Instead of trying to host the World Cup, how about trying to win it?

December 2, 2010 Leave a comment

FIFA announced today that Russia will host the 2018 World Cup and Qatar will host the tournament four years later,  meaning that England will not get a chance to host until at least 2026, that is, 60 years since it last hosted the competition. Obviously, that sucks for England. It’s a great soccer country, and it deserves a World Cup. But in 2026, it’ll also have been 60 years since England last won the World Cup. For a country with the wealth, population, and enthusiasm for soccer that England has, that’s flat-out ridiculous.

From The Economist:

The reason for England’s under-achievement is that it lacks the grassroots infrastructure to develop skillful young players. According to statistics unearthed by the Guardianbefore England’s abysmal showing at last summer’s World Cup, the country has 2,679 coaches who hold either the ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘Pro’ coaching licenses recognized by Europe’s governing body, UEFA. How many does Spain have? 23,995. Italy? 29,420. Germany? 34,970. And whereas the best English coaches are busy training professional footballers and late-teenagers about to reach that level, European coaching talent is deployed where it really makes a difference—on children between the ages of 5 and 14, after which age a player’s basic technical ability is hard to improve. This Jesuit-like focus on very young players can sometimes be unsettling (a New York Times feature earlier this year on the Ajax academy in Holland described how coaches would refer to their charges by their year of birth, so that a six year old is “a 2004”) but it works.

Categories: Uncategorized

Steven Levitt on Motivating Students, Athletes, and Wall Street

November 23, 2010 Leave a comment

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/news/2010-11-01-freakonomics.aspx

Karl Buschmann, ’85, asked Levitt how his theories apply to the issue of doping in professional cycling. Levitt said his research clearly proves that bright, ambitious people, no matter what their field, will always find ways of cheating. “I say forget about it—just let people dope. Athletes take all sorts of risks: equestrians can break their necks, football players damage their knees. Why not let people kill themselves in the pursuit of winning? It’s kind of what we look for in sportsmen.”

[…]

“If you recognize people and make them feel special, ultimately that’s what people care about. I spent some time at Google, and there they’ve tricked employees into thinking there’s nothing more important that Google, that Google is special. Applying this to schools, if you can trick people into believing that getting straight A’s is the most important thing in the world, the students would do that.”

 

Categories: Economics, Sports

2010 San Francisco Giants: World Champions

November 2, 2010 Leave a comment

For some reason, the following quote is echoing in my head right now (in the midst of all the Brian Wilson interviews, Dave Fleming’s call on the Renteria HR, Jon Miller’s call on the last out, Duane Kuiper’s call on the last out, etc).

“Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” – Lou Gehrig, July 4, 1939

I don’t know how lucky I am, but I’m fucking ecstatic right now. It hasn’t even settled in; I don’t think it will for a while. Some say this ranks immediately after their marriage and the birth of their children in terms of happiest moments ever. Well, I ain’t been married and I don’t got no kids. Even if the Giants repeat sometime in the next few years, nothing — NOTHING will be like this. Ever.

Buster Posey and Brian Wilson on the cover of the next SI

The links below will tell you how it all went down:

San Francisco Chronicle:

San Jose Mercury News:

ESPN:

MLB.com

Yahoo

AP/Reuters

Categories: Giants Baseball

One win away from glory

November 1, 2010 Leave a comment

What a performance by Madison Bumgarner.

I don’t want to go into a hardcore analysis of what happened; I just want to sit back and relish this gem.

Before the game, I learned that Bumgarner’s the youngest pitcher to start a World Series game since Fernando Valenzeula in 1981 — fifth youngest ever, if I’m not mistaken. And Posey-Bumgarner made up the first rookie battery battery to start a World Series game since Spec Shea and Yogi Berra in Game 1 of the 1947 Series. Not too shabby company.

Boy, did they live up to it. Bumgarner threw 8 shutout innings, giving up just 3 hits, and striking out 6. He limited himself to 106 pitches, recognizing the importance of efficiency. Bumgarner faced 28 batters (Nelson Cruz twice for one AB, after Hamilton was caught stealing), and threw 22 first-pitch strikes. Twelve of the times, he went up 0-2. He had four 1-2-3 innings. He became the fourth-youngest starter to win a World Series game

Posey… all he did was call the spectacular performance and hit a home run to straightaway center field. He also threw out Josh Hamilton. He’s 2/3 throwing out runners in the past two days. When he was told that he and Madison made up the first rookie battery in decades, Posey responded, “That was pretty neat. I’m a student of history & I love that stuff. It meant a lot.”

