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Friday, December 31, 2004
New and Recommended
Okay, I haven't read Hugh Hewitt's new book, Blog, but I did read his last opus, If It's Not Close They Can't Cheat, which was eminently readable and chockful of useful insights into the political process. Like all the bloggers I am going to pick it up and first give it the old Washington read (look in the index to see if Kerry Haters was mentioned).
Hugh's been a great advocate for blogging, with regular blogger guests on his radio show, with his encouragement of small blogs on his own blog, and now with this book. If you haven't listened to his radio show, you are missing the most intelligent, insightful commentator on politics today. In the dark hours of election day afternoon, when Fox News' analysts were gloomily predicting a Kerry victory, it was Hugh who simply (and correctly) insisted that the exit polls were wrong.
American Prospect: Democrats Need to Be More Liberal
Let's hope the Democrats listen to this message.
What I found amusing were these two passages:
This message contrasts with that of the DLC centrists, who promote, for instance, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh's free-trade, Republican-lite positions as a model for winning in red states. What they don’t say is that Bayh comes from one of Indiana’s most beloved political families and wins largely by virtue of his last name, not his ideology.
But:
Other Democrats are catching on. In South Dakota, Representative Stephanie Herseth used her family-farm roots to woo Republican voters. As most of Herseth's House Democratic colleagues buckled to corporate pressure and helped pass a free-trade deal with Australia in 2004, the first-term congresswoman attacked her GOP opponent for supporting the pact, arguing that its provisions would undercut American ranchers. She won re-election in the same state where Republicans defeated Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
Got it? Bayh wins because of his family name, while Herseth wins because of her populism. However, Herseth also comes from a famous political family in her home state as this clip from her official biography notes:
Former Governor Ralph Herseth was Stephanie's grandfather and Lorna B. Herseth, South Dakota's Secretary of State, was her grandmother. Her father, Lars, served in the state legislature for 20 years and was the Democratic nominee for Governor in 1986.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Correcting Michael Barone
Is never an easy task, but one small part of this column is just plain wrong.
Take black Americans, the most heavily Democratic constituency -- 88 percent to 11 percent for John Kerry in the 2004 NEP exit poll. Blacks have been voting for Democratic presidential candidates by similar margins since 1964, when Republican Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act.
In fact, Blacks have been voting for Democratic presidential candidates by those margins since the days of FDR; there is a long passage in The Making of the President: 1960 that remarks on Black voting patterns and notes that they had traditionally been Republicans right up until the Depression, and that it was the advent of welfare that caused them to switch allegiance.
Here's a snippet from the book:
Time was, forty years ago [i.e. 1920] when Negroes voted solidly Republican out of gratitude for Abraham Lincoln and emancipation. ("I remember," once said Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "when I was young in Kansas City, the kids threw rocks at Negroes on our street who dared to vote Democratic."). But Franklin D. Roosevelt changed that. Under Roosevelt, government came to mean social security, relief, strong unions, unemployment compensation. ("Let Jesus lead me and welfare feed me" was a Negro depression chant.) And, like a heaving-off of ancient habit, as the Negro moved north he moved onto the Democratic voting rolls.
Going By the Numbers
Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy thinks that the casualty numbers in Iraq are comparable to those in Vietnam.
While the casualty rate in Vietnam is considerably higher than the rate in Iraq, Jim's comparison led me to realize that the differences are smaller than I would have thought.
Jim Lindgren's original post (also at the Volokh Conspiracy) is here.
I disagree with both posts, but let's tackle Jim's first. Jim says:
Any substantial number of US lives lost in Vietnam was (I believe) unwarranted because the war was a failure and its goals questionable.
Now the interesting thing here is to note the objection that the war was a failure. This is reasonably true, but why? Because it ended with the North Vietnamese conquering the South, and therefore nothing was really accomplished other than delaying the (supposedly) inevitable.
But then who made the war a failure? Isn't the answer obvious? Anti-war activists and Watergate-era Democrats who succeeded in getting the US to cut off support for the South Vietnamese government were responsible. Shortly after this happened, South Vietnam and Cambodia fell, and Southeast Asia descended into nightmare.
Now, let's come around to Orin's post. He is surprised by the comparability of the US casualties today in Iraq and those in South Vietnam 35 years ago. But this war has yet to become a failure. As I commented on his post, the Normandy invasion cost between 2500 and 6000 American lives.
Was that too many? We don't judge it as a failure because we succeeded in the overall war effort and succeeded in the invasion. Will Iraq be a failure? Well, one thing's for certain. If those who have opposed it get their way, it will be, and then they can say they were right all along, just as those who opposed the US involvement in Vietnam do.
Monday, December 27, 2004
The Wisconsin Recount
Ronald Wieck points out that there is none.
Understanding begins with the concept that any Kerry lead is sacrosanct. No “activists” will agitate for a recount in Wisconsin, where Long John won by an eyelash. Until this concept is grasped, enlightenment is unattainable. The operative principle here is something like the Brezhnev Doctrine: states won by the Democrat are inviolate—the result is carved in stone. States won by the Republican are negotiable.
Indeed, Kerry won by only 11,000 votes in the Land of the Cheeseheads, a difference of less than one half of one percent. By contrast, Bush's winning margin in Ohio is over 2%.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Tough Day for the Jets
They lose and the road gets a little tougher. All of the teams they need to lose are playing very tough teams, but they are playing very tough teams with nothing to play for. If they beat the Rams in St.Louis, they will be in the playoffs with the #5 seed. But if they lose, they have to get some help. Buffalo plays the Steelers, but Pittsburgh has nothing to play for, having sewn up HFA throughout the playoffs. And Denver plays Indianapolis but Indy has the #3 guaranteed, which means Peyton won't be playing late. About the only good news is that the Rams may have nothing to play for, unless they can beat the Eagles tomorrow night.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Happy Holidays!
Seasons greetings, welcome to the Winter Solstice, Happy New Year.
Oh, and Merry CHRISTmas!
Friday, December 24, 2004
Ranking The Comeback QBs (Blast from the Past)
Here's something I posted on Usenet about 8 years ago, when Dan Marino and John Elway were still active players and Joe Montana only recently retired. If I get the chance I'll look at Favre, the current comeback king (who also led a comeback win today)
In any game where the Denver Broncos are trailing in the fourth quarter, the announcers will dutifully inform us of the number of late comebacks engineered by John Elway. The perception is that Elway is the premier comeback quarterback of all time (although lately it is often noted that Dan Marino actually has led more fourth quarter reversals).
But the comeback statistic contains a bias that actually works against great quarterbacks. Think about a top QB on a team that just steamrolls its opponents. Isn't it axiomatic that he would have fewer opportunities to lead comeback victories than Trent Dilfer?
Take Joe Montana, for example. During the 49ers' dominant years, he was frequently out of the game for the entire fourth quarter because the game was already won. There was no opportunity to mount a comeback, even if he had remained in the fray. And yet, there is a perception of him as a great comeback quarterback, perhaps even better than Elway.
I decided to research the matter. The NFL's annual Record and Fact Book contains a scoring summary and recap of every game for the previous year. My library contains every book since 1990 with the exception of 1993, so I was able to analyze the games of Montana, Elway and Marino for 1989-91, and 1993-1995.
Elway played all or most of 95 games in that span. Of those, the Broncos led by one point or more during the entire fourth quarter 33 times. There were 10 games in which the Bronco's worst position during the fourth quarter was a tie. The Broncos won 9 of those games, but there is a statistical bias here, in that if the other team
won in the fourth quarter then it would be a game that the Broncos had trailed in the fourth quarter, since the focus was always on the worst position (in points behind) that the Broncos were at any time in the last period. The only fourth quarter ties the Broncos could lose by this definition were overtime games. In 52 of the games the Broncos trailed at some point during the fourth quarter. Elway managed to win 9 of those games, or 17% of his comeback opportunities. If the ties are counted as comebacks (as the NFL does), then Elway converted 18 of 62 chances, or 29%.
