Losing the Super Bowl is charitable

Here's one of the defining images of American sports. Seconds after any major game---the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the World Series, and heck even the conference finals of all these sports---all the players on the victorious team are seen wearing T-shirts and caps that proclaim them as champions. And, the first commercial break after the game features ads that all fans of the victorious team can purchase the gear that they just saw their idols wearing.

The fact that all this happens as soon as the game ends either implies that all such games are fixed, or that championship T-shirts and games are stitched up beforehand for both teams. So as to not lose my faith in sport, I discard the former option. Which begs the question: what happens to the gear produced for the losers?

I just discovered the answer: charity! Better than relegating all those T-shirts to the trash I guess ...

Food for thought

After watching Laxman's wonderful innings today, I have been wondering: Do his strokes evoke a sense of beauty in us because they are indeed so, or because our minds have been trained to interpret which strokes are beautiful and which are not by listening to commentators over the years, and feeding to our minds positive and negative instances of beauty as suggested by the commentators?

Hmm ...

TV Viewership Ratings escape me ...

Turns out the Patriots versus Ravens game on Monday night was the most-viewed cable TV program in history. How they come up with the numbers presented in that article goes beyond my comprehension.

One way out is sampling---ask a bunch of people that you think constitute a representative random subset, and extrapolate their replies to the complete US population. In which case, all these numbers are complete bullshit, because in practice any subset of people you pick will be biased in some way.

Another way to make an estimate is to have the cable companies track the number of TV sets that are tuned in. But, this scheme brings with it its own set of errors. For example, I saw the game while I was at the gym, where there must have at least another 50 people who were watching the game. So, there isn't a one-is-to-one viewers to TV sets ratio.

So, on the whole, I have no clue how they come up with these numbers!

Innovative captaincy in cricket at its best

This excerpt from the latest Ask Stevens column on Cricinfo just caught my eye.

I heard that Mike Brearley, frustrated by Middlesex's inability to break a stubborn partnership, put the spare fielding helmet in front of the wicket to try to tempt the batsmen to hit it and score five easy runs. Is this true or is it an urban myth? asked Mike Shearing from China

No, it's not an urban myth, it did happen, and I was there! (I was working at Lord's at the time.) Mike Brearley mentions it in his excellent book The Art of Captaincy, saying it was in a match against Yorkshire, "who were batting without much sense of adventure". I remember him calling to the bowler, Phil Edmonds, "Let's try The Ploy": they placed a spare fielding helmet on the ground at short midwicket, to try to tempt the batsmen to play across the line to Edmonds's left-arm spin in order to collect the five penalty runs they would have received if the ball hit the helmet. Brearley doesn't mention the year, but I think it must have been this match in 1980. If that is the one, the ploy doesn't seem to have worked, although Edmonds did take three wickets, and shortly afterwards the regulations were amended so you could only park the spare helmet behind the wicketkeeper.

The legend of Mike Brearley's cricketing acumen continues to grow ...

Stat of the day

Excerpt from this article:

If you're looking for an illustration of the phenomenal growth in prize money in this Tiger Era, look no further that the milestone Anthony Kim will eclipse this weekend in Chicago.

Kim, a rookie-of-the-year contender (though Brandt Snedeker is the choice here), made his PGA Tour debut less than a year ago, in September 2006. He has played in 26 official events and has earned $1,852,860, a total sure to rise Sunday because there is no cut in this week's tournament.

That means Kim, 22, will pass Arnold Palmer ($1,861,857) in career earnings.

I don't think inflation can account for such an amazing rise in payscales.

Test your golf wisdom

Just chanced upon this awesome quiz on golf rules. I routinely keep track of golf in the news, and know the basic terminology enough to follow golf on the telly on weekends. However, this quiz exposed my true depth of golf wisdom. I do not know the answer to a single question! Looks like the solutions will be published only next month. I eagerly await them to wash away at least some of my shame at my level of ignorance ...

Freakosports

The Freakonomics blog has been featuring quite a few sports stories of late. First, Steven Levitt covered the current scandal rocking the NBA of a referee having placed bets on the games in which he was officiating. Then, with the Tour de France going to the dogs with title contender Alexander Vinokourov (well, he was a contender when the race began; not by the stage when he was dumped) and yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen getting kicked out for doping, Stephen Dubner suggested that maybe we should just legalize doping in the Tour. Finally, today, the blog features a rebuttal by sports writer Joe Lindsey on why legalizing doping in sports won't work. All make for interesting reading.