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“Andre Recalled That They Mostly Talked About Cricket”

June 21, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Sports | Permalink

This Open Culture post about Samuel Beckett driving a young Andre the Giant to school nearly made my brain may explode. An excerpt:

“In 1958, when 12-year-old André’s acromegaly prevented him from taking the school bus, the author of Waiting for Godot, whom he knew as his dad’s card buddy and neighbor in rural Moulien, France, volunteered for transport duty. It was a standing gig, with no other passengers. André recalled that they mostly talked about cricket, but surely they discussed other topics, too, right? Right!?”

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“The U.S. Is Still Catching Up From Missing The World Cup From 1950 To 1990”

June 19, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

In his Priceonomics essay, “Why Are Some Countries Good at Soccer?” Alex Mayyasi lays out some of the reasons why the U.S. doesn’t have a pretty record at the beautiful game without touching on the most obvious one: Our best athletes lack financial incentive to commit to the sport. Imagine our team if Lebron James and Billy Hamilton and Calvin Johnson played only soccer from when they were young. That’s what would happen if they were raised in countries where that sport is king, but it’s not the case in America, where more immediate monetary rewards come from other athletics. While a soccer salary in Europe can be stratospheric, there’s a lot of distance a talented American youth athlete would have to travel, figuratively as well as literally, to secure one. Their odds for winning the lottery are better if they concentrate on sports that are popular domestically. From Mayyasi:

“Current U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann has cited the lack of soccer culture in the United States as an obstacle, saying that ‘One thing is certain: The American kids need hundreds and even thousands more hours to play.’ FiveThirtyEight recently reviewed the work of Stefan Szymanski, author of Soccernomics, which found that the best predictor of a country’s success in the World Cup is the number of games the national team had played. According to Szymanski, this means the U.S. men’s national team not only has less experience, but it has missed out on adapting strategy from the rest of the world by playing significantly fewer games — the U.S. is still catching up from missing the World Cup from 1950 to 1990.

After all, the thesis of the 10,000 hour rule, as debated by psychologists, is not merely that masters need lots of practice, but that the type of practice matters. Klinsmann, the U.S. head coach, has placed  on recruiting Americans who play in European leagues and face ‘the best competition in the world on a daily basis instead of only a few games every few years,’ as is the case for MLS players on the World Cup team.

Similarly, aspects of the U.S. youth soccer system seems to keep young players from engaging in ‘deliberate practice’ as much as their peers elsewhere. In America, young players compete in dozens and even hundreds of games every year — games that crowd out time that European youths spend practicing skills and fundamentals. ‘It’s counterproductive to learning,’ John Hackworth, the former under-17 national team coach, tells the New York Times, ‘and the No. 1 worst thing we do.’ And while foreign teams prioritize development by giving star players extra attention and allowing them to play with older and better players, the American focus on winning and the team keeps youth soccer in America from shaping future stars of the national team.”

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Old Print Article: “30,000 File Past Rickard’s Casket In Solemn March,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1929)

June 18, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Even in death, Tex Rickard knew how to give them a show. The “them” in this case would be the admiring public who showed up in the tens of thousands to the wake of the boxing promoter, which was held in the ring area of Madison Square Garden. He was most famous for being the honest fight promoter who wouldn’t allow fixes or mismatches, whose affiliation with Jack Dempsey helped create the first million-dollar gates and who, in 1921, brought boxing to American radio audiences for the first time, introducing sports to mass media. But Rickard’s life went far beyond organized fisticuffs. He built both MSG (the third iteration) and Boston Gardens, he was a Texas marshal, an Alaska gold prospector, a gambling hall and bar proprietor, a longtime friend of Wyatt Earp, and the founder and first owner of the NHL’s New York Rangers. The grand man was sadly felled by an appendectomy gone bad a few days after his fifty-ninth birthday.

From the January 9, 1929 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article about his final “show”:

“In the center of the great arena of Madison Square Garden, that Tex Rickard’s showmanship built, the body of the fight promoter lay in state today while the thousands who had admired him in life filed by in silence for a final view of Tex Rickard in death.

Seventy-five or more a minute they passed the bronze casket under a blanket of red and white flowers. One line to the left and one to the right. One from the 49th St. entrance and the other from 50th St. Five thousand passed and looked in the first hour, 10,000 by noon, some 30,000 before the funeral service began at 2 p.m. The Rev. Caleb Moor, pastor of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, officiated. The burial was to follow in Woodlawn Cemetery, the Bronx.

Actresses in sable coats, longshoremen, washwomen, policemen, bankers, lawyers, children in arms, millionaires, paupers, racetrack touts, Broadway hangers-on, ministers of the Gospel…it was a strange double procession that turned out toward the 8th Ave. exit or melted away in silence among the seats there to wait for the formal services later on.

Never before had this Madison Square Garden, Rickard’s own ‘temple of sports,’ seen such a phenomenon, and no doubt will never again.

Here had been skeptical crowds, enthusiastic crowds, cheering crowds, savage crowds that snarled and called for blood. Here had been lights and gongs sounding, jazz orchestras playing, the thud of leather against human jaws, the clink of skates on the hockey ice, the whirl of six-day bicycle racers. Today dim lights pierced the shadows up there near the roof, and from the tiny windows came streaks of shadowy daylight that only added to the dark.

$15,000 Casket

The body of Rickard, in immaculate evening clothes, lay in the $15,000 bronze casket on a slightly raised platform in the very center of what had been the prize fighting ring, the rink of the hockey players. From the shoulders down nothing was visible but the roses–roses, red and white. At the casket’s head stood Sgt. Timothy Murphy, longtime friend of the promoter, at a straight and stern attention, without moving muscle as the hours dragged by. Motionless as Rickard himself.

Clustered palms formed a sort of green cathedral nave around the altar on which were the remains of the man who had risen from Texas cow puncher to a world figure. And in dimness nothing else was visible except the spot of green, the dull, motley moving files, the flowers, the somber purple and the black splotches of crepe and here and there the bright blue uniform of a Garden attendant.

And for sound, only the shuffling feet of thousands of silent mourners.