Dan Marino played all or most of 82 games during the years in question. The Dolphins led by one point or more in the entire fourth quarter in 32 of those contests. There were five games where the Dolphin's worst position was a tie in the fourth quarter; they won all five. There were 45 games in which the Dolphins trailed at some point; Marino brought them back from the brink 14 times or 31% of the time. Counting ties as comebacks Marino succeeded in 19 of 50 opportunities, or 38%.
Montana missed all of 1991 and almost all of 1992, retired before the 1995 season and was injured several times in 1993 and 1994, so he only appeared in all or most of 47 games during the period covered. Of those, his teams led by a point or more in the entire fourth quarter 25 times. Look at that closely. Elway only managed to salt away eight more games in 48 more opportunities. There were three games where Montana's team's worst position in the fourth quarter was a tie; they won all of them. And there were 19 games where his club trailed at some point in the fourth quarter. Montana led them home in 10 of those games or 53% of his chances. Counting ties as comebacks, Montana succeeded 13 out of 22 times, or almost 60%.
There is still a possibility of bias. Suppose Montana was overcoming, say 3 point deficits, while Elway was leading his team back from 14 point gaps. But when I looked at the average margin overcome, Montana actually reversed an average 6.1 point deficit, while Elway on average climbed out of a 5.0 point hole. Marino took honors, leading his team to comeback wins from an average of 6.3 points down.
Another source of bias is that although the points rallied from in comebacks actually achieved weren't higher for Elway, the other opportunities might be. There is a reasonable case here, but it acts more in favor of Marino than Elway. Montana's teams trailed (at worst) in the fourth quarter by an average of 8.1 points (in games
that they actually trailed). Elway's teams were 9.6 points behind on average. But the Dolphins trailed by an astonishing average of 12.4 points at some point in the fourth quarter.
Montana had the biggest comeback in the study, rallying San Francisco from a fourth quarter, 17-point deficit against the Rams. On the theory that this represents the outside limit of comeback possibilities, I eliminated any game in which the team had a fourth quarter deficit of 18 points or more. Note that this is forgiving the
quarterback for allowing his team to fall that far behind.
Montana only had one game where his team fell that far behind in the fourth, so he led his teams to comebacks in 10 of 18 possible games or 56% of his opportunities. Counting ties, it's 13/21 or 62%. Elway, with six big losses forgiven, moves up to nine comebacks out of 46 chances, or 20%. Including ties, it's 32%. Marino shrugs off 11 maulings and ends up with 14 comebacks in 34 shots or 41%; with ties he's 19 for 39 or 49%.
Problems remaining with the study? Well, there are the missing seasons--it would be nice to fill them in. But the games surveyed make up half of Elway's and Marino's careers, and about 30% of Montana's--and Joe was rather well known as a comeback quarterback before 1989. Many will gripe that I'm giving Montana credit which is due more to the excellence of his teams. There is some validity to this. But isn't that what the announcers are doing when they point to Elway's comeback history?
Based on the evidence, Montana ranks as a significantly better comeback quarterback than Elway. Marino fits in between them, but closer to Joe than John.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
The New Front on the Christmas Wars
I thought about this a little on the plane ride back to New Jersey. By removing all signs of Christmas from governmental buildings, aren't we endorsing the religion of atheism? Traditionally, I'll admit, atheism has been seen as non-religious, or a denial of religion. But these days it strikes me as resembling a separate creed, with true believers as moved by faith in their position as the holiest of rollers.
Think about it for a second. True, the religious cannot prove that there is a god. However, by the same token, the areligious cannot prove He does not exist. Indeed, even in my anti-religious days as a youth, I still thought the deathbed conversion made a lot of sense; no harm if it's just the end, and no fiery furnace if there is indeed a hereafter.
Hmmmm
James Wolcott wants us all to know that Christmas isn't dead.
This thin-skinned grievance-collecting gives birth to all sorts of urban legends and rumors about big institutions being hostile to Christ's birthday, such as the one that swirled on WOR radio last week about how Macy's employees had been instructed not to say "Merry Christmas!" to shoppers. A fiction that was put to rest when the host hit Macy's website and saw its "Merry Christmas" greeting, and Macy's employees chimed in over the phones to say there was no such policy.
Okay, here's the link to Macy's website. Can you find the "Merry Christmas" greeting? This is the exact same link Wolcott had in his post.
More Advice The Democrats Won't Take
Okay, so there's a snarky undertone to this article by Nicholas Kristof. But he hits on a few good points:
Members of the Christian right, exemplified by Mr. Brownback, are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad - thus creating opportunities for common ground between left and right on issues we all care about.
So Democrats should clamber down from the window ledges, roll up their sleeves and get to work on some of these issues. Because I'm embarrassed to say that Democrats have been so suspicious of Republicans that they haven't contributed much on those human rights issues where the Christian right has already staked out its ground.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Power Ratings after Week 15
Comments: Indy moves into the penthouse on the heels of New England's upset at Miami. The Steelers continue to "just win, baby," but their defense must be considered a little suspect after giving Eli Manning his first good game as an NFL player. Plus they are tempting the football gods with this 12 wins in a row stuff.
Ind 112.5
NE 111.3
Phi 109.8
SD 108.2
NYJ 107.0
Pit 106.9
KC 106.1
Bal 105.7
Buf 105.5
Den 102.5
Jax 102.1
GB 100.7
Atl 100.3
TB 100.1
Car 99.4
Cin 99.0
Min 98.9
Hou 98.7
Was 97.8
Sea 97.0
Det 96.7
Mia 96.6
Ten 96.3
NYG 95.9
Cle 94.9
Oak 94.9
AZ 94.1
Chi 93.7
StL 93.7
Dal 93.5
NO 93.3
SF 86.8
Steyn on the Move to Abolish Christmas
He's got pretty much the same take as I:
But every time some sensitive flower pulls off a legal victory over the school board, who really wins? For the answer to that, look no further than last month's election results. Forty years of effort by the American Civil Liberties Union to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicised Christianity in America. By "politicised", I don't mean that anyone who feels his kid should be allowed to sing Silent Night if he wants to is perforce a Republican, but only that year in, year out it becomes harder for such folks to support a secular Democratic Party closely allied with the anti-Christmas militants. American liberals need to rethink their priorities: what's more important? Winning a victory over the kindergarten teacher's holiday concert, or winning back Congress and the White House?
I'm not actually a very religious person myself, which highlights how far liberalism has gone in its efforts to expunge public mentions of Christmas. If they're getting me annoyed at the attempts to install atheism as the official religion of America, just imagine how the devout must feel!
Political Blog List
Hugh Hewitt pointed me to this political blog list. I was struck by the ability to add one's own blog to the list and yes, I went ahead and added Brainster's. But I had to laugh at this description of Eric Alterman's blog:
Eric would be considered "liberal" by ultra-right wing religious fundamentalists and the Talaban.
No, I think ultra-right wing religious fundamentalists would consider him an outright communist, and they wouldn't be too far wrong.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Simulation Says Jets Are Probably In The Playoffs
I ran a simulation game by game. First I estimated a game score for each game; for example, I estimated that based on prior performance the Patriots should beat the Jets by about 18-17 next week (actually 18.1-17.7). But does that mean the Jets have a 100% chance of losing? No, the predicted margin tells us that the Jets have a decent chance of winning, if not quite 50%. Bill James suggests the Pythagorean formula, which is that the Jets have about a 49% chance of winning (17.7 squared divided by (17.7 squared plus 18.1 squared)).
After setting up every meaningful game that way, I generated random numbers to simulate the games. In 100 runs of the remaining schedule, the Jets got the top wild card seed 86% of the time. They were at least the #2 wild card another 6% of the time, and in 8% of the runs it was murky enough that they might not make it.
Looking at the rest of the teams, Buffalo probably has the best chance of winning their last two games, but they've got problems nevertheless. Both Baltimore and Jacksonville have beaten the Bills, so the only team they can afford to be tied with is Denver. Baltimore appears to be in if they win out, but they have a tough test at Pittsburgh next week.
Week 15 Notes
The Jets move closer to a playoff spot. A win against New England at home or St. Louis on the road gets them a guaranteed wild card. I don't want to try to figure out the various other scenarios but the Jets are obviously in the driver's seat for a wild card. A win by Indy tonight would help.
