LeBronathon

The excessive ESPN coverage of LeBron James's decision on which team to play for next year has got to stop. Sportscenter the last two days has been at least 50% LeBron James. Given that 25% of the show every night will be taken up covering the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets, there is not mean much time for anything else. There was a token mention of the World Cup both nights, but the only way you could see highlights of your favorite baseball team was if they managed to blow a 6-run lead in the 9^th inning or a 3-run lead the next night. Tonight ESPN has an hour devoted to his announcement. How are they going to extend his decision into an hour-long show? The announcement should take 10 seconds. How fast can you say Miami Heat?

There is only one word to describe this phenomenon: Favresque.

Low-Scoring Soccer

Americans are often derided for not liking soccer because it is low-scoring. They are accused of not being able to understand that a sport that does not have much scoring can be exciting. They are also accused of not being able to accept ties. While there are some people who think soccer is boring because it is low-scoring, there are others who think it is boring simply because of its nature. I personally am a fan of the sport and am especially a fan of the World Cup. (Aside: I appreciate FIFA scheduling the World Cup to coincide with the worst three years for the Cubs in the last decade: 2002, 2006 & 2010).

However, the supporters of soccer should realize that there is a fundamental problem with soccer that is related to its low-scoring: the importance of questionable refereeing decisions. If a goal is rare a flawed referee call wiping out or failing to wipe out a goal is going to be much more important than in a referee call incorrectly waving-off a basket in basketball. This World Cup there have been four key goal/no goal calls that I remember:

England vs. Germany

Argentina vs. Mexico

US vs. Slovenia

US vs. Algeria

Three of these were early in the game (all but the US vs. Slovenia) and all but one was considered to make the difference in the outcome (the US scored late against to Algeria to make the earlier missed goal meaningless). *

In other sports what are the key referee decisions which are remembered, whether they were correct or not, were all late in the game:

Denkinger call in 1985 World Series (9^th inning)

Jeffrey Maier no-interference in 1996 ALCS (8^th inning)

1972 Gold-medal basketball game (3 seconds left)

Tuck-rule game (2 minutes to go)

5^th Down game (Last play of the game)

1999 Stanley Cup Game 6 (Triple overtime)

These were all 50-50 games that ended up being influenced by a referee decision but got to that point in the game by being evenly matched. Some soccer calls are so influential that they end up completely dictating the outcome.

 

 

* There have been some questionable Red Cards as well and the controversy over the Suarez hand ball. However, the Suarez hand ball was almost universally seen as the correct call with the rule coming under fire, and Red Cards are more subjective than other decisions.

Florida Marlins and Pure Evil

As a Cubs fan I've always known that the Florida Marlins sold their soul to take away the 2003 NL Pennant from the Cubs. Now the devil has come to collect.

Does the US Need to Beat Slovenia?

Everyone is talking about the US game as a must-win game for the Americans. While a loss would just about finish the US, and a win would put the US in very good position, a tie would certainly keep the US in good position to still advance.

Here are the possible scenarios:

Versus Slovenia Versus Algeria Points Advancement?

Decisive outcomes:

L, L: 1 No advancement

T, L: 2 No advancement

W, W: 7 Advancement

W, T: 5 Advancement

 

Likely not advancing:

L, T: 2 Only way to advance would be for England to tie Algeria and lose to Slovenia. Then Algeria, US and England all tie at 2 points and the US could advance on the tie-breaker.

T, T: 3 Would need England to tie Algeria and either i) England to lose to Slovenia or ii) England to tie Slovenia and the US to win tie-breaker on goals.

L, W: 4 Would need England to either to fail to win both games or England to win one and lose the other and advance on tie-breaker.

All of the above seem highly unlikely and would see the US advance along with Slovenia instead of England. Nobody in the world, except the most neurotic, pessimistic Englishman, would expect England to finish up their final two games with a tie and a loss.

 

Probably advancing:

T, W: 5 The only way the US would not advance would be if England beats Algeria and ties Slovenia and the US loses the tie-breaker to both England and Slovenia.