Outside the crowd grew and grew. There had been perhaps 5,000 when the doors were thrown open shortly after 10 a.m. A bit of unruliness developed then when the mounted police in an effort to line the mourners up in twos rode up on the sidewalks. Soon this quieted down. By twos and twos they formed thereafter, beginning at the side entrances and extending gradually out to 8th Ave., to 9th and to 10th. Shortly after midday some 15,000 were waiting to follow those who had already entered.

Earlier in the morning the young Mrs. Rickard had come in with Jack Dempsey and Walter Field, assistant and close friend of the dead man. They sat down beside the casket. For a brief interval there, alone with these two men in the amphitheater, Mrs. Rickard wept over her dead. There was a gigantic piece of carnations and forget-me-nots from the employees of the Garden. The New York Rangers, Rickard’s own hockey team, sent a huge wreath, and their rivals, the Americans, offered another. … Many of the big dealers in New York found themselves stripped of flowers before midnight as a steady stream of orders poured in. Smaller dealers were asked to contribute and did. And all night long, even into this morning, huge pieces of floral offerings were being carried into the cavernlike old Garden, which had suddenly become a glimmering, brilliant bed of beauty.

Draped in Beauty

The Garden entrance was draped in black. Inside there were patches of black. Inside, however, were the flowers, and all the somberness of the crepe could not take away their brilliance. They said that even the Valentino funeral, which brought thousands of floral pieces, did not approach the Rickard ceremony.”

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“On This Day, Muhammad Ali And Wilt Chamberlain Will Agree To Face Each Other In A 15-Round Boxing Match”

June 16, 2014 in Sports, Videos | Permalink

Wilt Chamberlain was a remarkable athlete (basketball, volleyball, track and field), but it’s probably a good thing he never realized his dream to fight Muhammad Ali. Howard Cosell presides over the ridiculousness, as he often did.

From East Side Boxing:

Springtime, 1971. Inside an office within the Houston Astrodome, a most unusual negotiation is about to take place. Seated at one end of the table is Muhammad Ali, former Heavyweight Champion of the World and self-proclaimed greatest fighter of all time. Next to him: Bob Arum, the former Justice Department attorney turned boxing promoter who had worked with Ali since his 1966 fight with George Chuvalo. 

A few minutes later, they are joined by one of the most imposing figures in all of sport, the towering titan of professional basketball Wilt Chamberlain. Ali and Chamberlain knew each other well and had appeared together on numerous occasions in the past, from television talk shows to press conferences addressing civil rights issues. The purpose of this meeting, however, was far different from their previous encounters.

Today no media cameras are present, no reporters scramble for sound bites. The two most famous athletes in the world isolated themselves within the cavernous empty stadium to quietly discuss an event without precedent in the annals of sport. For on this day, Muhammad Ali and Wilt Chamberlain will agree to face each other in a 15-round boxing match, to be held in the Astrodome on July 26, 1971. 

For Chamberlain, fighting Ali represented the pinnacle in his quest to conquer not only his own sport, but the entire sporting world.•

“Dad Was Such A Scientific Man”

June 16, 2014 in Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

Seeing the painful family dispute over Casey Kasem’s dying body reminded me of all the rumors and accusations that surrounded Ted Williams’ death a dozen years ago. The late baseball great’s grieving family experienced a serious rift when two of his children, John-Henry and Claudia, chose to have their patriarch’s remains cryonically frozen despite that action not being outlined in his will. Another child, Bobby-Jo Ferrell, disagreed vehemently with the decision. The family feud was quickly attended by lawyers and a media furor. 

Claudia, a nurse, has just published a book to try to address what she believes are misconceptions about the controversy. She recently sat for an interview with ESPN’s Buster Olney, contending that her father had an abiding interest in cryonics, which stemmed in part from his friendship with astronaut John Glenn. Olney asks absolutely zero tough questions, which is disappointing, but here’s a transcript of Claudia Williams’ comments:

“Daddy met John Glenn when he was flying in Korea. He actually was his wingman. Daddy would protect John Glenn wherever he was flying. Dad flew in back because pilots oftentimes can’t see very well behind them, so that was Dad’s responsibility. John Glenn is quoted as saying Dad was one of the best pilots he had ever seen. They forged a friendship during the Korean War, and throughout their whole lives they stayed friends, and when it came time for John Glenn to go back up in space, you know, the two of them got together and started talking, and the stories that they shared are probably one of the reasons we became even more interested than we already were in science. A lot of people don’t realize this but they did an extensive amount of research and tests on John Glenn when he went up in space, and it was all related to aging and reversing the aging process. Now think about that–that’s huge. And Dad became very interested in that, very intrigued, and he kept telling John-Henry, ‘You get on that World Wide Web of yours because I want to know exactly what’s going on with John, I want to know what they’re doing, everything they’re researching.’ … It’s not like we woke up one day and said, ‘You know, we’re all going to get cryogenically preserved.’ No, not at all. It was a journey. It’s a transition that happened through life and life’s painful experiences that we finally got to that point, and especially since you consider, you know, we didn’t grow up with religion, and Dad was such a scientific man.”

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“He Spoke Up On Behalf Of The Dictatorship”

June 15, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Two World Cup-related excerpts from Franklin Foer, New Republic editor and football fanatic. The first is from an Ask Me Anything at Reddit and the second from his excellent TNR article about the mixed legacy of Brazilian soccer, including a largely forgotten chapter in Pele’s life.

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“Question:

What do you think of the protests in Brazil? Is hosting the World Cup good for the people of Brazil in the long run?

Franklin Foer:

Over the past decade, the Brazilian middle class has exploded. A broad swath of the population has been lifted from poverty. This is a great thing and an amazing accomplishment of Lula’s party, the PT. But the new middle class has very sensible concerns about the expenditure of public money. They are asking very wise questions about a ridiculous 11 billion price tag; they aren’t falling for the old bread-and-circus routine. I don’t foresee the protests in Brazil spinning violently out of control. In the long run, this tournament isn’t great for Brazil. It highlights the country’s shortcomings, rather than affirming its greatness. I wish the Brazilians had focused their infrastructure planning and expenditure on a more limited number of cities and venues. This would have contained costs and created a greater likelihood of success.”