How bad is the NFC? The Arizona Cardinals, who have accounted for both of San Francisco's wins, not only have a chance to make the playoffs, they could be NFC West Champions. If they win at Seattle and at home against the Bucs and the Seahawks lose to Atlanta at home, the Cards would slip past the Seahawks. They do need St. Louis to lose both games, which might not be impossible either since the Rams will be playing Philadelphia and the Jets at home.
However, bear in mind that both Philadelphia and Atlanta have nothing to play for in the last two games. Philly, especially, should be expected to substitute liberally in light of the injury to Owens, which certainly looked as though it might be season-ending at the time.
The AFC continues to destroy the NFC, 39-19 on the season.
Brainster's Rules of Quarterbacks
I read a joke about somebody commenting that the Giants were considering giving Eli Manning some seasoning in NFL Asia. When the response came back that there was no such league, the wag replied that was the point.
This brings us to Brainster's First Rule of Quarterbacks:
1. Pay no attention to what a quarterback does in his first year of play, unless he does well.
Consider this first year line: 47.5% completion rate, 6 yards per attempt, 7 TD passes and 14 interceptions for a passer rating of 54.9. Or how about 53% completions for under 6 years per attempt with 9 TDs and 18 interceptions? A third had 52% completions, 3 TDs and 8 picks. Another guy was oh for five with two interceptions his rookie season for a perfect 0.0 passer rating. Throw them all away, right?
Reading from right to left, those are the rookie seasons of John Elway, Troy Aikman, Steve Young and Brett Favre.
Some quarterbacks do well right out of the chute--Dan Marino, Tom Brady, and Ben Rothlisberger come to mind. Those guys are almost always gold; about the only guy who performed great in his rookie year and didn't turn out to be a long-term star in the NFL was Greg Cook, who suffered a separated shoulder after his spectacular 1969 debut (led the league in passer rating) and was basically through.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
How the Power Ratings Are Derived
I analyze the score of every game and adjust the actual points scored to reflect the quality of the opponent, and the location of the game (home or away). For example, consider New England's first game, a 27-24 victory over Indianapolis. Indianapolis' defense gives up almost exactly the average number of points that other NFL teams have, 0.994 times as many to be precise. So we can say that scoring 27 points against them is pretty much like scoring 27.2 points against an average team using the formula (27/.994). However, because the game was played at New England, the spreadsheet is not as impressed with New England's performance as it might otherwise be. Home Field Advantage in the NFL amounts to about three points. We allocate half of that to offense and half to defense, so the net adjustment to the offense's score is 1.5 points. Thus, New England's scoring 27 points at home against Indianapolis is considered the equivalent of them scoring 25.7 points against an average team at a neutral site.
For the Patriot's defense, the spreadsheet looks at Indianapolis's scoring per game as compared to the league average. The Colts have scored 1.629 times as many points as an average NFL team, so we could say giving up 24 points to them is like giving up 14.7 points to an average NFL team (24/1.629=14.7). However, the game was at New England, so I add 1.5 points to the opposition's score. Thus, giving up 24 points to the Colts at home is considered the equivalent of giving up 16.2 points to an average team on a neutral field.
After every game has been scored like this, New England comes up with an adjusted total of 374 points scored and 208 points allowed, or 166 points above average for the season. Since there have been 13 games played as of last weekend, the Patriots are about 12.8 points per game better than an average team. To avoid having to deal with negative numbers for bad teams, the Power Rating is added to 100; New England's power rating is thus 112.8.
A team's adjusted points scored and adjusted points allowed are generally fairly close to their actual points scored and points allowed this late in the season. But for teams facing a weak or strong schedule the numbers can vary substantially. Looking at Cleveland, for example, they have given up 98 more points than they've allowed. But they've faced a very difficult schedule, with two games each against Pittsburgh and Baltimore and with Phillly, New England, Buffalo and the Jets among their non-divisional opponents. Their opponents' average Power Rating has been 103.8. So the spreadsheet sees their numbers as a little better than they appear, for a net negative 48 points instead of negative 98 points. Seattle, which has faced the easiest schedule in the league, is adjusted downwards from its positive 16 points to negative 26.
Friday, December 17, 2004
Meet Rafael Peralta, American Hero
Ollie North has the details.
Not only can Rafael's family be proud of him, but his fellow Marines are alive because of him. As Peralta lay near death on the floor of a Fallujah terrorist hideout, he spotted the yellow grenade that had rolled next to his near-lifeless body. Once detonated, it would take out the rest of Peralta's squad. To save his fellow Marines, Peralta reached out, grabbed the grenade and tucked it under his abdomen, where it exploded.
Reggie Rivers: Merry Christmas is Divisive
The former Denver Bronco and current columnist weighs in on the Merry Christmas sign with a novel take.
If the removal of "Merry Christmas" can provoke this type of reaction, then no one can reasonably argue that it's a benign phrase that shouldn't offend anyone.
Get it? It's a classic Catch-22; if you object to the removal of the sign it shows that the sign is divisive and should be removed. And if you don't object to the removal of the sign, it's not divisive, but we're removing it because you didn't object.
Let me pose an alternative scenario. Suppose the City of Denver, in a moment of civic pride, put up a sign that said "Go Broncos!" Some local sports fans object that they are fans of the Raiders. The city decides to take down the sign, causing a brouhaha. Would this prove that the sign should come down, because after all, nobody'd raise a fuss if it weren't so divisive?
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Better NFL Ratings
I've been a little tough on the guys over at Football Outsiders for some questionable comments they've made. But it's time to acknowledge that they are doing some very good work over there.
A big part of the Football Outsiders website are the DVOA ratings derived by Aaron from an analysis of every single play of every single game. When I looked at them last year, the ratings did not seem very good. For example, when I looked at how he'd rated the teams as of Week 6 and how those teams had done since, I found that his top 16 teams combined for a record of 84-97 after that week. By contrast, my top 16 teams as of that week combined for a record of 102-82 after Week 6. It seemed to me that if you were going to claim you had a good rating system, it should at least be able to separate good teams from bad teams. (Correction: All the records shown are after Week 5 of last year's NFL season, not Week 6).
Aaron and I debated this point on his website last year at some length. He stated that the purpose of his ratings was not to predict the future but to analyze the past, but of course that is begging the question: Have you really analyzed the past well when your ratings don't have any relevance to the future?
I emphasized at the time that I thought Aaron's ratings would eventually be better than mine. All I do is enter the scores of the games into a spreadsheet, then translate those scores into an assumed score against an average opponent on a neutral field. My thought was that there might be something in the scores that was not always reflected in the Won/Lost records, and indeed, I have found that is true. So it seemed logical to me that Aaron's analysis of play-by-play data would find things that were not always reflected in the score of the game.
Well, I am pleased to say that either Aaron has made some improvements to his DVOA ratings, or he has gotten very lucky indeed, because his DVOA ratings this year are better than my Power Ratings, and by a significant enough margin that I can recommend them as the best way I've seen to rate the teams.
For starters, let's establish a baseline. The simplest method of rating the teams is by won/lost record. Teams are of course rated this way every day in the standings published in the newspaper. So if you wanted to rate teams, the simplest thing would be to say that New England, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are the best teams in the league, and that San Francisco and Miami are the worst. And you wouldn't be far wrong, obviously.
So it seems to me that any method of rating the teams should at least do as well as simply using the won/lost record. The way of checking how good the rating is involves a statistical method known as correlation. Correlation is just a way of checking how closely two sets of numbers fit each other. For example, if you had one set of the numbers 1,2,3,4, and another set of the numbers 2,3,4,5, it should be obvious that there is a high degree correlation between the two sets. In fact, the correlation would be 100%, because the second set can be produced by adding 1 to each of the numbers in the first set.
