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The First Pitch Isn’t That Important

I love baseball. I love watching it, reading about it, and thinking about it. I help organize the youth baseball program in Worthington. We have 12 travel teams, 700 or so boys in a summer program, and roughly 200 boys who play fall ball. I enjoy riding my bike to the fields and watching the boys play. They smile much more than major leaguers do. I love baseball at all levels, but – when I say “baseball,” I usually mean “Major League Baseball” or “MLB.”

Baseball has a statistical record like no other sport. It dates to 1876. Every single player who has appeared in a “major league” game is part of that statistical record. One of the greatest websites of all time is https://www.baseball-reference.com/, which has all of the normal statistics, much information derived from those statistics, and even more information that is tangential, such as biographical and (when available) salary information.[1]

Despite this trove of fascinating information being available to them, my operating assumption when watching or listening to a baseball game is that when the commentators are speaking about statistics, they are almost certainly wrong, unless stating a fact. For instance, when a commentator says “Billy Ray has a hit in his last nine day games on the road,” the mumbo-jumbo being muttering is almost certain factually correct. Alas, the fact’s accuracy tends to be directly proportional to its significance.

The other side of my assumption is that when a baseball commentator is saying something significant or strategic, he is probably wrong. Here is a baseball truism that is spewed in virtually every game I have ever watched: the first pitch (of an at bat) is extremely important. I’m sure the commentator’s Little League coach mentioned it back in the sixties or seventies or eighties, but the coach was wrong then and the truism is just as wrong now.

On average, when major league players swing at the first pitch, they bat .342. That is all-star caliber hitting (leaving aside the fact that batting average isn’t the best way to measure how good a hitter is). When the count is 1-0, presumably a better situation for the batter, otherwise why talk about the first pitch being important, MLB players bat .337. That, my friends, is not better than .342. When the count is 0-1, and the pitcher theoretically has the advantage, MLB players still bat .321. Slightly worse, but not enough to suggest that the first pitch is especially important. Moreover, .321 is excellent when, as now, the league average is .248. (It would have been less impressive in 1930, when the National League batted .303.)

Consider this, only 47 players in the history of baseball (with at least 3000 plate appearances) have a career batting average higher than .321. There is no compelling reason to consider a first pitch strike to be a difference maker.

In reality, the most important pitch is the 1-1 pitch. When the next pitch is a ball, and the count goes to 2-1, players bat .327, right in line with other early counts. But when the third pitch is a strike and the count goes to 1-2, players bat only .164. That is a massive difference.[2]

Count	BA on the next pitch
0-0	.342
0-1	.321
1-0	.337
1-1	.319
1-2	.164
2-1	.327

Joe Lemire, The Myth of the First Pitch Strike (http://grantland.com/the-triangle/debunking-mlb-first-pitch-strike-myth/ )

On the ESPN website in January 2016, Dan Szymborski discussed the issue in relation to OPS. “OPS” stands for on-base percentage plus slugging percentage. Even though the math is suspect – because the denominator of on-base percentage is plate appearances and the denominator of slugging percentage is at bats – the derivative statistic is a pretty good proxy for quality. As we speak (so to speak), the league average OPS is .728, which is a handy comparative tool when you are trying to gauge approximately how good the players on your favorite team are.

Count	OPS
1-0	.815
0-1	.609
2-1	.873
1-2	.423

Whether the first pitch is a strike or ball leads to an OPS difference of .206 (.815 minus .609). That is a real difference, but whether the third pitch (after a 1-1 count) is a ball or strike leads to a massive .450 (.873 minus .423) difference in OPS. The bottom line is that the 1-1 pitch is much more important than the overhyped first pitch.

Steven Wright, the comedian, not the Red Sox pitcher, has many great one-line jokes. He stated that “42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.” I’m pretty sure he made up that statistic on the spot and I’m pretty sure that he is essentially right, especially with respect to baseball commentators.[3] Everything they say should be regarded with a healthy dose of skepticism. The next time you watch a game, focus on the 1-1 pitch and (basically) ignore the first pitch, it’s not nearly as significant.

[1] Omar Vizquel, who never signed a big money long-term contract, was paid at total of $63,210,668 over the course of his 24-year career.

[2] Please note that this discussion is truncated. I am only discussing the pitch immediately after the given count, not all of the subsequent possible counts.