____________________________

From The New Republic:

“Over time, Brazil grew dangerously dependent on soccer. It came to define the nation in the eyes of the world, and it played an outsized role in its own sense of self-worth. Victories came so easily during the ’60s and ’70s that the country didn’t just demand trophies; they wanted those triumphs procured with what Freyre called Futebol Arte and what the world knows as Jogo Bonito, the beautiful game. As one coach of the national team complained, ‘It got to the point where we beat Bolivia 6-0 and one newspaper in São Paulo accused us of playing defensively.’

The almost unbearable pressure on managers inevitably led the team away from improvisational genius. The tactics used to win the 1994 World Cup—perhaps the worst World Cup of them all—squelched inventiveness and favored the deployment of pragmatic hard men, who had a greater skill at knocking opponents off the ball than running at them with step-over dribbling.

And there was a far graver cost to success than that. Dictators and aspiring dictators skillfully harnessed mass enthusiasm for the game. Getúlio Vargas, the authoritarian leader who presided from 1930 to 1945, explicitly used soccer to create a new sense of national identity, a campaign of brasilidade, or Brazilization—and to ballast his own power. He built stadiums, then held rallies in them. His successors mimicked this approach. During the reign of the military dictatorship in the ’70s, the government plastered Pelé’s face on posters alongside its slogan: ‘NOBODY CAN STOP THIS COUNTRY NOW.’

Pelé, it should be remembered as you watch him in commercials for Subway’s $5 foot-long, didn’t just lend his visage to the cause; he spoke up on behalf of the dictatorship. ‘We are a free people. Our leaders know what is best for [us],’ he said in 1972. At that very moment, the writer David Zirin has noted, Brazil’s current president, Dilma Rousseff, was being tortured in prison.”

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“Cockfighting Remains Legal There”

June 15, 2014 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

Here’s an uncommon sports-page paragraph, from Nick Cafardo in the Boston Globe:

“I was interested to learn that Juan Nieves’s father’s occupation was training and fighting roosters in the cockfighting arenas of Puerto Rico. Nieves grew up in that environment, and cockfighting remains legal there. Years ago, I ventured out with the late Ivan Calderon to some cockfighting events in Puerto Rico. Calderon had a stable of roosters, approximately 200, that he trained. The matches were gruesome. Calderon was murdered in 2003 when he wouldn’t give up his son’s whereabouts in a drug deal gone bad.”

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“To Test This Theory In The Real World, We Can Study Penalty Kicks”

June 13, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

The effect of the World Cup on the Brazilian economy will be studied from every and any angle, but even within the game itself, some economic principles can be tested. From Ignacio Palacios-Huerta’s New York Times article, “The Beautiful Data Set“:

“The economist John Forbes Nash Jr. analyzed how people should behave in strategic situations in which it is not optimal to repeatedly make the same move — like the children’s game rock, paper, scissors, in which selecting one move again and again (rock, rock, rock …) makes you easy to beat. According to Mr. Nash’s theory, in a zero-sum game (i.e., where a win for one player entails a corresponding loss for the other) the best approach is to vary your moves unpredictably and in such proportions that your probability of winning is the same for each move. In rock, paper, scissors, for example, the optimal strategy is to mix your choices randomly among the three options.

To test this theory in the real world, we can study penalty kicks, which are zero-sum games in which it is not optimal to repeatedly choose the same move. (The goalie has an easier time stopping your shot if you always kick to the same side of the net.) Unlike complex real-world strategic situations involving firms, banks or countries, penalty kicks are relatively simple, and data about them are readily available.

I analyzed 9,017 penalty kicks taken in professional soccer games in a variety of countries from September 1995 to June 2012. I found, as Mr. Nash’s theory would predict, that players typically distributed their shots unpredictably and in just the right proportions. Specifically, roughly 60 percent of kicks were made to the right of the net, and 40 percent to the left. The proportions were not 50-50 because players have unequal strengths in their legs and tend to shoot better to one side. Shooting 50-50, in other words, would not take full advantage of their better leg, while shooting any more often to the stronger side would have been too predictable.

In accordance with Mr. Nash’s theory, penalty kicks shot to the left were successful with the same frequency as kicks shot to the right — roughly 80 percent of the time.”

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“If You Had A Bad Run…For A Moment It Hurts”

June 11, 2014 in Sports, Videos | Permalink

Here’s the full 22-minute version of Paul Ryan’s excellent 1969 documentary, “Ski Racing,” which uses bold editing and FM radio rock to help profile that era’s world-class downhill racers. One of the pros included is Vladimir “Spider” Sabich who would die horribly in 1976 in an infamous crime.

From the 1974 Sports Illustrated article, “The Spider Who Finally Came In From The Cold“:

In selling the tour, the sales pitch is not pegged strictly to exciting races and the crack skiers but also to its colorful personalities. There is Sabich, who flies, races motorcycles and figures that a night in which he hasn’t danced on at least one tabletop is a night wasted. Jim Lillstrom, Beattie’s P.R. man, also enjoys checking off some of the other characters.Norway’s Terje Overland is known as the Aquavit Kid for the boisterous post-victory celebrations he has thrown. He’s also been known to pitch over a fully laden restaurant table when the spirits have so moved him. Then there is the poet, Duncan Cullman, of Twin Mountain, N.H., author of The Selected Heavies of Duncan Duck, published at his own expense, who used to travel the tour with a gargantuan, bearded manservant. And Sepp Staffler, a popular Austrian, who plays guitar and sitar and performs nightly at different lounges in Great Gorge, N.J. when he isn’t competing. The ski tour also has its very own George Blanda. That would be blond, wispy Anderl Molterer, the 40-year-old Austrian, long a world class racer and still competitive.

Pro skiing’s immediate success, however, seems to depend on an authentic rivalry building up between Sabich and [Billy] Kidd, who are close friends but whose living styles are as diverse as snow and sand. Sabich is freewheeling on his skis as well as on tabletops. Kidd is thoughtful, earnest, a perfectionist. Spider has his flying, his motorcycles and drives a Porsche 911-E. Billy paints and now drives a Volvo station wagon. Spider enjoys the man-to-man challenge of the pro circuit. Billy harbors some inner doubts regarding his ability to adapt to it.•

“Sport Originally Evolved As A Way Of Showing Off Our Genetic Fitness”

June 11, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

There are hundreds of baseball players who’ve gotten special dispensation to use amphetamines in one form or another for “medical reasons,” which makes little sense. Yet a player trying to rehab from a legitimate injury with use of HGH under a doctor’s guidance isn’t allowed to do so. There are enough loopholes and inconsistencies in every sport’s drug policy to boggle the mind. 