What I did was look at the correlation between the won/lost percentage of each team as of Week 3 and their Won/Lost percentage in the games since then. For example, Philadelphia had one of the best Won/Lost Percentages (1.000) in the league at 3-0 after the third week, and they have gone 9-1 (.900) since then, for one of the best Won/Lost Percentages after Week 3. Obviously there is a great deal of correlation in looking just at Philly. But Seattle was also 3-0 (1.000 and they have gone 4-6 (.400 since) so the correlation isn't always high. Looking at all the records as of Week 3, the correlation between a team's record then and their record since is 33%. I then did the same calculation for the next four weeks as well:
Week 3 : 33%
Week 4 : 33%
Week 5 : 32%
Week 6 : 27%
Week 7 : 32%
Pretty consistent there. So that's the benchmark. How does my system do?
Week 3 : 40%
Week 4 : 41%
Week 5 : 33%
Week 6 : 26%
Week 7 : 33%
Better, except for that Week 6 blip. Must have been some funky games. Now, there are two opposing tendencies in the ratings. Ratings in later weeks should be more accurate than earlier ratings because they are based on more games. However, there have also been fewer games since then, so there is more room for random results to throw off the correlation.
But when I checked Aaron's DVOA ratings, the correlations were higher:
Week 3 : 47%
Week 4 : 46%
Week 5 : 43%
Week 6 : 45%
Week 7 : 47%
That's not to say my Power Ratings are useless. Indeed, because they are denominated in points, they have more immediate utility to people looking to place a bet on a game or fill in the office pool. But I gave Aaron a hard time about the correlation between his ratings and future won/lost percentages a year ago; it seems only fair to note now that he has improved his record markedly.
Wouldn't Bother Me in the Slightest
Denver Post columnist Cindy Rodriguez comes up with what she no doubt thinks is a devastating argument against "Merry Christmas" signs on government property:
Some Christians don't think twice about complaining because they are the majority and feel entitled. But imagine if Jews were the majority and the rest of us had to pass a "Happy Hanukkah" sign on the way into the City and County Building.
Horrors! I don't think I could handle it!
Seriously, this strikes me as similar to John Kerry's comment about Mary Cheney being a lesbian. The similarity is that both Kerry and Rodriguez seem to think that the Christian right is made up of a bunch of bigots, so why not use their bigotry against them? Kerry calculated that the Christian right hated homosexuals, so his mention of Mary Cheney's sexuality might cost the Bush/Cheney ticket some votes. Rodriguez calculates here that the Christian right is made up of religious bigots, so why not use that religious bigotry to good purpose (as she sees it) by confronting them with the notion of governmental Happy Hanukkah signs.
What's next, arguments against Social Security privatization because it will prevent the government from taking money from black people (who have shorter lifespans than average) and giving it to white people?
A Recommendation the Democrats Won't Take
Peggy Noonan suggests that the Democrats start taking on the anti-religious zealots.
It is this: Stop the war on religious expression in America. Have Terry McAuliffe come forward and announce that the Democratic Party knows that a small group of radicals continue to try to "scrub" such holidays as Christmas from the public square. They do this while citing the Constitution, but the Constitution does not say it is wrong or impolite to say "Merry Christmas" or illegal to have a crèche in the public square. The Constitution says we have freedom of religion, not from religion. Have Terry McAuliffe announce that from here on in the Democratic Party is on the side of those who want religion in the public square, and the Ten Commandments on the courthouse wall for that matter. Then he should put up a big sign that says "Merry Christmas" on the sidewalk in front of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters on South Capitol Street. The Democratic Party should put itself on the side of Christmas, and Hanukkah, and the fact of transcendent faith.
The good news is that there is not a chance that the "reality-based community" will accept this advice.
Read the whole article; I especially loved the bit about manipulating symbols. The Democrats are constantly searching for the secret code words that will get them elected despite being anti-relious and anti-American.
Update: Jim Geraghty has the same take over at the Kerry Spot, but he phrases it better:
The Democratic party doesn’t have a reputation as the side hostile to religious faith because its messages have been misinterpreted, or because it has clumsy public relations, or because it can‘t keep up with the GOP “message machine.” It has that reputation because a large number of its members are hostile to religious faith.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Fourth And One
Gregg Easterbrook made a comment in his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column last week in favor of teams going for it on fourth down and a yard when inside enemy territory. I took a quick look at it, and it certainly appears that he's right. I took a look at the 32 times teams had gone for the first down in that situation between 10/31/04 and 12/5/04. I ignored cases where there was a penalty that negated the play or where the team went for it while lined up to kick either a punt or a field goal, so that we are concentrating only on the times where it was apparent that the team was going for it.
The results? Teams were successful in getting the first down (or touchdown)) on 23 of 32 attempts, or about 72% of the time. There was little apparent difference between running and passing, with runs succeeding 16 of 22 times (73%) and passes getting the job done 7 of ten times (70%). Just for the heck of it, I took a look at this weekend's games and the pattern was the same; there were four attempts (all runs) and three of them were successful.
Chomsky's Bagels
Benjamin Kerstein's article in Front Page Mag points to a Noam Chomsky recap of the election that reveals just how out of it the cunning linguist is.
The outcome was a disappointment, but there have been disappointments before. Take 1984, when essentially the same gang of thugs—a little less tilted to the extreme reactionary statist side—won by a 2-1 margin, with about the same percentage of the electoral vote as today. And they were engaged in horrendous atrocities abroad and very harsh and destructive programs for most of the population at home. The world didn’t come to an end. In fact, activism proved quite effective.
Hmmm, first of all, Reagan did not win by a 2-1 margin; he won by about 1.45-1. And Reagan's electoral vote win was far larger. Ronaldus Maximus got almost 98% of the electoral vote as compared to President Bush's 53%. I assume that the distinguished professor meant to say about the same turnout percentage as today, which would be reasonably true (56.1% of the voting age population turned out this year, as compared to 53.1% in 1984).
Later, Chomsky claims:
The progressive left is very substantial in scale, and could be far larger, including the large majority of the population, judging by highly credible public opinion studies that the press scarcely mentions, presumably because they understand that it is much too dangerous to allow people to understand that they are not alone in their views.
This is, of course, the "lost tribe of leftists" theory that is so popular in the "reality-based community". In this theory, there exists a huge, untapped base of support for far left positions that fails to show up at the polls every four years because no presidential candidate, even the Democratic nominee, is really speaking to them. If only the Democrats would nominate a true leftist candidate rather than these semi-Republicans like Al Gore and John Kerry, they would sweep to an easy victory. Chomsky makes this clear:
I don’t think that the Kerry campaign even tried to include the opinions of most of the population, including those who voted for Kerry. People will vote their class interests when they see some credible political force that might represent those interests. That’s not Kerry or the DLC.
Of course, Kerry is not affiliated with the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council). Indeed, one suspects that if the DLC had a candidate in the 2004 race, it was the much-maligned (among Democrats) Joe Lieberman.
NFL Power Ratings after Week 14
Comments: New England retains the top spot for the sixth consecutive week. San Francisco put its top draft slot in jeopardy with their win at Arizona, but the spreadsheet still sees them comfortably worse than their competitor for that draft pick. Miami is seven points better than the 49ers (which happens to be reflected in the 24-17 win they notched at the 'Stick)..
The ratings reflect the astounding domination of the AFC over the NFC, with 11 of the top twelve teams coming from the former conference.
NE 112.6
Ind 112.1
Phi 111.1
Pit 107.9
SD 107.0
Bal 106.4
NYJ 105.7
KC 104.3
Buf 103.3
Den 103.1
Jax 101.4
Cin 101.2
GB 101.2
TB 100.8
Atl 100.6
Car 99.1
Min 99.0
Cle 98.0
Was 97.9
Sea 97.8
Ten 96.8
Hou 96.7
Det 96.5
NYG 95.1
Chi 95.0
StL 95.0
Oak 94.9
Mia 94.9
Dal 93.3
AZ 92.1
NO 92.0
SF 87.2
Monday, December 13, 2004
Connecticut To Execute First Killer Since 1960?
According to this story.
Ross, 45, admits killing eight women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s, and raping most of his victims. He has been in prison for 20 years — 17 on Connecticut's death row — for four of those murders and faces lethal injection.