[3] I was watching the Yankees and Red Sox play last night. (Yankees won 3-2.) The commentators were predictably horrid. They spent much time discussing the Yankees need to win to prove that they could beat the Red Sox. Silly. As well as the Red Sox have played this season, they have lost 47 games, including two recent 8-0 losses to the Mets and White Sox. It’s baseball, even the best teams lose lots of games.

My favorite exchange occurred during the 7th inning when they were talking about the Yankees having the chance to beat the Red Sox A-team, as if that matters. But they said it matters and they asserted that the Yankees were playing the Red Sox at their best. Sure, maybe – if you ignore the facts, which baseball commentators often do.

Mookie Betts, MVP candidate, did not play. Andrew Benintendi, who is third on the team in hits, runs scored, and runs driven in, did not play. Nathan Eovaldi, the starting pitcher is eighth on the team in games started. Eighth! The commentators singled out Brandon Workman and Ryan Brasier, two relievers who pitched, as being a significant part of the A-team, even though 13 pitchers on the team have pitched more innings for the Red Sox. Baseball commentators should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Selling Kidneys

Sometime in the early 1990s, I wrote a paper for a law school class titled If Not You, To Whom Does Your Body Belong. In the nature of most law school papers, it was adequate to the task at hand without being insightful or in any way useful.[1] But it raised a real issue that has continued to vex me: why do we have so many people on a waiting list for organ donation, when the free market is readily available to fill the supply. (Technical answer – because the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act outlaws the sale of human organs.)[2]

The New York Times stated in 1998, that in 1993 “roughly half of the 138,000 people who needed hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys and pancreases were listed for transplant, and fewer than one quarter of those received organs.” Half of the people in need of a transplant weren’t even on the transplant list in large part because patients without adequate insurance often are not even informed that a transplant is an option.

Forbes discussed the issue in a March 11, 1996 column, claiming that over 3,000 Americans died in 1995 while awaiting an organ. They stated “The basic problem is this: The government monopoly that runs the transplant market is terribly bad at creating supply to satisfy the demand.”

A proposal to allow prisoners on death row to avoid execution by donating organs was described as far-fetched and cockamamie.[3] Yet the imbalance between supply and demand was killing people. In 1997, 2,000 people died while waiting for a kidney transplant.[4] Both papers (from which these facts are taken) essentially blamed organs donors – saying (rightly) that we need more, but without addressing the elephant in the surgical ward, which is that everyone in the system benefits materially, except the indispensable donor. The surgeon gets paid and paid extremely well. The hospital gets paid and paid extremely well.[5] The organ recipient gets a new lease on life. The organ donor gets our appreciative thanks. It clearly isn’t enough.

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 114,429 people are currently awaiting an organ transplant. Many of those potential transplants would save a life, all would improve a life. Thus far this year, 21,042 transplants have been performed based on donations from 10,120 donors.[6]

The reason I wrote the paper in the first place was because of a law in Florida that presumed consent to a donation of corneas whenever a person died in an automobile accident. “Presumed consent” is pretty sketchy ethically,[7] though it is a straightforward way to address the supply problem, at least for corneas in Florida.

Other, less confiscatory, solutions have been suggested. Pennsylvania proposed granting $300 stipends to donors to help pay for their (eventual) funeral expenses. Even that tepid plan met with editorial criticism, though in fairness, some of the criticism was because $300 was unlikely to induce anyone to donate.[8] A few years later,[9] the theoretical ante had been upped to $2,000 but was derided as “ethically objectionable and of dubious effectiveness” by Mark Fox, the director of transplant ethics and policy at the University of Rochester.

Another potential solution is termed “paired kidney donation.”[10] This scheme pairs a person who would like to donate to a relative but is incompatible with a compatible person who would like to donate to their own relative. It’s complicated, might run afoul of the National Transplant Act (because agreeing to a quid pro quo might be “valuable consideration”), and continues to rely on donations. In the meantime, according to the author, every year 8% of the patients on a transplant list either die or become too sick to remain on the list.

While we are prohibiting the free market from working its invisible-hand magic, people (mostly hospitals and insurance companies) are paying more for annual dialysis treatment than a kidney operation costs. According to Michele Goodwin, a law school professor, Medicaid paid $60,000 to $90,000 per annual dialysis treatment in 2006 compared to $70,000 or so for a kidney transplant.[11] Her plan was to unleash federalism and let states determine whether to allow their residents to buy and sell organs.