— Offensive Star of the Game: Aubrey Huff. In the third inning, he saw a first-pitch curve ball and jumped on it for his first career home run of the postseason. The Giants took a 2-0 lead and never looked back. While Huff just hit his first homer, he’s driven in a run in 6 of the past 8 games. He is batting .357 in the World Series.

— Defensive Star of the Game: Freddy Sanchez. Sanchez came to play ball today. In his at-bat in the first, he failed to move Torres over to third after he stole second — despite battling through an 8-pitch at-bat. De ja vu in the third inning, when he failed to move Torres over again after a leadoff double; again, he still made Hunter throw 9 pitches. He made up for those failures with his spectacular glove, though. That leaping catch on the liner hit by Francoeur may have been the best catch I’ve seen a Giants’ infielder make since the departure of Omar Vizquel. The next inning he almost turned the most incredible double play ever; still, he somehow corralled a ball that ricocheted off Bumgarner and tagged Young out on his way to second. He also started two solid double plays.

— Torres and Sanchez saw a combined 31 pitches in their first two at-bats; 15 of those resulted in foul balls. The Giants hit 22 foul balls in the first three innings. Not coincidentally, Tommy Hunter had passed the 70-pitch mark before he recorded 9 outs. In those 70+ pitches, he hadn’t generated a single swing and a miss. Don’t think he ever did…

— Buster Posey. The kid’s playing in his first big league season. And he’s started 14 playoff games in a row, after playing the last 20 games in the regular season. He had a day off before that streak, before which he played another 10 in a row. Catching 34 games in a row is NOT an easy task. And he’s not showing any signs of wear; instead, he knocked a home run out to the deepest part of the park tonight. Must give mad props to the Giants’ strength conditioning coaches for keeping this club as strong as it’s been.

— I’ve never seen Vladimir Guerrero swing the bat so badly in my life. Apparently, he doesn’t very often. He’d only struck out three times in a game against a LH pitcher once before: June, 16 1998 vs. Al Leiter.

— We’ve heard this a million times, but I can’t get over it. Bumgarner’s the oldest 21 year old in the world. He really is “fearless.” From that NLDS start against the Braves (his favorite team as a kid) to throwing 8 shutout innings against one of the best offenses in the majors, this kid is just never impressed by the opposition. For a while, he even intimated that the World Series start doesn’t put much more pressure on him than the North Carolina state baseball championship did. (He later backtracked a bit…)

— The Rangers put a lot of balls in play against Bumgarner. I like that Bochy played his best defense out there — it paid off.  Great decision again.

— Renteria and Sanchez have both been restricted by injuries in their respective tenures as Giants. Both have have risen to the occasion this series. I’ve mentioned Sanchez’s contributions. He and Renteria have been a great double play duo; as Baggs tweeted, “The Giants are flashing more leather tonight than ‘The Machine.'” Renteria collected three more hits today; he’s batting a quiet .429.

— Huff apparently went to Bochy himself and offered to DH the game. He has great experience at being a DH (so much so that people thought he can’t play any defense). Awesome taking charge like that and then… hitting the game-winning home run as the DH.

— The Giants have scored 26 runs in this series. The Rangers have 26 hits.

— Madison Bumgarner is the youngest rookie to make a scoreless start of six innings or more in World Series history.

— Texas was only shut out five times this season — only one other time at home: August 28, when Dallas Braden of the A’s did it to em.

— The Giants have shut out the Rangers twice in the World Series. The Rangers are the first team since the 1966 Dodgers to be shut out twice in the World Series. It’s all about the arms race. And the Giants are kicking ass.

— George W. Bush threw a nice strike for the first pitch. Reminded me of Game 1 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium, where he threw the first pitch for a strike, too. Pretty cool that he drove HW around the park in the golf cart.

So much for just “relishing the victory.”

