit is all in personal satisfaction, and it is likely that the cost outweighs this benefit.

For all of the people that don’t like wearing a shirt when it’s cold out, it turns out there is a way they can actually get monetary benefit out of it. They could stop using air conditioning and heating, save hundreds in bills, reduce their carbon footprint, and date someone who cares about the environment. If there is so little personal cost to being cold that they can do it with minimal benefit, they should do it when there actually is a benefit as well.

Suck for Luck

I remember when I used to root for a team that was out of
playoff contention by week 7, but those days are gone. Fitzmagic.

Andrew Luck said he thinks “it’s stupid. Simply Put” that NFL teams would lose on purpose to draft him. Well, Andrew, I think it’s stupid that you passed on 30 million guaranteed to get an education that will prove meaningless. You’re already too famous to get a job based on merit. I hope you took out a huge insurance policy. Despite Luck's public opinion, "Suck for Luck" is the only way a hardworking American would approach this situation.

The NFL has a few socialist practices necessary to keep competitive balance. The system of central planning and redistribution of income includes a reverse order draft, sharing national revenue equally, and sharing parts of traditionally local revenue, like tickets sales and playoff revenue. You can’t put the most American of Americans in an exploitable situation and expect them not to exploit it. The bottom dwellers of the MLB know how to play the system, so why can't NFL teams do the same?

From the fan’s perspective, each season is Super Bowl or bust; only one city has a parade. Once the Bills can’t make the playoffs (week 8 in 2010), I start rooting for them to lose all of their games to get a better draft pick and hopefully be better the next year. The best case scenario is that they lose very close games to very good teams; it makes it easier to be optimistic next year. The players can get in on it too, and then just blame God for their poor performances. God, Stevie, whomever, thank you for Marcell Dareus.

People that don’t understand the concept of how losing could be beneficial (little kids just aren't quite able to understand it yet) argue that it’s not worthwhile to lose on purpose because it might not work out. Yes, it’s possible that Luck could be the next Ryan Leaf. It’s also possible that a pair of aces is outdrawn by 2-3 offsuit; you take your chances with aces against 2-3 offsuit because it has enormous expected value- it is profitable in the long run. There could be a 10% chance that Luck is a complete bust, but the very high probability that he is a franchise quarterback makes it worthwhile to lose to draft him.

As often as teams stick to the status quo of trying to win every game, doing everything you can within the rules to improve your situation could be the better move. Beyond losing for a better draft pick, if you do well enough in the regular season to lose on purpose to influence the playoff field, take advantage of it. It won’t always work out, and people will judge on results even though it was the right move. An 80% chance of winning your quarterfinal is more attractive than a 60% chance, but you look dumb if you lose on purpose and then lose like you’re expected to 20% of the time. Certainly, a 90% chance of Luck being the next Peyton Manning is more attractive than a 100% chance of Chad Henne being terrible. There is no jinx to choosing your destiny: Sweden’s ice hockey team lost on purpose in their last round robin game of the 2006 Olympics to play Switzerland in the next round. Do you know what happened to the team that suddenly got everything they always wanted? They lived happily ever after, with CDs made out of gold.

"Unbreakable" Records

Gretzky's 50 goals in 39 games has been tabbed an "unbreakable"
record by people who don't have access to a dictionary.

With the claim that neutrinos can break the speed of light, all records are fair game. People frequently throw around words they don't understand, like "impossible" and "never," especially when talking about sports. After checking the dictionary, I found that "impossible" isn’t the same as “unlikely to happen within your lifetime.” I’ll break down different types of records and why they are breakable.

Single-Season Records and Career Records

Most of these records appear the safest for the near term (Cy Young’s 511 career wins, Gretzky’s 92 goals in a season, Gretzky’s career points, Jordan's career ppg, Pete Roses’s 4,256 career hits, etc). The 4 major sports leagues have changed considerably since these records were set, and the current state of each league appears to not be conducive to anyone breaking these records. The decrease in the skill level gap between the best players and the worst has decreased as access to sports has increased, making the stars stand out less on the scoresheet than they did previously (or maybe we’re just waiting for the next great star). Would a 25 year old Wayne Gretzky be the best player in the NHL right now? Is Michael Jordan better than Kobe and LeBron? These questions are debatable, but would Gretzky or Jordan put up the same kind of numbers in today’s leagues? No. I'll let the naysayers know that Gretzky in his prime is struggling to stay on pace to put up 50 goals in my heavily simulated NHL12 season.

Even though the records appear unbreakable at the current time, structural changes happen in leagues that could blow-up the record books. The NHL could try to increase scoring through a rule change, or the NFL could make a rule that makes it much harder to defend against the pass. Potential future changes in medicine could bring about structural change as well: what if pitchers could pitch 130 pitches every other game? In addition to structural changes, league-wide trends can alter the context to break records. Dan Marino’s 48 TD passes in a season appeared untouchable for a long time; that’s not the case in the current pass-heavy NFL. Most importantly, the world has a while left in its lifetime, and a lot can happen in that time. Hopefully, we’ve only seen a small part of the major 4’s lifetimes, and their continued existence will allow ample opportunity to break all current records.