One country already allows its citizens to buy and sell kidneys. Not surprisingly, if you believe that supply and demand equalize when they are allowed to, that country has no waiting list and a price per kidney of approximately $5,000. What is surprising is that the country with no waiting list is not a member of the enlightened West; it is Iran. https://www.statnews.com/2016/08/25/organ-donation-kidneys-iran/ There is legitimate criticism that allowing the sale of organs might impose undue burdens on the poor – who can be imprisoned in Iran for failure to pay debt. But at a minimum, a legal market, with whatever flaws are endemic to it, is better than allowing a black market to expand.

Our country has advocates of a free market solution. J.H. Huebert, wrote in 2007 that “Congress could end the shortage [of organs for transplant] right now by repealing the ban on organ sales. Until it does, it will have the blood on its hands of those 6,000 people who die each year.[12] See also https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/12/12/to-save-lives-allow-individuals-to-sell-their-organs/#13b190ae5627

Count me among the Americans who believe we should embrace a free market for the sale of kidneys – as a test case. Safeguards could be built in to the system, which already has substantial constrictions based on health and safety. Ethical considerations have delayed an obvious solution for too long and to me are of little moment compared to substantially enhancing the lives of the 93,000 Americans currently awaiting a kidney transplant,[13] while the other 300,000,000 of us walk around with a kidney to spare.

[1] The egomaniacal William Evelyn “Bill” McNeal, portrayed hilariously by Phil Harman on NewsRadio, once received a review that described him as “adequate.” For the rest of the episode, he raved about his adequatulance and his adequasivity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOxpuKXhlss

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Organ_Transplant_Act_of_1984

[3] Toledo Blade editorial on March 23, 1998, quoting an unnamed “assistant professor of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine.”

[4] Mark D. Somerson, Columbus Dispatch, October 18, 1998.

[5] A liver transplant cost $250,000 at the time according to a New York Times May 5, 1998 column.

[6] https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/

[7]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/presumed_consent_not_answer_to_solving_organ_shortage_in_us_researchers_say.

[8] Dayton Daily News, May 24, 1999.

[9] Nicholas Kristof column in New York Times that I didn’t date. It was in a folder between articles dated May 24, 1999 and March 27, 2006.

[10] Forbes, March 27, 2006 column by Robert A. Montgomery, the Chief of Transplantation at Johns Hopkins University.

[11] Forbes, October 15, 2007. The transplant patient would also need roughly $5,000 of annual maintenance medicine.

[12] Columbus Dispatch, June 13, 2007.

[13] http://lkdn.org/kidney_tx_waiting_list.html

The Four is a great book

I recently read The Four, subtitled The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google by Scott Galloway. I heartily recommend it. It is informative, engaging, and at times humorous. The author is a professor at NYU, who founded Red Envelope and continues to work at L2, a digital strategy company that he also founded. Galloway is a noted crank, who delights in tweaking the powers behind various technology behemoths. He has an irreverent youtube video that predicts where Amazon will locate its second headquarters that is worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3baKe4B3eyI

Instead of doing a straight review of the book, I’m going to highlight some of the factoids that struck my fancy. The book is full of them and various other insights that will reward your reading.

52% of US household have Amazon Prime.

Stores in high end malls have average sales of $800/s.f., which is a 57% increase from 2005. Stores at B and C grade malls have average sales of $374/s.f., an increase of 13% since 2005. Apple stores have average sales of $5,000/s.f.

The market cap of retail stores in the US totals $24 trillion, for telco companies $1.4 trillion, and for media companies $602 billion. I always appreciate factoids that provide scale. To wit: grocery stores have a market cap of $800 billion, more than Google, which itself is more than the eight biggest media companies combined.

Retail is a major employer; as of 2015 there were 3.4 million cashiers, 2.8 million sales people, and 1.2 million clerks. That’s almost 7.5 million people. Any technology that disrupts their employment will have profound consequences for the country.

Apple’s share of the smart phone market is 15%; its share of the profits from the smart phone market is 80%. The author believes that Apple is a luxury brand company, not a technology company.