From “A Doping Manifesto,” Julian Savulescu’s Aeon argument in favor of the allowance of some sorts of PEDS:

“Sport originally evolved as a way of showing off our genetic fitness. Displaying great speed, strength, intelligence, ingenuity and co-ordination in public demonstrated to potential mates your capability to survive and reproduce. It appears that we haven’t come far. One French study by Charlotte Faurie, Dominique Pontier and Michel Raymond published in Evolution and Human Behavior in 2004 reported that: ‘Both male and female students who compete in sports reported significantly higher numbers of partners than other students, and within the athletes, higher levels of performance predicted more partners.’ Perhaps because of the status bestowed by athletic prowess, sportsmanship – the spirit of sport – has come to embody the values we promote in society as a whole. As Dick Pound of WADA said: ‘You respect the rules, you respect your opponents, you respect yourself. You play fair. I think that bleeds over into life as well.’

The values behind the spirit of sport are defined by WADA as: ethics, fair play and honesty; health; excellence in performance; character and education; fun and joy; teamwork; dedication and commitment; respect for rules and laws; respect for self and other participants; courage; and community and solidarity.

Sport is meant to show humans ‘at their best’. It allows us to demonstrate determination, striving, struggling and conquering. Sport is also meant to capture the human spirit. That’s why, the argument goes, if doping were legal it would still be cheating, because sport would no longer be testing those fundamental human virtues and capacities, but would merely showcase the wonders of the modern pharmaceutical industry (or your other favourite supplier of dope).

Yet doping is not always contrary to these values.”

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“The World Cup In Brazil Will Be The Biggest Media Event In History”

June 10, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

From “What Does Soccer Mean Today,” Ryan O’Hanlon’s Pacific Standard interview with writer Simon Kuper, an exchange about the effect of globalization on the world’s game, which has made interest somewhat shallower but much wider:

“Pacific Standard:

Some have said that this globalization has lessened the importance of the World Cup. Basically, anyone with an Internet connection can watch any game. And with club soccer, they’re watching better, more cohesive teams. Where do you see the World Cup fitting within all that?

Simon Kuper:

It’s still the most meaningful for players and for fans, so your career can be made in a minute. You score a brilliant goal or you score a terrible own goal at the World Cup, and that marks you for the rest of your life just because of the interest and the meaning that people attach to it is still much higher—even though all the things you say are true. What’s special about the World Cup—if you go back to before the World Cup in the U.S., very few Americans were interested, very few Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Indonesians, so really, the biggest countries in the world were excluded. And now each World Cup really is a World Cup, so in that sense it’s much more wider and deeper than it used to be. And I think that’s quite thrilling: The idea that when somebody plays, he’s watched by people literally all over the world. It’s the most uniting event in our planet’s history, given the increase in global communication. The World Cup in Brazil will be the biggest media event in history, judged by numbers of viewers and numbers of clicks, and there’s something majestic about that.”

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“He Used An Electronic Computer To Evaluate Each Player’s Performance”

June 5, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports, Videos | Permalink

Numbers being crunched is nothing new to sports, as this 1959 video of the Case Institute of Technology basketball team reminds. The assistant coach was an undergraduate computer whiz named Don Knuth who fed data into an IBM 650 to help improve his school’s chances (when he wasn’t busy freelancing for Mad). An excerpt from an interview at computer history.org in which Knuth recalls the first time he saw a computer:

“Later on in my freshman year there arrived a machine that, at first,  I could see only through the glass window. They called it a computer. I think it was actually called the IBM 650 ‘Univac.’ That was a funny name, because Univac was a competing brand. One night a guy showed me how it worked, and gave me a chance to look at the manual. It was love at first sight. I could sit all night with that machine and play with it.”

Old Print Article: “Engineer Won’t Bare System In $1,000 Joust With Robot,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1951)

June 5, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

“CRC-102 promptly accepted the challenge.”

AI wouldn’t be able to beat the world’s best human chess player for 46 more years, but it was game on in 1951 when an engineer challenged a computer to a $1,000 series of matches. The machine was rudimentary, so the acceptance of the wager came with some suspect conditions. From the November 12, 1951 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Washington–Engineer Donald H. Jacobs, who challenged an electronic ‘brain’ to a $1,000 chess tournament, agreed today to follow the machine’s ring rules, ‘but  won’t teach the thing how to play chess.’

Jacobs, president of the Jacobs Instrument Company of nearby Bethesda, Md., said he was looking forward to matching wits with CRC-102, the ‘brain’s’ technical name.

The only hitch was that the ‘brain’s’ second–the Computer Research Corporation, Torrence, Cal.–said that Jacobs would have to reveal his ‘chess system’ in advance.

‘I’m not going to give away my system to the machine,’ Jacobs said. ‘With that knowledge, any mortal chess player, much less the ‘brain,’ could win with no trouble.’

Jacobs made his ‘gentlemen’s bet’ for the man-versus-machine struggle over 20 games of chess to prove that man still can outthink a machine–at least over a chess board.

‘Although I am a poor chess player,’ he said, ‘pure egotism makes me unwilling to concede that a computing machine can play better than I can.’

CRC-102 promptly accepted the challenge. Engineer Richard E. Sprague, a director of Computer Research, said his ‘champion’ will take on Jacobs ‘any time, any place…and will take him apart.’

Computer Research, which has just developed the first portable electronic digital computer, claims that the ‘brain’–among its other talents–is an unbeatable chess player.

Sprague laid down three ‘ring rules,’ however, before CRC-102 will meet Jacobs in combat.

1. A time limit on the match so that the human contestant doesn’t take ‘a year or so to make up his mind on a move.’

2. Permission to tell the ‘eyeless’ machine what move its human adversary has made ‘so he can make the proper countermove.’