Single Game Records and Streaks

These are the most probabilistic, but often thought of as "the most unbreakable." DiMaggio’s 56 game hit streak gets a lot of attention. A .300 hitter has about a 76% chance of getting a hit in any game, assuming 4 at-bats per game. Assuming 4 at-bats per game, and ignoring the quality of the opposing pitcher, the probability of a 76% chance event happening 56 times in a row is roughly one out of 5 million. But that’s just any sequence of 56 games, so any player has (career number of games – 55) sets of 56 games. Even with 30 teams with 8 players (9 in the AL) trying to get a hit every game, this record could last a while, easily through our lifetimes.

The late Derrick Thomas holds the NFL record for 7 sacks in a game. If a top D-lineman has a 1/40 chance of recording a sack on a given pass play, and plays against 30 pass plays per game, the probability of any D-lineman with that probability of recording a sack who plays against that many pass plays per game is a little less than one out of 100,000. A player with a higher chance of recording a sack would be more likely to break the record, especially against a team that loves to throw the ball, but has a terrible offensive line.

The conclusion here is that these records are breakable in the current context of the leagues (although a player who hit .400 would be much more likely to break DiMaggio’s streak), but these records could last a while.

Longest and fastest

Unless the record can’t be broken (like a 100 yard rushing TD in the NFL), it will be broken. The longest distance play records are more a product of limited opportunities than being unlikely to occur-the probability of throwing a 100 yard TD pass could be around 1%, but teams rarely run a play from their goal line. Other records in this category are quickest goal off a face-off in the NHL, where these records could only be broken if measurement was in smaller denomination than seconds.

I think the more interesting “unbreakable” records are in the Track and Field, swimming, and fastest pitch category. These records are very breakable within our lifetime. Is Usain Bolt the fastest human ever? I think you can make argument that he is, based on the size of the current population and advances in nutrition and training. However, someone will break his record. There is no concern over the league structure of track and field and there is no threat from rule changes. With improvements in nutrition, Bolt could probably break his own record. The world population is growing, the percent of the population with access to proper nutrition and sports is increasing (well, I hope this is true), and sport technology continues to improve. Many track and field events, sprinting in particular, also benefit from an enormous pool of contenders because nearly everyone tries it.

The best part about claiming that records could be broken in the future? I can never be proven wrong, unless the world ends.

MLB Play-In Game

Should the Sox and Rays have duked it out for the AL Wild Card?

Sources say that MLB is switching to a 10 team playoff in which the two Wild Card teams in each league will have a play-in game for the final spot. The impact of the change on the important issues is discussed below.

End of Season Races: Slight Positive

It’s hard to see this having a big impact on the end of season races. All that happens is the excitement is shifted from 1^st place in the Wild Card Standing to 2^nd place, while it’s less exciting to win either of these spots because you aren't in the playoffs yet. It’s easy to come up with scenarios where the races become irrelevant with either format (a close race for first place where third place is far behind; a close race for second place where first place is far ahead). The change would get more teams involved, which gives it a slight positive.

Increased Emphasis on Winning the Division: Neutral

Many claim that there will be an increased emphasis on winning the division. Winning the division becomes more attractive, but it already was very attractive (Emma Watson with short hair vs. Emma Stone becomes Emma Watson with long hair vs. Emma Stone).

TV Ratings Improve: Slight Positive

I only see myself watching the play-in game if the Braves are in it. Forget it otherwise. I don’t see much appeal for the casual fan. However, Fox and TBS would get the rights and there is probably some impact to re-branding as a playoff game, which should allow MLB to increase revenue.

Wild Card Teams’ Fate Decided with One Game: Slight Positive

The situation where the 1^st place Wild Card Team is many games ahead of the 2^nd place obviously pushes for a negative, but schedules vary significantly among teams, and more often than not, I think a head-to-head match-up would be the best way to see who deserves the playoff spot.

Wild Card Team at Big Disadvantage and Their Opponent at Big Advantage in Division Series: Huge Negative

Playing an extra game in baseball, especially a very important game, adversely affects the quality of the team in the future. Beyond the wear on everyday players and the bullpen of playing a game in place of an off day, whoever starts isn't going to be able to start again for at least the next three days. Given that one of the top of the rotation guys is going to have to start the play-in game, the postseason pitching staff becomes much thinner. This gives a huge advantage to the team that plays the Wild Card winner in the first round. There are two problems with this: 1) The Wild Card Winner could be the actual second best team in the league (whoever is 2^nd in the AL East), and they are penalized for playing in a tough division. 2) The team that benefits could very well be the division winner with the 2^nd best record (which could be the team with the 3^rd best record in the league). Because two teams from the same division can’t play each other in the division series, the best regular season team wouldn’t even benefit from playing the shorthanded Wild Card team if they’re from the same division. These two factors combined are a huge negative.

Traditionalists don’t like the Wild Card and want to do everything they can to disadvantage them. The nature of the playoffs is that it’s unpredictable and anyone can win, with the best team only being a slight favorite. Giving an advantage to the best team to reward them for their regular season is in line with a season of 162 meaningful games, but punishing the actual 2^nd best team or giving an advantage to the division winner with the 2^nd best record affects the outcome of the division series in a manner inconsistent with an increased emphasis on the regular season. The slight benefits of improved end of season races, better TV ratings, and letting Wild Card teams play head-to-head for a playoff spot is outweighed by the effect the play-in game will have on the division series.