I’m excited, but… as Matt Cain said, “27 outs is a lot of baseball left.”

Coverage:

AP:

San Jose Mercury News

San Francisco Chronicle:

Yahoo Sports:

ESPN:

Categories: Giants Baseball

Colby Lewis puts the Rangers back in the series

October 30, 2010 Leave a comment

Giants lost. Sanchez was good Sanchez sometimes and bad Sanchez sometimes. He was bad Sanchez on one very important pitch.

I won’t dwell on the loss much. These guys will tell you more about it:

ESPN:

San Francisco Chronicle:

San Jose Mercury News:

Yahoo Sports:

Categories: Giants Baseball

Texas Cain-Saw Massacre

October 28, 2010 Leave a comment

(It was between that and “Walk ’em Texas Ranger.” Cain was more significant, though.)

The Giants are up 2-0, and San Francisco is euphoric. After that eighth inning, the Giants may not have just beaten the Rangers, but they might have demoralized them.

Big game Matt Cain was fantastic. 7.2 shutout innings. He has pitched 21.1 innings this postseason, and he hasn’t given up a single earned run. How long will he go unnoticed? Probably not much longer. Outside Northern California, Matt Cain has been known as “the other guy,” Tim Lincecum’s partner in crime. The kid has a better career ERA than Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia, and Chris Carpenter. He has the eighth lowest-ERA of any active starter who’s thrown more than 1,000 innings. A reporter asked Buster Posey what Matt Cain is, if Tim Lincecum is “The Franchise;” I didn’t hear Posey’s answer but Hank Schulman said he’s “The Bulldog.” Bulldog, indeed.

Everyone will remember the eighth inning, but the fifth inning really set the tone. I’m not too big on omens and stuff, but as Brian Wilson put it, “That wall was designed perfectly for tonight.” In Arlington, Kinsler’s double is a home run.  Cain quickly got Murphy to line out to shortstop and got Treanor to ground out; after intentionally walking Moreland, he got Wilson to ground out. Consider how different this game this might have been had Texas grabbed momentum. Instead, Renteria got a hold of an inside fastball in the bottom of the inning and drove it for a home run to break the scoreless tie.

— Bruce Bochy has always been known as a great bullpen manager. Now, he has a phenomenal bullpen with 5 very reliable arms and one pretty reliable arm. That’s a lethal combination and the whole country’s seeing it.

— Ron Washington doesn’t have much a bullpen outside of Neftali Perez, but still, he did not manage with the sense of urgency required in the World Series. There’s no excuse for leaving Derek Holland out there to throw 12 balls in 13 pitches . Nobody was even in the bullpen after Holland threw four straight balls. None of Holland’s pitches was even close…

— Bruce Bochy has made all the right pitching moves. He’s picked the perfect line-up for every  game. He’s pinch-hit the right guys at the right time. We’ve heard a lot of Bochy bashing since 2007, but I think he’s now become one of the greatest managers in franchise history.

— Every pitch, every moment, every hit is so big in the World Series. Torres and Sanchez quickly struck out in the eighth and Posey came up. Posey was 0-3, but he flipped a ball to shallow center field to keep the inning going. Then came Derek Holland and you know the rest…

— You’ve been hearing this a lot, but the Giants have gotten something big from almost everyone on the roster. They’ve pretty much filled out the Bingo card. Rowand’s had a couple big moments — the throw from CF against the Phillies, tonight’s triple. Whiteside hasn’t done anything but the Giants have really used 23-24 guys, something very rare in championship teams.

— Everyone in the lineup has been flat-out grinding out at-bats against the Rangers. Those balls in the eighth inning were not tough to take, but earlier in the game, even when they were making outs, the Giants took a lot of pitches. Very different from the quick ABs we were complaining about early in the season.

— SF is 13-26 with RISP in the World Series, 7-13 with RISP & two-outs

— Hitters are 0-17 with RISP against Cain in the playoffs.

— Steve Perry singing “Lights” (Journey) in the middle of the eighth inning was probably one of the coolest things ever.

— I’m so happy for Edgar Renteria. This guy’s body has abandoned him all season. But despite a completely torn biceps tendon in his left arm, he’s playing like he’s 25 again. Last night, he started the game-tying rally by legging his way to first when Michael  Young mishandled his ground ball. And today, all he did was hit what was the game-winning home run.