3. Jacobs must provide CRC-102 with his chess system.”

 

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“He Said This Had Been Caused By Heading Footballs”

June 4, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

American football, with its brutal smashmouth style, is something like dogfighting for humans, leaving many players with devastating brain damage. But what about that other sport that the rest of the world calls football, with relatively tamer contact that’s often theatrical, even comical, could it be dangerous to gray matter? Soccer may actually also be quite bad in this regard, with brain injuries caused by jarring headers during the game and thousands of bounces off the skull in practice. From the BBC:

“Ex-England striker Jeff Astle died from a brain condition normally linked to boxers rather than Alzheimer’s disease as previously thought, a neurosurgeon has claimed.

Dr Willie Stewart carried out a new examination of the former West Bromwich Albion forward’s brain.

He said Astle, who died, aged 59, in 2002, was killed by chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

He said this had been caused by heading footballs.

Dr Stewart said CTE was formerly known as dementia pugilistica – a progressive degeneration of the the brain caused by repeated head trauma.

He said the condition was frequently mistaken for dementia, as happened to Astle when he was incorrectly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Astle scored the winning goal in West Brom’s 1-0 victory over Everton in the 1968 FA Cup final

Dr Stewart said he believed a number of footballers could be affected by CTE.”

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“The Result Was Dramatically Uncomputerlike”

May 31, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

I’ve already posted the video of the “fight” between Muhammad Ali and Rocky Marciano, which was filmed scenes of the two then-undefeated heavyweight champions (the latter a long-retired one) with a computer supposedly scientifically deciding the winner. Ali needed a paycheck while living in exile in his own country during his military holdout, and Marciano wanted one more glow of warmth from the spotlight. It was to be his very last hurrah, as it turned out, as the older fighter died in a plane crash soon after the filming concluded. The sadness over his sudden death, the antipathy by some toward Ali during the Vietnam War, and the race of those feeding “expertise” into the computers, probably gave Marciano the hypothetical victory more than science did. In both boxers’ primes, I think Ali would have won convincingly. Here’s the brief copy from a 1970 Life magazine article that ran with photos from the film the week after it played in theaters:

“The only two heavyweight champions who never lost a professional fight are Rocky Marciano and Cassius (Muhammad Ali) Clay, and this has provoked many a nonprofessional fight among their fans. So Miami Promoter Murray Woroner decided to make a hypothetical ‘Super Fight’ of it, using a computer. First he matched the two champions and filmed 75 rounds of Hollywood-style fighting, finishing three weeks before Marciano’s death in a plane crash last summer. Then the skills and weaknesses of each fighter–as diagnosed by 1,500 sportswriters, fighters and managers–were programmed. The computer punched out a blow-by-blow reading and selected film segments were matched to it.

Seven possible endings were shot: a knockout, TKO and decisions for each man, and a draw. To foil any gambling capers, the seven endings were held in bonded secrecy until the last minute. When the film was shown at 750 theaters and arenas around the country last week, the result was dramatically uncomputerlike. Cut to simulated ribbons and even floored once, Marciano came back to knock Clay out in the 13th round. ‘It takes a good champion to lose like that,’ Clay smiled afterwards.”

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“Gaddafi!”

May 26, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Sports | Permalink

Muammar Gaddafi was friends with Steven Seagal and Seagal is friends with Vladimir Putin. Wonder what behavior would link three such men.

At the BBC Magazine, Nigerian-American basketball player Alex Owumi recalls unwittingly signing a contract to play point guard for the Gaddafi family team and getting caught in the crossfire of the Libyan civil war. The opening:

“It was a beautiful flat. Everything was state of the art and it was spacious, too. It had two big living rooms, three big bedrooms, flat screens everywhere. The couches had gold trim and were so big and heavy they were impossible to move. The door to the apartment was reinforced steel, like on a bank vault.

It was 27 December 2010 and I had just arrived in Benghazi, Libya’s second biggest city, to play basketball for a team called Al-Nasr Benghazi. I had stayed in some nice places playing for teams in Europe, but this seventh-floor apartment in the middle of town was something else. It was like the Taj Mahal.

I didn’t immediately notice the photographs dotted around the place – of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi and his grandchildren.

When I did, I phoned the team president – we called him Mr Ahmed – and he told me how it was. ‘The apartment belongs to Mutassim Gaddafi, the Colonel’s son,’ he said. ‘Al-Nasr is the Gaddafi club. You are playing for the Gaddafi family.’

Gaddafi! When I was a young kid growing up in Africa – I was born in Nigeria – Gaddafi was someone we all looked up to. He was always on the news and in the paper, helping out countries like Niger and Nigeria. I thought of him as one of the faces of Africa – him and Nelson Mandela. As a kid I wasn’t really aware of any of the bad things he was doing. Maybe I was too busy playing sports.

In my first practice with my new teammates there was a weird atmosphere.”

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“Offensive Assistant: Tarzan”

May 22, 2014 in Excerpts, Sports | Permalink

Mike Leach wasn’t only a radically innovative offensive mind while coach at Texas Tech but also an eccentric who made for great copy. Unfortunately, his obsessions with history and his myriad oddities were so alluring to journalists (Michael Lewis among them) in search of a salable narrative that most of them never dug deep enough. Leach was ultimately fired from his post for serious misconduct in his treatment of his players. He’s now the head coach for Washington State University. His fixation on certain historical periods and his new book about Geronimo and leadership, which seems ready-made for the corporate-lecture circuit, were central to an Ask Me Anything he just did at Reddit. A few exchanges follow.

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Question:

I know you are big history buff, if you had to fill your coaching staff with historical figures who would you choose? For the sake of discussion you can’t pick a sports figure.

Mike Leach:

Head Coach: George Washington. Offensive Coordinator: Geronimo. Offensive Assistant: Tarzan. Defensive Coordinator: Winston Churchill. Defensive Assistant: Daniel Boone.

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Question:

The team is down by 15 with four minutes left when it punches in the ball on the outside zone read that hasn’t worked all day but finally beats the WILL who’s starting to dog it late in the game. Geronimo is the head coach. Does he go for 2 now, or kick the PAT and wait for the second opportunity?