W, L: 4 If England wins its final two games, this would be exactly the same outcome as the US had in the 2002 World Cup, backing into advancing. Actually the scenarios where the US fails to advance are pretty numerous, i) Algeria and Slovenia beat England, ii) Algeria beats England, England beats Slovenia and beats US on tie-breaker, iii) Algeria-England tie, England and Slovenia don't tie, Algeria beats US on tie-breaker, iv) Algeria-England tie, Slovenia-England tie, US loses tie-breaker to Algeria and Slovenia, v) England beats Algeria, loses to Slovenia, US loses tie-breaker to England, vi) England beats Algeria, ties Slovenia, US loses tie-breaker to Slovenia. However, the US can still advance in most of these scenarios if they can keep their tie-breaker numbers high (lots of goals, win by a lot).

Therefore the US will be in good position to advance if it:

1) Does not lose to Slovenia

2) Wins one game

So therefore a tie against Slovenia is not the end of the world, though it does put a little more pressure on the last game which the US will have to win.

 

Territorial Rights and New Arenas: The Case of the Phoenix Coyotes

Brad Humphreys at the IJSF blog has written extensively on the reluctance of the NHL to allow the Phoenix Coyotes to move to Southern Ontario. See here, here and here, though there are obviously many more as the last one listed is Part X. The resistance to the move is motivated by protecting the territorial rights of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres.

However, I believe there is a pretty strong secondary motive to the reluctance to a move: the relatively new arena that the Coyotes play in Glendale. Glendale built an arena for the Coyotes in 2003. The arena is only for hockey, as the Phoenix Suns play in US Airways arena (formerly American West Arena; that name change cost me a point in a recent trivia contest). While some teams certainly care about some future team invading their territorial rights, they are all interested in eventually having an arena built for the team by the local municipalities. I do not think Nashville has to worry about another hockey team moving to their city, but they will probably want the city to build them a new arena at some point.

If the Coyotes move out of Arizona, the next time a team threatens to move unless they get a new arena, opponents will have a pretty convincing retort:

Team: "Build us a new arena or we will move to Albuquerque."

Opponents of new arena: "Well, if we build the arena, we will spend $300 million, then the team will play there for five years and then move to Canada. Look at what happened to Glendale."

Team: ?

One way to test this theory is to see if the league would restrict the team from moving to a location without a problem with territorial rights such as Houston, Kansas City or Winnipeg. Of course none of those markets would be nearly as valuable to an owner as Southern Ontario.

Instant Replay

I was not watching the "Perfect Game" last night by Armando Galarraga, because I was too busy watching the Flyers' 4-3 overtime win over the Blackhawks. What I am struck by is the discrepancy in instant replay rules between hockey and baseball. Baseball supposedly cannot have instant replay because it will break up the flow of the game. However, hockey which has a lot more natural flow to the game has instant replay. In last night's game there were two key calls that went to instant replay, one giving the Flyers a goal and one not giving them a goal in overtime. The first one went to replay after the game continued for a minute and a half. If hockey can have instant replay despite problems with the flow of the game, then I cannot see how baseball cannot. Admittedly hockey needs instant replay more in that both of the calls would have been impossible to necessarily get right without replay, whereas the ump in the baseball game should have gotten the play at first base right anyway.

P.S. After writing this but before posting, I found another argument along the same lines.

My MVP Picks at the 1/3 Mark

Here are my picks for MVP at the 1/3 Mark of the baseball season. (Actually as of games on Saturday).
NL
Halladay
Utley
Jiminez
Votto
Heyward
Byrd
Johnson
Wainwright
Willingham
Lincecum

AL
Morneau
Cano
Longoria
Rios
Wells
Jackson
Youkilis
Crawford
Hudson
Beltre

The most interesting thing is that “the year of the pitcher” seems to be primarily an NL phenomenon, as the NL ballot has five pitchers to the AL’s zero pitchers. I think this is also a result of there being more really good position players in the AL so far. Also realize that each start could make a big difference for a starter, so the NL ballot actually would have changed some since Saturday as both Wainwright and Jiminez had good starts since then.