— Lost after the eighth inning known as “Walk ’em, Texas Ranger,” is Javier Lopez getting the job done again. He came on in a two-run game to face Josh Hamilton. In two pitches, he got Hamilton to fly out to Schierholtz. (Remember, many were speculating that the Giants shouldn’t even pitch to Hamilton after his monstrous ALCS. Hamilton is 1-8 in the World Series thus far.) Lopez has appeared in 9 games this postseason. Of the 17 batters he’s faced, only two have gotten on base — 1 hit, 1 BB.

— Being the underdog is pretty awesome. When you’re the favorite, there’s nothing to prove; it’s all expected. When you’re the underdog, you can prove that your starters really are that much better than the other team’s starters, your bullpen’s way better than the other team’s bullpen, and that your hitters know how to party.

— Apparently, Jose Guillen was left off the Giants’ playoff roster at the direction of MLB, following the news of an investigation that his wife received shipments of HGH. What a blessing, right? I predicted that Bochy would go with Guillen even though he shoud go with Ross. The Giants said Guillen’s absence was related to a neck injury. While you have to take them on their word, but if it wasn’t for this whole PED thing, maybe there would be no “Ross is Boss.” We probably wouldn’t have beaten the Phillies. Heck, we might not have beaten the Braves. I’m not an omen guy, but…

— We’ve been saying this for two seasons. (People forget that the Giants were actually in the thick of the Wild Card race until the end of 2009.) If the Giants get in, they could be dangerous — this pitching staff could take them anywhere. Case in point, today: Good pitching beats good hitting, and bad pitching… makes okay hitters look great.

The Rangers are not done. They might be a bit unnerved after the catastrophe that occurred late in the game, but with the exception of a couple big innings in which their wheels fell off, the Rangers have been right there. If they’ve been dispirited at all, their spirits will rejuvenate entirely when they’re back at home in Arlington. Again, I like the Giants’ chances. They need to win 2 of the next 5. But if you learn anything in baseball, it’s that “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Links:

Local:

Yahoo Sports:

ESPN:

 

Categories: Giants Baseball

Giants romp Lee, up 1-0

October 27, 2010 Leave a comment

Tonight was one of the great nights in the history of AT&T Park. Absolutely glorious.

From Freddy Sanchez’s four hits, to Uribe’s gigantic shot, to Lincecum vs. Lee, to Tony Bennett suddenly popping out of the Giants dugout to sing an acapella version of “I Left My Heart In San Francisco,” to Monte Irvin throwing the first pitch alongside Orlando Cepeda, Gaylord Perry, Juan Marichal and Willie McCovery… it was just a magnificent night along the San Francisco bay.

Oh yeah, the Giants also took Game 1 of the 2010 World Series, and they did it without very much torture at all.

They were coming off of a series in which they beat Halladay, Oswalt, and Hamels. And tonight, they lit up Cliff Lee. Apparently Cy Youngs don’t faze the Giants. Neither does a career postseason ERA of 1.29, the third lowest in postseason history, behind only Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson and Sandy Koufax. He’d given up more than one earned run once, in Game 5 of last year’s World Series against the New York Yankees, in which he surrendered 5 ER in 7 IP.

After allowing just 9 ER in 64.1 previous postseason innings, he yielded 6 earned in 4.2 innings against the Giants. The Giants made Lee throw 75 pitches in 4 innings. As the fifth inning progressed, he crossed the 90-pitch mark and the 100-pitch mark. As a matter of fact, he’d only recorded two more outs, thanks to what became an epic six-run fifth inning for the Giants. Torres doubled. Sanchez doubled him in. After Lee seemed to settle down by striking out Posey, Burrell worked a tough walk (Lee’s second walk of the postseason). Ross and Huff both followed with clutch two-out base hits, knocking Lee out of the game. Up came Uribe, who hit a majestic three-run cherry-on-top to left field. For those of you who aren’t counting at home, that’s five two-out runs. Clutch.

