The Sports Spectacle

Baseball is restless as spring training can not approach soon enough. A taxi driver in Las Vegas told me how excited the Sin City was for the Cubs x White Sox exhibition bout in March (some ~40-70 days away!).

In the meantime however, brothers (the McGwire's) are alleging (Jay) to have introduced and injected his bash brother (Mark) with steroids as early as 1994, contrary to Jose (McGwire's bash brother from another mother) Canseco's conflicting claim on McGwire's (Mark) steroid introduction (1998).

Additionally, One of my buddies (Ben), just informed that amidst the McGwire controversy, Dwight Gooden also was accused of steroid use today, by Kurt Radomski, a former 'clubhouse boy for the New York Mets. Further research shows Radomski to claim to have also supplied (directly or indirectly), "maybe two, three hundred" former or current baseball players, including Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, David Justice and Miguel Tejada" (From Newsday, probably yesterday's?). Also rumblings of David Justice being implicated in the Rodomski scandal.

Beyond all this nonsense, which has been slowly brewing like a volcano (which has chosen not to erupt, but to just ooze lava out and scorch the entire landscape (baseball) until no survivors remain) for the past 20 years, the economic disparities amongst teams is continuing to debase the on-field product and the off-season mechanisms. The Yankees possessed the two best starters on the market (C.C. and Burnett) as well as the top offensive player (Texiera). The Mets followed suit, luring K-Rod to Queen's so he can participate in their yearly September meltdown (the Yankees won't make the playoffs at all). Moving down the pyramid, the Red Sox just tendered an offer to Varitek, their 'Teddy Bruschi" (of New England Regional dynastic analogy). Most all other teams have been under-reported on, save for my home-town team (these days), the Cubs, who failed to trade for Jake Peavy over a period of about six weeks.

No talk of the Rays (not even anyone repping Rays' fitted in rap videos?!) or the Phillies (barely, especially since the Eagles are out) or spring training.

2009 promises to fellow in the trend of past baseball seasons: observe quantitatively oriented teams (Red Sox) outperform while underspend against 'old-fashioned' teams (do they exist anymore? Yes, THE YANKEES!) who refuse to adopt Michael Lewis' Moneyball(: http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393324818/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233040935&sr=8-1) or any of the myriad statistical analysis by Bill James disciples sprinkled throughout clubhouses, ESPN, baseball reference.com (http://www.baseball-reference.com/) etc.

All of this is moot though until the tables are leveled. the NFL is genuinely exciting week in and out because the onus to produce a successful team falls top-down through an organization. The Patriots, as an organization (as far as I can tell from a devoted fan of an opposing AFC-EAST team), have a superior value-system, football scheme, personnel department, and coaching staff to other organizations. Hence the rings. Similarly, the San Antonio Spurs are an organization that maximizes talent, employs a successful scheme with core players and a Soviet specialist (seriously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Popovich#From_Indiana_to_the_Air_Force_Academy) coach. Again, hence the rings. The Yankees, conversely over bid other suitors for the oldest/most veteran/over-the-hill/under motivated by the huge contract they are about to sign free agents available (see 2002?-present), at the expense of their farm system, club-house, manager and fan accountability.

I do not know to what degree, but I am confident both the Spurs and less surely the Patriots have superior scouting techniques, and player analysis than do their respective opponents. It is a hunch, but one I (from working a few months in the sports industry? Really, I did!) relatively confident in. Read Moneyball (above), Bill James (http://www.amazon.com/Bill-James-Historical-Baseball-Abstract/dp/0743227220/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233041439&sr=8-1
Dean Oliver (http://www.amazon.com/Basketball-Paper-Rules-Performance-Analysis/dp/1574886886/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233041531&sr=8-1) to get started. while the Yankees no doubt have some metric on which to pitch contracts that are a value based on statistics, they clearly disregard them for whomever Steinbrenner fancies. Steinbrenner should buy a baseball video game. That's how the rest of us live out unrealistic, probably bad-idea all around, sports fantasies (Thank you EA!)

Or just watch sports, and the numbers associated with them. It is the second most serious, accessible, interesting,heavily covered and public chaotic system in existence (second to the stock market). Think of sports as stocks for jocks. The players are companies, teams in some sense are investors (fans are too, as are fantasy competitors on some level as well), and ESPN is fucking Bloomberg.