Onion Update

I try not to post about it too often, but sometimes I can't help linking to Onion News Stories. Here is breaking news from them:

LATEST: Court Rules Angels Must Change Name To 'Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim, San Bernardino, Bakersfield, And The Greater Los Angeles Basin (Not Excluding Baja California)'

But even better than that is an article about Isiah Thomas - the headline reads: Report: President Isiah Thomas Has No Exit Strategy For Knicks. Here is a piece of the article:

Some critics are even calling for Thomas to pull all of his people out of harm's way in the NBA and into a league where they can be safe.

"Two years and millions of dollars down the drain, God knows how many lives wasted, and for what?" said a Knicks executive who asked not to be named. "Some of the best strategic and organizational minds in the business are telling him to get out of there, and yet he insists on staying the course. I can't imagine this sort of irresponsible—no, suicidal—leadership being tolerated anywhere else."

I love The Onion. Even their sports news is political commentary.

More from Freakonomics

I came across an old article from one of the authors of Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner, that is worth checking out. The article describes the NFL's rookie symposium in pretty good detail. Although the story is from 2002, I am sure little has changed since then. Anyway, read the whole thing - it is pretty entertaining and also really interesting to read about the things they teach that the rest of us might consider common sense.


* I noticed something interesting at the beginning of the article that is unrelated to the overall theme. Dubner, while talking about recent scandals in sports (remember, the article was written in August of 2002), mentions the steroids scandal in baseball. I always found it interesting that everyone acted shocked and appalled when all the steroids stories broke in the winter of 2005 - as if we had no idea this was going on. It is little things like this that should remind all of the fans that we were turning a blind eye just like MLB was.

Nature v. Nurture

In case you guys don't know, I am a huge fan of the authors of the Freakonomics book and New York Times Magazine column. They have a knack for looking at interesting data and understanding what it is telling us. In their most recent column, they look at a statistic that says a disproportionate number of elite soccer players were born in the first three months of the year, January, February, and March.

Although there could be any number of explanations for this, Dubner and Levitt say that it is due to the cutoff date for youth soccer leagues, which follows the calendar year. Age groups are determined by birth year, and kids born in the early part of the year will be a little bit more mature and physically developed than those born at the end of the year. The result is that coaches will more likely pick the players with early birthdays, mistaking maturity for talent and skill. In the end, these players will be given more chances to practice, compete and improve compared to players with later birthdays.

The theory they are supporting is nuture over nature. The authors cite studies that have shown that elite talents in any area develop with practice and hard work instead of some innate ability they are born with. They do admit in the column that there is some genetics as well - but their point is well made. The opportunities that people get to practice their skills will have a major impact on their skill level.

So what are the authors getting at? Well, for one, hard work is the only way to greatness and even if you don't show skill right away, skill can be developed. This sounds like a motivational poster for a fifth grade classroom, but it is relevant here because there is research to back up the claim. As adults, we should encourage kids to work hard and see how their talents develop, and not be too quick to jump on the bandwagon of a young superstar - mistaking talent for early maturity.

Magic Luggie

Keith Hernandez is an idiot. That is all I have to say.

Sports-Communist

I am realizing more and more that I am a left-wing sports ideologue. I think that capitalism in American sports has run awry and is exploiting the labor of the fans (the players make out pretty well). Major league teams enjoy monopolies and use that to screw over everyone they can.

The best example of this has been the situation involving the Montreal Expos / Washington Nationals. From the beginning, this situation did nothing but help current owners at the expense of everyone else. First, Major League Baseball buys the Expos franchise, and has them play half their home games in Montreal, and half in Puerto Rico. During this time, they used their leverage to force any city that wants to be home to the franchise will have to pay most of the costs of the Stadium. I had argued that it was good for DC to offer to pay for it, but in looking back, I was definitely wrong. A city with as much financial trouble should not be building a stadium when most teams are willing to pay for most of it. In New York, The Yankees will be paying for 80% of the cost of their new stadium.

Major League Baseball did this for one reason - to increase the price of the team when they went to resell it. A team they purchased for over $100 million they will sell for well over $400 million. Without a stadium deal, the team would probably sell for much less. So in the eyes of MLB, they make a bigger profit, and the city of DC pays the bill (through taxes raised from business around the new stadium).

The next step was to pay off Peter Angelos, who was worried that me might actually have to make his team competitive with a rival close by. Since that violated the monopoly most of these teams have (unless your team is in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles), MLB gave Angelos a huge deal allowing him to take 90% now (66% in the future) of the TV revenue from the Nationals and Orioles. Again, Nationals owners and fans lose out - without all the TV revenue they would normally get, the Nats will be at a significant disadvantage in the powerhouse National League East.

The reason all of this happened is that a few robber-barons were able to use their influence to make as much money as possible after throwing fairness and equity aside. The Wop's explanation of European soccer leagues is more appealing every day.

*If you want the other side of the argument, there are two highly flattering pieces on Angelos in the Washington Examiner - one an interview in which he says the Nationals are getting "fair market value" for the TV revenues, and the other a very supportive column by Rick Snider.

Bowden - DUI

Washington Nationals GM Jim Bowden was charged with DUI on Sunday. Maybe he was drunk for most of the off season also. That would be the only explanation for why the only action the team saw was the trade for Alfonso Soriano.

Gotta Love It

The Onion is probably the greatest publication ever. They always have unique interpretations of the latest news, like this story on the Chicago Cubs hot start this year.