The fifth inning was tremendous, but it was really only possible thanks to a couple of things: the third inning rally and Lincecum settling down. In the first two innings, the Giants compiled a couple doubles but did absolutely nothing with them. Meanwhile, Texas rallied for a couple runs. America thought Lee was set for his 8th consecutive postseason win. After all, why not? He’d go 8 innings like he always does, give up less than 0 or 1 ER cause he always does, and hand the ball to Neftali Perez.

In the third inning, Renteria got on thanks to an error by Gold Glove-winner Michael Young. Then after Lincecum failed to bunt Renteria over to second, Cliff Lee worsened things for himself by hitting Andres Torres. Freddy Sanchez continued his magical night with the second of his three doubles, scoring Renteria. Next was Buster Posey, in a match-up of master vs. rookie. The confident 23-year old singled in Torres and we had a ballgame. Sanchez was stranded at third, but the Giants — who seemed so tight for the first couple innings — had joined the party. This was longer just another piece in the Cliff Lee’s postseason legacy; it was Game 1 of the 2010 World Series.

Tonight’s game reminded me a lot of Lincecum’s Game 5 start against the Phillies. In that start, he gave up three runs in a rocky third inning, but settled in and threw four scoreless innings in which he only allowed two more Phillies to reach base. The Giants lost that game, but Lincecum did well to keep the damage at a minimum and keep his team in the game. Similarly, he gave up two early runs in the first two innings. It could have been much worse, but he battled out of it. After Cliff Lee’s double in the second, Lincecum retired 13 of 14 batters. That sends such a huge message to the rest of the guys — the longer you keep the team in the game, the longer everyone believes they can win.

— Freddy Sanchez became another new hero tonight, as he sparked all three of the Giants’ rallies . Remember, Sanchez won a batting title. Andrew Baggarly said Sanchez couldn’t shine in the spotlight of October, though and after Sanchez started the playoffs going 2-for-21, Baggs seemed like he was right. Since then, though, he’s riding a six-game hitting streak in which he’s hitting .520 (13 for 25). In those six games, he’s faced Oswalt, Hamels, Halladay, Oswalt again, and today, Lee. By the way, today he became the first player ever to hit a double in each of his first three World Series at bats. Stay hot, Freddy Sanchez.

— Juan Uribe’s batting .156 in the postseason. He’s 5-for-32. Sabermetricians hate him because he sports a OBP around .300. But what he does is win games. He hit the game-winning sac fly of Game 4. He hit the game-winning home run of the series-clinching Game 6. And tonight, he hit the decisive shot that split the game open… When Sanchez returned from the DL in May, people were wondering what would happen to Uribe. Bochy managed to put him in at SS and 3B enough to get him 521 ABs. How big has he been?

— Buster Posey struck out twice. But he also came up with a HUGE one-out knock against a guy you’re not supposed to be able to hit. Burrell and Ross would strike out right after, so who knows what would have happened had Posey not driven in the tying run.

— Aubrey Huff quietly had three hits tonight. That’s a guy the Giants wouldn’t mind to get going, the HR/RBI leader of the ballclub. Two of those hits were against Lee. I say this over and over again; Huff hits lefties better than any Giant since Barry Bonds.

— Edgar Renteria made so many great snags there in the 6 hole tonight. I like this line-up. Renteria scored a couple runs, too. But he and Uribe played some great defense in the infield throughout this game. You gotta think/hope Bochy goes with this infield as much as possible…

— Pat Burrell didn’t get a hit today. He struck out with one out and a runner on third. But the next inning, he walked against the hardest guy to walk against in the world. That allowed the fifth inning to continue for five more runs. These things go unnoticed.

— Texas made four errors, but give credit to the Giants for capitalizing on them. The error in the fifth inning was the start of disaster for the Rangers, and after Renteria went to third on Vlad’s misplay in the 8th, Ishikawa doubled him in.

The Texas Rangers are very well capable of jumping right back on the Giants tomorrow. Every ESPN expert who picked the Rangers has not already been proven wrong. Maybe tomorrow will be a different day. It’s just Game 1.

But you gotta believe that this is a pretty big Game 1 victory — the Giants just defeated the greatest ace of all aces. This is World Series baseball; you gotta live in the moment. So for now, Giants baseball is psychedelic bliss.