Remind Me Never To Do That Again
Shoot off my mouth without checking the facts, that is. I took a quick look at the combined records of all AFC teams every year since 1970 (the year the AFL and NFL began playing regular season games together), and found that the AFC was 16 games over .500 in 1999, and an incredible 20 games over .500 in 1979. Since the merger, all told, the AFC is 60 games over .500 against the NFC in regular season games (and 4 games--all Super Bowls of course--under .500 in postseason games). I'd guess you could win a bar bet or two with that knowledge, since most people assume the AFC has been the weaker conference. Even during the AFC's long dry spell from 1984-1996, when they lost 13 consecutive Super Bowls, they were only 15 games under .500 in games with the NFC.
Dominating the other conference in the regular season does seem to have some predictive value to the Super Bowl. There have been 34 seasons since the merger; in six of those years (1973, 1983, 1984, 1990, 2000 and 2001) the AFC and NFC were exactly at .500, so there are 28 remaining seasons/Super Bowls to check. The team from the conference with the winning record went 17-11 in those games. However, you do not have to search hard for contrary evidence; the 2002 Tampa Bay Bucs, the 1999 St. Louis Rams and the 1996 Green Bay Packers all won the big game despite coming from the weaker conference in the regular season.
How Bad Is the NFC?
Right now the second wild card would go to a team (Carolina) that started their season 1-7. There were four NFC/AFC matchups yesterday; the NFC went 1-3, to run their record for the season to 19-35. I'd have to check, but I'd suspect that's the most games under .500 that any conference has been since the early days of the NFL/AFL merger.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
NFL Notes
In honor of this week's marquee matchup, we present the years in which the 49ers and the Cardinals have both had winning records: 1998, 1984, 1983, 1976, 1970, 1968 and 1960. It is safe to say that they will not be adding another season to that total of seven in 54 years.
The real marquee matchup is the game between the NY Jets and the Pittsburgh Steelers. A simple way to rate the games is to multiply the number of wins the respective teams have. The Jets have won 9 games and the Steelers 11, so the game rates as a 99, easily the best of any contest today, with only the Patriots/Bengals rating within 50 points of that. The spreadsheet sees the Steelers winning by about 18-14, although of course it is unlikely to hit that score exactly, since very few teams actually score 18 points (only two teams have done so this season). The spreadsheet says the game fairly represents the expected matchup, with the assumed home field advantage for the Steelers at 3.0 points (the league average so far this season), although both the Steelers (4.6) and the Jets (3.9) have larger HFAs, which could indicate that Pittsburgh should be favored by a little more in my spreadsheet. The line looks to be just about on the money around 5, whice means I wouldn't touch this game.
I took a quick look at how many times X number of points had been scored this season.
0 2
1 0
2 0
3 10
4 0
5 0
6 10
7 11
8 1
9 5
10 26
11 0
12 5
13 20
14 19
15 4
16 13
17 39
18 2
19 8
20 21
21 17
22 6
23 11
24 22
25 3
26 5
27 23
28 15
29 2
30 7
31 19
32 2
33 1
34 17
35 5
36 0
37 2
38 5
39 1
40 2
41 5
42 3
43 2
44 0
45 3
46 0
47 1
48 2
49 3
56 1
58 1
Looks like I missed the score of one ballgame, as that adds up to 382, but there have been 384 team scores so far this season. As you can see, 17 is the most common score, with about 10% of all teams ending with that point total. Aside from that there are obvious clusters at 6 & 7 and then every 7 points above those--13 & 14, 20 & 21, 27 & 28. Using the scores shown above, we can estimate potential winning percentages for every score as follows:
0 0%
1 1%
2 1%
3 1%
4 3%
5 3%
6 3%
7 6%
8 9%
9 9%
10 10%
11 17%
12 17%
13 18%
14 24%
15 29%
16 30%
17 33%
18 43%
19 44%
20 46%
21 51%
22 56%
23 57%
24 60%
25 66%
26 67%
27 68%
28 74%
29 78%
30 79%
31 80%
32 85%
33 86%
34 86%
35 91%
36 92%
37 92%
38 92%
39 94%
40 94%
41 95%
42 96%
43 97%
44 97%
45 97%
46 98%
47 98%
48 98%
49 99%
50 99%
51 99%
52 99%
53 99%
54 99%
55 99%
56 99%
57 100%
58 100%
As you can see, the Cleveland Browns were unfortunate indeed to lose that game to Cincinnati 58-48. Or rather I should say, their offense was unfortunate, they had done enough to win 98% of all ballgames. Unfortunately their defense couldn't close the deal.
That gave me an idea for a quick rating system. Suppose we take the actual scores of a team's games and look at how the offense did as compared to the defense. Let's start with the Indianapolis Colts. In week one, they lost to the New England Patriots 24-27. Looking at the chart, we see that when scoring 24 points, teams should win about 60% of their games, and teams giving up 27 points should win about 32% of their games (to determine winning percentage for teams giving up X points, just take 100% minus the number shown for that score). Doing this for every game on the Colts schedule gives us an average winning percentage for the Colt's offense of 84%, as compared to their defense's winning percentage of 52%.
I'll take a longer look at this later.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Are the Patriots Headed for Team of the Decade?
It may be a little early, but it's sure looking like they're going to put their stamp on this decade the way that Dallas did in the 1990s, San Francisco did in the 1980s, and Pittsburgh did in the 1970s, that Green Bay did in the 1960s. Of those, the only team that had not yet announced itself in that decade was Pittsburgh; they won their first Super Bowl following the 1974 season, so we can estimate that there's a 1 in four chance that it's somebody who has not established itself as a championship team. Remember, at this point in the 1970s anybody would have picked Miami as the team of the decade, with three Super Bowl appearances and two victories, including the undefeated season of 1972.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Left Face?
Patrick Hynes has an excellent article about the uncivil war for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party today over at Crush Kerry.
In case you missed it, yesterday Crush Kerry pointed to this incredible article regarding an email from Eli Pariser, the head of MoveOn.org, where Pariser claimed that MoveOn "owns" the Democratic Party.
"In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive," the message continued. "Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."
Pariser was probably responding to this article by Peter Beinart, where Beinart suggests that in order to be competitive, the Democrats need to publicly disassociate themselves from the left-wing fringe of the party as represented by Michael Moore and MoveOn.
Kerry was a flawed candidate, but he was not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem was the party's liberal base, which would have refused to nominate anyone who proposed redefining the Democratic Party in the way the ADA did in 1947. The challenge for Democrats today is not to find a different kind of presidential candidate. It is to transform the party at its grassroots so that a different kind of presidential candidate can emerge. That means abandoning the unity-at-all-costs ethos that governed American liberalism in 2004. And it requires a sustained battle to wrest the Democratic Party from the heirs of Henry Wallace. In the party today, two such heirs loom largest: Michael Moore and MoveOn.
Here's the debate the Democrats are waging right now in a nutshell. Will the party do better by moving slightly to the right, to capture more votes in the center? Or will they do better by moving to the left, to energize their base and prevent the loss of votes to the Greens and/or Ralph Nader?
Howard Dean seems to think he can do both.
Let me tell you what my plan for this Party is:
We're going to win in Mississippi
...and Alabama
...and Idaho
...and South Carolina.
Sounds like he's going to the right, but:
I'm not one for making predictions -- but if we accept that philosophy this time around, another Democrat will be standing here in four years giving this same speech. we cannot win by being "Republican-lite." We've tried it; it doesn't work.
Update on Blogger Payments
Captain Ed linked to this post by Jon Lauck regarding the payments he received from the Thune campaign. Lauck writes:
On the eve of the release of the report skewering CBS for trying to undermine the President in the final months of the presidential race, I've been getting some very funny emails about this CBS News report attacking the Dakota blogs for not being "objective." Please keep them coming. Anyway, the broad issue is the continuing plausibility of MSM's claims to be "objective" when they are obviously not. Bloggers, on the other hand, have opinions. It's what we do.
This is missing the point entirely. Kerry Haters was not objective, either. The point is not about objectivity, it's about being bought and paid for. George Will is not objective. Molly Ivins is not objective. But they are also not paid shills for their respective political parties. They are free to criticize their own side when they feel it is warranted, and Will, in particular, seems to take delight in so doing.