Mike Leach:

Geronimo’s speed and tenacity in adverse conditions is going to allow him and his band of Chiricahua Apaches to score swiftly with that much time left. Illustrated in my book, “Geronimo: Leadership Strategies of an American Warrior,” they prepared for situations like this and were raised to respond to them starting as children. They would never flinch in a situation like this. Going for 1 or 2 would be based on their evaluation of the opponent, the terrain, and the resources they had to work with.

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Question:

What characteristic of Geronimo’s do you most look up to and how has he influenced your coaching?

Mike Leach:

I have read about and studied Geronimo for a long time since I was a child. In writing the book with Buddy Levy, and articulating a lot of these things, I discovered that I have been sharing a lot of these philosophies and stories with my teams for years. Among many others, Geronimo’s life story illustrates that a lot of impossible things are possible, everybody can work harder than they think they can, everybody is tougher than they think they are, but it is starts with the proper preparation, attitude, and philosophy. One of the most exciting parts of writing the book was the opportunity to discover a lot of interesting specifics on what made the Apaches what they were.

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Question:

Who is your favorite pirate?

Mike Leach:

The most exciting pirate is Edward Teach (Blackbeard). Probably the most productive one, and someone I would be fascinated to study more closely, would be Bartholomew Roberts.•

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“Like A Turtle He Shrank Into Himself And Gathered His World About Him”

May 12, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

Bobby Fischer seemed just another American eccentric, trying to write his own ticket because the rules of the game weren’t expansive enough to contain his genius. But he was imploding from the start–deeply ill, not just a diva. Two excerpts from Bard Darrach’s troubling 1971 Life magazine portrait of Fischer in Buenos Aires, as he was on the precipice of becoming the first World Chess Federation number-one ranked player.

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In the lobby people rushed up to Fischer from all directions. He looked startled and irritated. Argentina is chess-crazy (there are 60 chess clubs in Buenos Aires alone) and for more than a month he had been stalked day and night by Latin adoration. A white-haired man collared him now and spoke earnestly. A young girl grabbed his arm and said something intense that made him pull back and then stride away. A U.S. TV sports team puffed along at his elbow, but he wasn’t having any. “Later!” he flung at them and, tilting forward, lurched off with a powerful wambling stride that made him look like Captain Ahab making headway in a high wind. Never a man to enjoy the scenery when he can look at a chessboard, Fischer works out a problem on his chess wallet as he takes a trip in a small plane.

At the London Grill, a transplanted English pub of pleasantly peeling charm, Fischer made for a back table and ordered two 12-ounce glasses of fresh orange juice, the largest steak in the house, a mixed green salad and a pint bottle of carbonated mineral water. Five minutes later he ordered another glass of orange juice, and by the time he was ready for a huge dish of bananas and superrich Chantilly cream he had finished his fourth pint of mineral water. He ate with the oral drive of a barracuda and talked incessantly about how wonderful the food was. “Look at that juice! Fresh, not frozen! And where else can you get a glass that big for less than ten cents? Look at that steak! It’s almost two inches thick. And YOU can really taste it! Not like that lousy American meat, all full of chemicals. This is natural meat! I tell you, Argentine food is the finest in the world! They really go in for quality here. Like clothes. You can get a tailor-made suit here for less than $100, and they last! Shoes too. They got the best shoes in the world here. Look at this pair I got on. Here, look at them!” Quickly untying an enormous brown shoe, he took it off and handed it across the table. “Look at that sole! It’s composition and I’m telling you it’s strong! I go through an ordinary pair of shoes in days. Days! But I’ve had this pair for a year and it’s still great. I mean I love America and I’d never be anything else but an American, but things are failing apart up there. Everybody doing his own thing just won’t work. We need organization! We need to get back to basic values!” Shaking his head sadly, he ordered another dish of bananas and Chantilly.

At sundown, as he does at sundown every Friday of his life, Fischer disappeared into his room for 24 hours of solitary meditation. He is a member of the Church of God, a fundamentalist California-based religious sect, and he takes his religion seriously. He won’t talk about it, though. He won’t talk to the press about any aspect of his private life. But a good deal is known.

Child of a broken marriage, Bobby grew up in Brooklyn with a dominant mother and an absent father. He seemed lonely and a little withdrawn, in no way a remarkable child, until one day when he was 6 his older sister happened to bring home a chess set. From that day, bobby’s destiny possessed him. Father, mother, friends: all the people he needed he found, in a set of chess figures, all the world he wanted was there in a square foot of space. Later he tries another sport with somewhat less skill but the same furious will to win.

At 13, Bobby won the U.S junior championship. At 14, Bobby ripped through eleven matches, three with grandmasters, to become U.S. champion; the youngest ever. But his mother felt strongly that he was too little appreciated. She went to Washington and picketed in Bobby’s behalf. One day she actually chained herself to the White House gate. Acutely embarrassed, Bobby gradually pushed her out of his life. At 17, he quit school (“Teachers,” he said, “are jerks”) and lived alone in a warren of chess literature.

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At sundown on Saturday Fischer burst out of an elevator into the lobby of his hotel. An even bigger crowd was there. Dead-white with hunger after a day without food, he put his head down and headed for the street. He had promised an American TV network an interview that evening, but he pushed the cameraman aside impatiently. “Later, later!” Shutters clicked on all sides as he hit the sunlight. A husky Argentinian paparazzo gave pursuit, snapping shots every few feet. Suddenly Fischer swerved at him, grabbed for his camera but missed, then gave him two quick kicks in the right leg. Before the photographer could regain balance, Fischer turned the corner and was gone. Looking shaken, the photographer sat for some time on the fender of a nearby cab. “Bobby es loco,” he muttered, shaking his head. Fischer is a city boy born and bred, but he showed country instincts in the Argentine countryside. He tumbled about with a friendly collie named Ruby and at one point actually rescued an armadillo from her jaws.

An uncanny thing happened that night in Fischer’s room. Like a turtle he shrank into himself and gathered his world about him. First he switched on a Sony shortwave radio and fiddled till he picked up some soft rock from London. Then out came the Russian chess magazines. (Fischer seldom ventures beyond “chess Russian” but he reads and speaks Spanish fluently.) Eyes smoked with introspection, he played through 10, 15, 25 games at frenzied speed, slamming the pieces at the board like darts and muttering savage or mocking or fascinated comments under his breath. It was genius in full rage and it went on for almost an hour before he glanced up and remembered I was there.