Links:

ESPN:

Yahoo Sports:

 

Categories: Giants Baseball

Hank Schulman on TV ratings

October 27, 2010 Leave a comment

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/giants/detail?entry_id=75590#ixzz13cXS8DA7

The other night, flying home from Philadelphia, my friend Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports was on my flight. During a fuel stop, he walked over to my seat and joked about how I’m always harping on the networks for showing too much Yankees and Red Sox, and he good-naturedly said the complainers better watch now that they have a Giants-Rangers series.

Kenny voiced that opinion on a column today on foxsports.com. He said there are many compelling reasons to watch this Series.

Truth is, the ratings for this Series will be bad. Much of the country will not watch, but it’s not America’s fault. It’s the networks’ fault for creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

They spend all summer ignoring the 25 teams that are not in New York, Boston and Los Angeles, so fans around the country never learn about them. Fans in the Northeast or Midwest or Southern California have have no investment in watching teams they never see. They don’t know the players or the storylines. So why would they watch?

Compounding that is the absolute East Coast point of view that flooded the earlier rounds of the playoffs. If you looked on ESPN.com or even listened to the Fox broadcast, the Giants were not up 3-1 after four games of the NLCS. The Phillies were down 3-1. The same was true in the Yankees-Rangers ALCS.

If Fox gets hammered by low ratings in this Series, which will cost them big advertising bucks, it has nobody to blame but itself and its broadcast buddies at TBS and ESPN.

Categories: Giants Baseball

Kindle Allows Readers to Lend Their Books

October 26, 2010 Leave a comment

(From the Atlantic)

One of the complaints I hear a lot from people who are resistant to the Kindle is that they can’t borrow or lend the books they buy.  It looks like that’s about to change:  Amazon is now enabling lending, albeit with some restrictions:

The capability, which will be introduced later this year, will let buyers of Kindle e-books lend their Amazon e-book purchases just once, for a period of 14 days. (And just like an old-fashioned book, the lender cannot read their own book while it is virtually in the hands of a friend.) Sharing will work for both Kindle device owners and users of Kindle apps on other gadgets, like the iPad and iPhone. There’s a catch. Not all of the company’s 720,000 e-books will be lendable. “This is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending,” said Amazon in its announcement.

I doubt that this is the final form that lending will take; new features like this are usually amended through a series of expansions and contractions before they settle into a stable set of rules.
It’s interesting to think through what this means.  On the one hand, this will cut into sales a little bit–now two readers can enjoy each ebook, rather than one.  On the other hand, the ability to lend vastly increases the network effects of e-readers–and Amazon, with the biggest selling model, is likely to benefit from this the most.  Moreover, by breaking down one of the major objections to buying, this may encourage a wider audience to finally invest.
I’d expect to see some changes to support this:  library licenses with special borrowing privileges, perhaps, while publishers withhold borrowing rights on hot new releases.
The thing I’d like most–though I admit this is highly unlikely–is the ability to give away one’s Kindle books permanently, with one’s notes in the
margins.  One could envision centuries old ebooks with talmudic collections of notes–with the price of the book rising according to the quality of previous owners.  I don’t say this is very likely, mind you.  But it would be very neat.

 

 

Categories: Business

2012: Econopocalyse

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

Where will the next crisis come from? Economist Greg Ip does not know. But he does know when it will come: 2012.

For now, there’s enough risk of Japanese-style stagnation and deflation that U.S. interest rates could remain very low for a while yet. But if that risk fades, investors in U.S. Treasury bonds will want to know how we’ll get our deficits and debt under control — and could demand higher interest rates to compensate for the uncertainty. By then, though, the 2012 campaign may be upon us. The Republican nominee will assail Obama’s fiscal record and promise a determined assault on the debt. Obama will respond by blaming George W. Bush and promising to unveil his own plan once he’s reelected. Neither will commit political suicide by specifying which taxes they’ll raise or which entitlements they’ll cut.

Will investors trust them, or will they start to worry that the endgame is either inflation or default, two tried-and-true ways other countries have escaped their debts? If it’s the latter, we’ll face a vicious circle of rising interest rates and budget deficits, squeezing the economy and potentially forcing abrupt and painful austerity measures

Read the full story at Washington Post.

Categories: Economics