It's fine that they made some money on their blogs; that's a good sign for the blogosphere. But they should have been candid with their readers. Lauck mentions that the Argus Leader had a front page article on his consulting deal with Thune; if that's the case, why didn't he disclose it to the rest of us?
Update: Hugh Hewitt has a similar take:
That having been said, the two blogs that received support from the Thune campaign ought to have declared that support. It is prudent to anticipate criticism and to disarm it by disclosure.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Color Me Disgusted--Updated--Welcome Captain's Quarters Readers!
By this story about two blogs which were covering the Daschle/Thune race in South Dakota. As you may be aware, over at Kerry Haters, we adopted John Thune's campaign with a "Thursdays 'R' for Thune" fundraising effort. We raised several thousand dollars thanks to our readers.
In covering the race, I relied a great deal on Daschle v. Thune, a blog authored by South Dakotan Jon Lauck. There was never any doubt in my mind that Lauck was a partisan for Thune. But I had no idea he was a paid shill for the campaign.
The Sioux Falls Argus Leader and the National Journal first cited Federal Election Commission documents showing that Jon Lauck, of Daschle v Thune, and Jason Van Beek, of South Dakota Politics, were advisers to the Thune campaign.
The documents, also obtained by CBS News, show that in June and October the Thune campaign paid Lauck $27,000 and Van Beek $8,000. Lauck had also worked on Thune’s 2002 congressional race.
Both blogs favored Thune, but neither gave any disclaimer during the election that the authors were on the payroll of the Republican candidate.
Well, I, for one, am disgusted with Lauck (I never read Van Beek's blog). He owed it to his readers to disclose the fact that he was receiving substantial amounts of money from Thune. And, for the record, our blog received nothing; we did it because we believed in John Thune and despised Tom Daschle.
Captain Ed is angry that CBS is using this story to tar all bloggers. That's fine, but how about a little condemnation of Lauck and Van Beek for handing them the brush?
Update: Captain Ed has more here, including an implicit condemnation of Lauck & Van Beek for not disclosing their remuneration. I withdraw any implied criticism above.
The Right Take on Steroids
Kitty forwarded me this article on the steroids issue, and it presents what I consider one of the best arguments against steroids that I have yet read.
Imagine that in the future we develop drugs that will enable you to become strong, powerful and lean without touching a barbell, drugs that will make you indefatigable without your having to do endurance training. Coupled with this, let’s say we develop the capacity to hook someone up to a computer and infuse him with all the great skill and experience of the most seasoned prodigy, a la The Matrix. We would then have athletes and artists who would have tapped the upper limits of human potential, individuals who would have achieved the highest levels of mastery without lifting a finger. Now, I put it to you, would you be interested in watching these programmed organic robots ply their trades?
Exactly. Now, as I was reading that, a rebuttal came briefly to mind. Remember all the robot battle shows they used to have on TV a few years ago? I used to really enjoy those robots going after each other. But why? Not because they were robots, but because they were robots designed by human beings. And, like all things designed by human beings, they were imperfect.
When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about a baseball team made up of my favorite superheroes. The Flash could steal bases at will, while Superman could catch any ball hit to the outfield. Bouncing Boy could bounce over any tag, etc. But of course, after the initial novelty wore off, it would be boring as hell.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Banging On the Drum
Kevin Drum has some questions for conservative bloggers that I thought I would take a crack at:
#1. Considering how Iraq has gone so far, do you still think that American military power is a good way to promote tolerance and democracy in the Middle East? Has your position on this changed in any way over the past two years?
The American military power was not sent to Iraq to promote tolerance and democracy, it was sent to get rid of Saddam's regime. We cannot judge Iraq now. We may not even be able to judge Iraq five years from now. And no, my mind has not changed.
#2. Shortly after 9/11, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said publicly that they thought the attacks were well-deserved retribution from God in response to moral decay — as personified by gays, feminists, the ACLU, and NOW. Do you worry that Falwell and Robertson are identified by many as the face of the Republican party? Do you think President Bush has sufficiently distanced himself from them and their followers?
Lots of people say stupid things. The leaders of the religious left wing are people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who've both been known to make viciously anti-Semitic comments, comments that in Sharpton's case may have incited killings. Did John Kerry distance himself sufficiently from Al Sharpton and his followers? Or did Kerry pay him $86,000 to campaign for him?
#3. Is democracy promotion really one of your core concerns? Just how far are you willing to go to demonstrate your credibility on this subject? Note: President Bush's policy toward either Pakistan or Saudi Arabia would be excellent case studies to bring this question to life.
So what's your point here, Kevin? Bush has given 50 million people a chance at freedom and democracy. His dad (and, mostly, Ronald Reagan) helped bring about the freedom of many millions more. How many people did Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton free? No, I don't think we should go around the globe freeing people from tyranny regardless of cost, and you'd be the first ones howling with anger if we tried to topple Cuba, for example.
#4. On a related note, which do you think is more important to the Bush administration in the short term: preservation of a stable oil supply from the Middle East or spreading freedom and liberty throughout the region? Would you be interested in seeing the records of Dick Cheney's 2001 energy task force to verify this? Please be extra honest with this question.
Ah, it's all about oooooooiiiiiiiilllllll! Really, what a moron Drum is; no wonder Hugh Hewitt calls him a Peter Principle Blogger. To answer the question, short term and long term stable oil is more important because our economy runs on oil. DUH! And no, I don't need to see the records of Dick Cheney's energy task force to "verify" anything.
#5. A substantial part of the Christian right opposes any compromise with Palestinians because they believe that Jewish domination of the region west of the Jordan River is a precondition for the Second Coming. Is this a reasonable belief? Or do you think these people qualify as loons who should be purged from the Republican party?
First of all, there is no strong movement in the Christian right opposing any compromise with the Palestinians. They support Israel, yes, and they probably do so for biblical reasons, but that does not mean they oppose Israel making agreements with the Palestinians (although like all of us they may be quite suspicious of what Israel actually manages to achieve with these agreements). I support Israel too, but if they can make a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians all the better.
#6. Yes or no: do you think we should invade Iran if it becomes clear — despite our best efforts — that they are continuing to build nuclear weapons? If this requires a military draft, would you be in favor?
Invade, probably not. Bomb the crap out of their facilities? You betcha.
#7. If President Bush decides to substantially draw down our troop presence in Iraq after the January 30 elections, will you support that decision? Please answer this question prior to January 30.
If that's the decision he makes, I'll support it. He's got more information on the subject than I do, he's got lots of well-informed folks giving him their input. BTW, these questions are really amateurishly worded. When Drum says "after the January 30 elections," does he mean three years after, or, as I suspect, immediately after?
#8. Would you agree that people who accept Laurie Mylroie's crackpot theories about Saddam Hussein's involvement in 9/11 might be taking the threat of terrorism a little too seriously? What do you think should be done with them?
Excuse me? What exactly is taking the threat of terrorism a little too seriously? Another incredibly poorly worded question. As for what should be done with them, I say boiling in oil is too good for them, however poetically justified it may be.
Note the curious form of several (2,5 & 8) of the questions--ask about an extreme position a Republican has somewhere and then ask what should be done to that Republican. What does he expect, that we should drive those people from the party with pointed sticks? Are there any groups that are currently in the Democratic Party that hold crackpot theories on, oh, the JFK assassination, or 9-11, or Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004? No doubt Kevin is leading the purge as we speak.
Hat Tip: John Hawkins
Scott Peterson's Mom's Plea
Reading this, I couldn't help thinking of the old joke about the guy who killed his parents and then pleaded for mercy because he was an orphan.
A frail-looking Jackie Peterson tearfully pleaded with jurors Wednesday to spare her son's life, saying that "if you were to take Scott away from us ... we would lose a whole family."
Can Steroids Help Barry Bonds Hit .362?
Kitty forwarded to me this link to a partial transcript from the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday. Rush, not surprisingly, has concentrated his ire on the grand jury leaks, since he himself has been harmed by grand jury leaks in the past.