“I shouldn’t have kicked him,” he said. “You can’t go around kicking people.”

Then his eyes smoked again and he raced through a dozen more games. This is it, I thought. This is Bobby’s life. Sleep all day. Grab some food. Hole up with a shortwave radio or a tape recorder or a TV set and play chess with himself all night. No people in his life if he can help it. Just a small circle of undemanding electronic acquaintances. A man alone in a monomania.•

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“All Our Senses Are Being Controlled”

May 9, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

In a New York Times Magazine interview with Jessica Gross, high-wire artist Philippe Petit, the Marcel Marceau of mid-air, explains his dual feelings toward technology:

“Question:

You seem to have an ambivalent relationship with your computer. In the book, you call it your ‘necessary evil tool.’

Philippe Petit:

I hate all electronic things that are supposed to help the human being. You don’t smell, you don’t hear, you don’t touch anymore. All our senses are being controlled. At the same time, I am a total imbecile because to have a little iPhone that can take pictures, that can find the nearest hospital, that can tell you the weather in Jakarta — it’s probably fabulous. I’m supposed to be a man of balance, but my state of mind in those things is very unbalanced. I love or I hate.”

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“We observed a type of dancer because you couldn’t call him a walker”:

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Old Print Article: “A Hot Race,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1882)

May 4, 2014 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

First Madison Square Garden, 1879-1890.

First Madison Square Garden, 1879-1890.

When the world was slower, much slower, a quick gait could bring in a huge gate. Such was the case with pedestrianism, a sensation before automobiles were king of the roads, in which competitors would race-walk cross-country or do ceaseless laps around a track in an arena before bleary-eyed spectators who would spend up to a week mesmerized by the exhibition of slow-twitch muscle fiber. An excerpt from a report in the March 4, 1882 Brooklyn Daily Eagle about one such six-day contest, a cross between a footrace and a dance marathon, before a large Madison Square Garden audience that alternately yelled and yawned:

Popular interest in the race of the champions touched its highest point to-day. The opening of the last day of the walk was witnessed by over two thousand spectators. Fully one-half of these had lingered in Madison Square Garden all night. Drowsy and unkempt, with grimy faces and dusty apparel, they shivered behind their upturned coat collars, determined to see the battle out. The management’s order of ‘no return checks’ had far more unpleasant significance for them than hours of discomfort in the barnlike building. The permanent lodger in a six days’ match usually makes his bed upon a coal box, in a grocery wagon or beneath the roof of the police lodging room. Accordingly, it is his habit to come to the garden at the beginning of a race and remain for a full week, or until he is removed by the employees to make way for some more profitable customers. This contest had its full share of these persistent individuals. Beside them, many sporting men remained until almost daybreak, attracted by the enormous scores rolled up by the pedestrians and speculations as to what they would do in the way of the beating of the record. It was conceded that Hazael and Fitzgerald would surpass all previous performances. Hazael’s wonderful work was generally regarded as the marvel of the match.

When Hazael, the Londoner of astonishing prowess, retired from the track at 11:37 last night, he had rolled up the enormous record of 540 miles in 120 hours. To his enthusiastic handlers in walker’s row he complained of feeling tired and sleepy. His limbs were sound and apparently tireless as steel. He partook heartily of nourishment and then, throwing himself on his couch, caught a few cat naps. At 1:49:20 he bounded out of his flower covered alcove, and once more took up the thread of his travels. His rest of two hours and twelve minutes had greatly improved him. He had been sponged and rubbed, and grinned all over his quaint face at his enormous score. That he was yet full of vigor and energy was apparent from the work he immediately entered upon. He had not walked more than half a lap when he gave a preliminary wobble. Then he clasped his hands over his ears, pulled his head down until his slender neck was well craned, and shot over the yellow pathway at a rattling pace. The sleepy watcher pricked up their ears at the shout which greeted this performance, and a fusillade of handclapping shook the garden. Fitzgerald was jogging over the tanbark at this time, sharply working to draw nearer to the Englishman’s figures on the scoring sheets. He accelerated his speed as the Londoner resumed the task before him. Within a few minutes both men were running like reindeer. It is doubtful they could have made better time if a pack of famished wolves had been at their heels. Volley after volley of applause thundered after them from the spectators. The runners kept close together. Between the hours of 2 and 8 o’clock this morning, so swift was their movements, that each man had added six miles and seven laps to his score or within one lap of seven miles. The struggle became so intense that the spectators began to realize that something unusual was in progress. A stir was apparent all over the vast interior and wearied humanity pushed itself to the rail to see what was going on.•

 

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“He Expressed A Willingness To Take A Discount”

May 4, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

When I read the recent Businessweek profile of Boston Red Sox owner John Henry, it reminded me of something that drives me a little batty. In January, Sox pitcher Jon Lester said that he would take a “hometown discount” to remain with the team rather than trying to get fair market value. That’s a phrase your hear sometimes that overjoys many fans and sportswriters because the player is making a sacrifice for the organization, and by extension, the fans. But it’s ridiculous and bad economics.

Why exactly would Lester give a billionaire like Henry a hometown discount? If it’s in the player’s best interests to accept a lesser contract earlier because of fear of injury, so be it. But he should never take a “discount” to accommodate an owner. That’s just silly. If Henry doesn’t want to pay market value, that’s fine, it’s his decision, but he shouldn’t be given corporate welfare from a player any more than team owners should have their stadiums paid for in part by taxpayers. This isn’t 1904 and it’s not the Boston Beaneaters: Billionaires should have to navigate the free market like everyone else. From ESPN in January:

“Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester, who is eligible for free agency after the 2014 season, emphatically stated Thursday that his desire is to remain with Boston, and he expressed a willingness to take a discount in order to do so.

‘These guys are my No. 1 priority,’ Lester said during media availability at the Boston Baseball Writers’ Association of America awards dinner. ‘I want to be here ’til they rip this jersey off my back.