There is a common belief that although steroids may be helping Bonds hit all those homers, they cannot help his batting average. I myself have raised this argument in the past. But it seems possible that in fact it can help his batting average. Think about it for a second: Suppose earlier in his career, Bonds was hitting the ball 370 feet for a long out. But with his new power, the ball is going 400 feet, just enough to carry it over the fences. This clearly affects his batting average, because he gets an extra hit, increasing the numerator in the BA equation (hits/at bats).
So let's take a look at how Bonds hits when he's not knocking it out of the park. That's a fairly simple equation: (hits-homers)/(at bats-homers).
Here, year by year, are Bonds' actual batting averages along with his batting average on those occasions when he does not connect for the long ball.
Year Avg No HR
1986 0.223 0.191
1987 0.261 0.226
1988 0.283 0.249
1989 0.248 0.223
1990 0.301 0.253
1991 0.292 0.256
1992 0.311 0.257
1993 0.336 0.274
1994 0.312 0.240
1995 0.294 0.245
1996 0.308 0.246
1997 0.291 0.234
1998 0.303 0.252
1999 0.262 0.184
2000 0.306 0.227
2001 0.328 0.206
2002 0.370 0.289
2003 0.341 0.255
2004 0.362 0.274
As you can see, there can be a dramatic difference between the batting average with homers and that without. In 2001, when Bonds was the unanimous MVP selection due to his 73 homers, he actually had one of his worst seasons ever when not trotting around the bases.
Compare Bonds' 1991 season to 2003. Bonds actually hit better when not homering in 1991 (.256 to .255) compared to 2003. But last year he hit 20 more homers in 120 fewer at bats, so his batting average was almost 50 points higher in 2003.
So it seems clear that if steroids can make it possible for Bonds to hit the ball farther (as everybody seems to acknowledge), it is quite possible that it can also raise his batting average. Indeed, if we look at Bonds' last five years, which coincides with his sudden homer burst, Bonds has only raised his average when not homering by eight points from .240 to .248, but his overall batting average has jumped an incredible 51 points from .288 to .339.
None of this proves that Bonds has been using steroids. But it does significantly undermine one of the arguments against that proposition.
The Reality-Based Community? Part XI
Is Bush the Anti-Christ? That's the question posed by Seattle Weekly writer Tim Appelo.
Lang is not using "Antichrist" in a tone of bitter sarcasm, as many do. Google "George Bush is the Antichrist," and you'll get a startling list of Web sites that argue the case, but with sardonic intent and whimsical 666-numerological riffs. Unwhimsical pundit Robert Wright, who attended Cavalry Baptist in Bush's Midland, Texas, hometown, uses modern science to puzzle out what may be God's plan in his bold book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. When he notes in Slate magazine that he supported John Kerry because "He's a long way from being the Messiah, but at least he's not the anti-Christ," Wright says not to take this as gospel. "Obviously, I was kidding—Bush isn't literally the Antichrist. But I do think he could conceivably do some pretty cataclysmic damage to the world. . . ." Even Christian Bush-basher Miller urgently distances himself from the Bush-as- Antichrist meme that's sweeping the Web: "The last thing I want is for someone to say, 'Bob Miller thinks Bush is the Antichrist!'"
It's funny that most liberals don't believe in God; but they are starting to believe in the anti-Christ.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Blogger Roundup
Superhawk has an interesting post on Pearl Harbor Day (I am ashamed to admit that this year, for some reason, December 7th didn't ring a bell the way June 6th or September 11th always do).
My buddy from abpc, Mmmbacon has a great post on the day he almost killed his brother.
Liberal Utopia suggests that the Republicans should not make any deals with the lame duck Democrats in Congress. (Warning, this blog takes awhile to load).
More on Pearl Harbor Day at Kitty Litter and ACE.
Blair's England: For Better Robberies
Here's a column by Mark Steyn that's not quite as amusing as his usual efforts, but instructive, nevertheless. Steyn takes on the rash of home invasions in the UK. Talking about a burglary where the robbers used the simple expedient of knocking on the door and killing the person who came to answer it, Steyn writes:
Various reassuring types, from police spokesmen to the Economist, described the stabbing of the Moncktons as a "burglary gone wrong". If only more burglaries could go right, they imply, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.
But the trouble is that this kind of burglary - the kind most likely to go "wrong" - is now the norm in Britain. In America, it's called a "hot" burglary - a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present - or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term. Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.
Monday, December 06, 2004
Power Ratings after Week 13
The AFC continues to dominate with nine of the top ten teams. Things are so bad in the NFC that the sixth worst team in the NFL, the Rams, are leading their division.
NE 113.3
Ind 112.3
Phi 112.0
Pit 107.4
SD 106.8
NYJ 106.4
Bal 105.5
KC 104.0
Den 103.6
Buf 103.4
GB 101.7
TB 100.2
Jax 100.1
Cin 100.0
Min 99.7
Atl 99.4
Car 98.4
Cle 98.1
Was 97.9
Ten 97.3
Sea 97.0
Hou 97.0
Chi 96.7
Det 96.4
Oak 96.3
NYG 96.2
StL 95.2
Dal 94.4
Mia 94.2
AZ 93.0
NO 90.2
SF 86.2
Easy Jibe
Liz Smith reports on Michael Moore's recent depression:
"He was so unhappy over Bush's win, he didn't roll out of bed for three days," reports gossip columnist Liz Smith, after chatting with the left-wing movie man.
And we do mean "roll" out of bed.
Ben Stein's Funny
Here's a humorous little article by Ben on his experiences with the small nods and winks from Red Staters stuck in Blue States.
This is the way it is here. We meet in smoky places. We give the high sign, we nod knowingly. We are like members of the Maquis in Occupied France. Or early Christians emerging from the catacombs in Caligula's Rome. We are the GOP in Hollywood, and on the West Side of L.A. The culture here is so dominantly left-wing, PC, vegan, hate-America that many of us feel we have to behave as if we were underground.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Week 13 Thoughts
1. The Jets moved a lot closer to a playoff berth, as they won while their two leading competitors for the two wild card slots (Denver and Baltimore) both lost.
2. Donovan McNabb threw for an Eagles' record 464 yards against the Packers. The odd thing is that the high yardage games usually show up in comeback attempts, but the Eagles never trailed and indeed seemed to be rubbing the Packers' noses in the dirt by the end of the game. Bad blood from last year's playoffs? McNabb making a statement that he should be MVP?
3. Peyton Manning didn't do much to move his case forward, with three TDs balanced by 2 interceptions. McNabb is at 29-5, while Manning has 44-9. McNabb adds something more to his teams in running (he has 185 yards compared to Manning's 17 yards), and his team is 11-1 compared to 9-3 for the Colts.
4. The losses by Denver and Baltimore the last two weeks have brought new life to the Cincinnati Bengals, who suddenly find themselves only a game out of the playoffs. They have a tie-breaker over the Broncos but not the Ravens.
5. While St. Louis is currently in the lead for the final NFC Wild Card, they have a tough schedule ahead, playing at Carolina and Arizona, and home against Philly and the Jets. Actually, Carolina may look like they're playing well lately, with four straight wins, but they've been playing some pretty wimpy teams with San Francisco, Arizona, Tampa Bay and New Orleans doing their respective Washington Generals imitation.
6. Chad Hutchison kept Jeff George on the bench!
Not All Seeds Are Created Equal
I took a look at how the respective seeds had done in the playoffs. Since 1988, the 32 top seeds have combined for 17 total appearances in the big game, for a 53% chance of playing for the Lombardi Trophy. No real surprise here--the chalk usually wins. When they stumble, the #2 seeds usually pick up the slack. They have accounted for 10 of the remaining 15 Super Bowl contestants, or 31% of all appearances.
The third and fourth seeds make up the remainder, as no fifth or sixth seed has made it to the big dance since 1988 (I believe the 1985 New England Patriots are the only fifth seed ever to appear in the Super Bowl). Oddly, the fourth seed has done better, with four appearances compare to only one for the third seed.
Actually, though, it's not so odd. Back in the days when there were only three divisions in each conference, it was quite possible for the fourth seed to be better than the third seeds. Starting from 1990, when the NFL went to having six teams in the postseason from each conference, to 2001, when the fourth seed stopped being a wild card team, the fourth seeds in the AFC combined for a 131-61 record, versus a combined 123-69 for the AFC third seeds. The fourth seeds in the NFC combined for a 130-62 record, as compared to 125-66-1 for the NFC third seeds.