Lester said he not only expects to have to take a discount in order to sign an extension with the team, but he is willing to do so.

‘It’s like Pedey [Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox second baseman]. He left a lot of money on the table to stay here. That’s what he wanted to do. I understand that. That’s my choice, that’s his choice.'”

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“Do You Want To Know Something Completely Archaic And Silly?”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Sports | Permalink

Baseball’s All-Star Game voting uses the latest technology: Paper ballots are carried by Pony Express to the General Store where they’re calculated on an abacus. Commissioner Selig then reads the results which are recorded onto a wax cylinder and played from a talking machine over the wireless. It’s a big improvement from when Charles Lindbergh used to barnstorm American cities in his aeroplane and drop leaflets with the tabulations over ballyards. From Phil Mackey at ESPN:

“But do you want to know something completely archaic and silly?

Chris Colabello — one of baseball’s best run producers through the first 30 days this season — isn’t even on Major League Baseball’s All-Star ballot.

Go ahead and take a look for yourself.

Josh Willingham, despite having played only a handful of games due to injury, is on it. So is Pedro Florimon, whose slugging percentage (.173) is lower than his weight (180).

The Colabello omission is more of a knock on MLB’s often archaic thinking than it is on the Twins.

Here’s how the process works: During the early part of spring training, each MLB front office submits projected starters at each position. Twins assistant GM Rob Antony, who was in charge of this process for the Twins, listed Joe Mauer as the first baseman, Oswaldo Arcia, Aaron Hicks and Willingham as the outfielders, and Jason Kubel as the DH. This is what they projected at the time, and if not for injuries to Arcia and Willingham, it’s possible Colabello wouldn’t have nearly as many at-bats.

OK, that’s fine. But why can’t MLB adjust the ballot on the fly? Presumably because they already printed out millions of hanging-chad paper ballots to be distributed throughout ballparks in an era where two out of every three adults owns a smartphone in this country.

MLB can’t simply add Colabello to the online ballot?

‘Well no, that’s not the way we’ve always done it…’

We have apps on our smartphones that allow us to record high-definition videos, we have apps that allow us to cash checks, we have apps that allow us to make dinner and movie reservations, and we have apps that essentially replace TVs, radios and books.

Yet, if we want to send Colabello to the All-Star Game at Target Field, we need to write his name in the old-fashioned way…”

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“Any Amateur Could Take A Shot At Glory By Taking A Punch From The Best Fighter In The World”

April 30, 2014 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

John L. Sullivan wanted to fight John Q. Public and vice versa. The boxing icon couldn’t get his mustache trimmed without some galoot taking a swing at him, so in the early 1880s the pugilist toured the country on an ass-kicking expedition. From Christopher Klein at the Public Domain Review:

“After imbibing the adulation inside his saloon on the evening of September 26, 1883, the hard-hitting, hard-drinking Sullivan waded through the throng of fawning fans outside and stepped into a waiting carriage that sprinted him away to a waiting train. The man who had captured the heavyweight championship nineteen months prior had departed on many journeys before, but no man had ever set out on such an ambitious adventure as the one he was about to undertake.

For the next eight months, Sullivan would circle the United States with a troupe of the world’s top professional fighters. In nearly 150 locales, John L. would spar with his fellow pugilists but also present a sensational novelty act worthy of his contemporary, the showman P.T. Barnum. The reigning heavyweight champion would offer as much as $1,000 ($24,000 in today’s dollars when chained to the Consumer Price Index) to any man who could enter the ring with him and simply remain standing after four three-minute rounds.

The ‘Great John L.’ was challenging America to a fight.

Sullivan’s transcontinental ‘knocking out’ tour was gloriously American in its audacity and concept. Its democratic appeal was undeniable: Any amateur could take a shot at glory by taking a punch from the best fighter in the world. Furthermore, the challenge, given its implicit braggadocio that defeating John L. in four rounds was a universal improbability, was an extraordinary statement of supreme self-confidence from a twenty-four-year-old who supposedly bellowed his own declaration of independence: ‘My name is John L. Sullivan, and I can lick any son-of-a-bitch alive!'”

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“Willie, You Look Marvelous”

April 29, 2014 in Sports, Videos | Permalink

Merv Griffin and Tallulah Bankhead interviewing Willie Mays in 1966. These three were inseparable.

Mays is for me the greatest baseball player ever, even better than Barry Bonds. When Joe DiMaggio was alive, he would always be announced at the Yankee Stadium Old Timers’ Day as the “greatest living player.” Must have been a little maddening for Mays.

“Christ, Lincoln, Hitler”

April 29, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Sports | Permalink

Larry King, who continues, just did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit. Three exchanges follow; the JFK anecdote might be true or it might be a tall tale like a lot of King’s yarns.

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Question:

If you could interview just one person from world history, who would it be and why?

Larry King:

Currently living it would be Fidel Castro. From World History, Christ, Lincoln, Hitler.

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Question:

What do you think about the Donald Sterling decision the commissioner just made?

Larry King:

I completely agree with what Adam Silver did today. He was outstanding. I am a Clipper fan, I wasn’t going to let my children go to the game tonight, but now they will go. I know Donald Sterling, I’m embarrassed for him, I like his wife very much and she deserves better. This was a great decision. Great for the league, great for society. This is a historic day. Go Clippers!

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Question:

Larry, I read that you once crashed your car into John F. Kennedy before he was President. What’s the story behind this?

Larry King:

It was a Sunday morning, and I was a young disc jockey in Miami Beach. Me and 3 friends of mine were going to drive up to Palm Beach, in 1958, we rolled up to Palm Beach in a convertible, I was driving, and it was a beautiful Sunday morning. And I was looking up, looking at all the beautiful homes, and suddenly I bumped into a car stopped at a red light. I was only going about 10 miles an hour. The guy in the car jumped out, walked over to me, and said “how could you hit me!? there’s nobody on the road, it’s a beautiful day, how could you hit me?!” and I said “I’m sorry, we were looking up, I apologize, do you want my license.” And he said “no, I’m Senator Kennedy, I’m going to run for President in 2 years, and I want the 4 of you to raise your hands and swear you’ll vote for me.” Which we did. So that’s the story.

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