But... that situation no longer applies. Now the third seed will have no worse than an equal record to the fourth seed, and so far they have finished well above the fourth seeds. The AFC third seeds the last two years have combined for a 22-9-1 record versus 19-13 for the fourth seeds. The NFC third seeds have gone 23-9 versus 20-12 for the fourth seeds.
Week 13 Marquee Game
Obviously the big one is the rematch of last year's NFL Divisional Playoff between the Packers and the Eagles. The Packers needed only to hold on fourth and 26 to win that game; instead they gave up a 27-yard pass.
Both teams come in with solid momentum; the Packers have won six straight while the Eagles have notched three consecutive easy wins. The Packers this year have a negative home field advantage (-3 points), which is to say they've played better on the road (4-1) this year than at home (3-3). The Eagles come in with an average HFA of 2.8 points per game.
The spreadsheet sees this as an easy, two-touchdown win for Philly. It's safe to say that most observers are not expecting that; the Packers have been playing well. They have outscored their opponents the last six weeks by 97 points while the Eagles have outscored theirs by 55. On the other hand, the Packers have faced a pretty easy schedule over that run (average opponent rating of 96.4), while the Eagles have had average competition (average opponent rating of 100.0).
The Packers obviously have something to play for, with Minnesota having an easier game at Chicago. The Packers are looking at a fifth seed in the playoffs, which virtually guarantees three road playoff games between you and the Super Bowl. I can think of one team that has won three road playoff games to make it to the dance--any trivia buffs out there care to guess?
The Eagles also have something to play for: Home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The last I looked at the matter, home teams won about 68% of all playoff games and the team with the HFA throughout the playoffs made it to the Super Bowl about 1/2 the time. If the Eagles lose that would drop them into a nominal tie with Atlanta, but it looks like Philly has the tie-breaker in that they beat Detroit and Atlanta lost to the Lions. So obviously Philly has less urgency than the Packers.
The line is only Eagles -6, so overall I'd have to pick the Eagles. But this is one of those games that I'd be spooked from betting because there's too much else out there.
Friday, December 03, 2004
The Return of Jeff George
He's one of my least favorite players of all time, the original "million-dollar arm and ten-cent head".
According to one article I read, George was so eager to come back to the NFL that he reportedly was willing to donate his salary to charity. My response was to ask whether he was willing to learn to read defenses. George was quoted during his last NFL stint in 2001 as saying that reading defenses was overrated.
My attitude has always been that every athlete brings two things to the game; his athletic abilities and his mind. An example from my softball days comes to mind. I always used to try to pay attention to what pitchers did with their "cripple" pitch; the pitch they throw when they are behind in the count 2-0 or 3-1. This one day the opposing pitcher got in this situation early in the game. He gave an exaggerated, "here comes the speedball" motion, and then lobbed the ball over the plate. The batter, who was way out in front of the pitch, hit the ball hard, but foul by a mile. So when I worked my way to a 3-1 count in the seventh inning, I was ready, and crushed that lob pitch over the leftfielder's head for an easy homer.
A lot of athletes like George are so gifted physically that they never develop their mental skills.
Pondering the Imponderable
Captain Ed catches Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell suggesting that had 9-11 never happened, John Kerry would have been elected President. Ed uses that as a jumping off point to suggest other events that, had they never occured, would have changed history as well, to which I would just add that had Lincoln never been died he would be beginning his 36th term as President.
Would John Kerry have been elected if 9-11 had not taken place? I suppose you could construct a narrow argument that without the focus on national security the election would have turned on the economy and jobs, issues on which the Democrats are presumed to have an advantage (God only knows why). But of course, taking 9-11 out of the picture also means that we have to take out the effect of 9-11 on the economy and jobs, which undeniably was strongly negative.
You'd also have to assume that President Bush would not have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, so the "anti-war" movement would not have started. Howard Dean would not have been the front-runner last December, which would have meant that John Kerry might never have emerged as the "electable" alternative to Dean. Indeed a lot of people have speculated that Kerry's comeback among the Democrats was largely due to his war record. Would that have mattered if there had been no war?
Giambi: Good News/Bad News?
Now that Jason Giambi has apparently admitted using steroids, I couldn't help thinking that the explosion of money for premier athletes is kind of a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that you'll make a ton of money, the bad news is that you'll probably ruin your health long term so that you can't enjoy all that money you've made in your old age.
The local radio loudmouths were speculating about Luis Gonzalez, noting his incredible 2001 campaign and that he had not put up numbers like that before or since. That part is true; Gonzo hit 57 homers in 2001 versus a high of 31, and slugged .688 versus a prior high of .549. Of course, the problem with this line of analysis is that lots of players have career years seemingly out of nowhere. Roger Maris hit 61 homers in 1961; his high except for that was 39. Would anyone care to suggest that Maris was doing 'roids during the Kennedy Administration?
Should the Democrats Compromise Their Positions?
The other day I wrote this:
Matthews admitted that the Democrats don't have a majority of the country behind them. But then he posed the question--would we compromise our positions to get to 51%? So why should we expect the Democrats to do so?
My answer is no, they should not compromise their positions. But, as I wrote a few days ago, they should start being honest about them.
The Democrats are caught in a trap. They can't be honest about their true positions on certain social issues (abortion, gay marriage, gun control) without losing votes. So they try being dishonest (or disingenuous) about those positions, but the voters are smart enough to see through the fog.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Tough Question on Abortion
I'm not a big fan of Chris Matthews, but he raised two arguments on the Laura Ingraham show this morning that I found very interesting.
Matthews admitted that the Democrats don't have a majority of the country behind them. But then he posed the question--would we compromise our positions to get to 51%? So why should we expect the Democrats to do so?
I have an answer to that one, but I'd love to hear from you folks first, so I'll post it in a follow-up to this post.
The second argument was very tough, and I'll admit I don't have an answer for it. On the issue of abortion, Matthews pointed out that if we really think it's murder, are we willing to punish the women with anything like the sentence we dole out for murder, and if not, why?
Laura said something about how the women were victims too, which did not seem convincing. Of course, some may be victims of rape or incest, but I suspect that the vast majority of women seeking abortions do not fall into that category.
I'm definitely not saying that I would put a woman in jail for life for an abortion. But what is the logic of that position? If a life is a life, then why should she not get life? We do seem to have quite a bit of tolerance even for infant-killing among mothers, who seldom get more than a few years except in the sensational cases. But it's still a couple of years. What should be the punishment if abortion were made illegal?
 Politically Incorrect Comics 
Here's a classic politically incorrect comic from the late 1940s. As you can see, the man is drinking booze and beating up his kid. This is always a mistake, since he might spill some. ;)
Lucky Teams
Paul mentioned in the comments that he thinks the Jets are lucky, and that the Rams are probably better than they are. I disagreed about the latter issue, but he appears to have a point about the former.
Let's start out by defining lucky. Lucky is simply when your record does not seem justified by your other statistics. For simplicity's sake I decided to look at the comparison between Net Points (Points Scored minus Points Allowed) and Net Wins (Games Won minus Games Lost). After looking at the last three seasons, I determined that the most accurate formula appears to be Net Points divided by 18 equals Net Wins. The Jets have 57 net points, divided by 18 means the Jets should be 3.2 games above .500. Since they are actually 5 games above .500, they appear to be lucky by about 1.8 games. Converting that into a Won/Lost record, they should be more like 7-4 than 8-3. Lucky, but nothing unusual. By this measure, Atlanta is the luckiest team in the league. They have 17 net points which should equate to a 6-5 record, not 9-2. By this measure, Pittsburgh, New England, Jacksonville, St. Louis and Dallas are all luckier than the Jets.
The unluckiest teams this year are Kansas City, Miami, Tampa Bay, Indianapolis, Cleveland and Buffalo, each of whom should have at least one more win and one fewer loss given their point differential. Green Bay is the only team that exactly matches its anticipated record, with 54 Net Points and 3 Net Wins.
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