Disney has 20 million customers per year at its various “worlds.” Apple averages a million customers per day at its stores. This is a stunning comparison – akin to the best of Harper’s Index.

Here’s another: 8% of children born into the bottom quintile of income attend college, 84% of children born into the top quintile do. I think money might have something to do with it.

On a typical day, one sixth of the people on Earth use Facebook.

At the time Instagram was sold to Facebook for $1 billion, it employed 19 people. It is now worth $50 billion.

Approximately one year ago, Google accounted for 60% of the growth in digital advertising, Facebook for 43% of the growth, and all others for negative 3%. Between them Google and Facebook account for just over 50% of digital advertising.

One sixth of the questions posed to Google on a given day have never been asked before.

Humans can recognize 1,500 people on sight.

The book is full of opinions and information that makes you think, including

the five factors that determine the success of a luxury brand
Facebook’s aversion to being called a media company
how the New York Times bungled making money from its content on the internet
the eight attributes of a company that can rival the scale and scope of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook
the eight companies most likely to join The Four to create The Five
the keys to personal and business success
attributes of an entrepreneur

Among the crazier ideas in the book is that Apple should use its cash hoard to start a college that would be free to students. Companies who hire the graduates would be charged a fee.

There is much more. Read the book. If you can’t or don’t want to, read a different book.

Bob Feller — Player / Writer

Two Fellers have played major league baseball. The most recent was Jack Feller, who caught for an inning in 1958 for the Detroit Tigers. He had a putout and did not bat. He is somewhat less well known than his namesake Bob Feller, who is in the Hall of Fame.

Bob Feller led the league in wins six times, in innings pitched five times, and in strikeouts seven times. Each of those accomplishments was in consecutive years if you don’t consider seasons missed while Feller took time off from baseball to serve in the Navy during WWII. Feller missed seasons when he was 23-26 years old, prime years for a baseball player. Even so, he won 266 games and struck out over 2,500 batters. Only three pitchers since 1900 have won more games while pitching fewer seasons.[1]

Feller threw three no-hitters, only two pitchers have thrown more.[2] Bob Feller was a fantastic pitcher, who well-deserves his plaque in Cooperstown. Based on the book Bob Feller’s Little Blue Book of Baseball Wisdom, he was not a fantastic baseball commentator.

The book contains a fair amount of Feller touting his considerable achievements. I have no problem with that. My sixth-grade teacher Mr. Gray used to say: if it’s the truth, it ain’t braggin’. When Feller writes “I threw 36 complete games in 1946,[3] the most complete games hurled in a single season since 1916,” I yell “fair.” But when he writes “I know that this ability came from all the farm work I did as a youth,” I scream “foul.” Many pitchers from Feller’s era grew up on farms; they didn’t throw 36 complete games. The book is full of similarly simplistic and unsubstantiated conclusions.

When Feller writes about loyalty, he describes a one-way street. He decries players for not having loyalty because they chase free-agent contracts. But he never mentions the teams. They show no more nor less loyalty than the players without attracting the opprobrium that Feller hurls at the players.

Feller believes that regular throwing is an important way, perhaps the only way (other than farm work), to build arm strength. I happen to agree with him, but along the way, he gratuitously chastises modern pitchers for not throwing batting practice. On the same topic, Feller offered the following non-sequitur: “In Japan, a pitcher starts his warm-up 100 feet from the catcher and comes closer. In the United States, the opposite is true: pitchers warm up about 10 to 15 feet in front of the mound and then make their way back to regulation distance as the warm-up intensifies.” Feller, who is not shy at any other time about his opinions, wrote nothing to indicate which approach is better or even whether they are the same.

Much of Feller’s writing is anecdotal. Not the end of the world really, but not particularly useful in support of broad conclusions. When talking about the importance of making contact, he referred to Nellie Fox, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr as “tough outs.” Perhaps they were — they didn’t strike out a lot. They were also middle infielders, who (in aggregate) were approximately league average hitters. That necessarily means that most players were tough outs.

The right field foul pole in Fenway is known as “Pesky’s Pole” because Pesky’s former teammate turned broadcaster Mel Parnell called it that. It’s not certain that any of the six home runs that Pesky hit at Fenway in his career were aided by the pole. Nevertheless, Feller wrote that Pesky “was known for his craft of being able to hit drives to right field that, by God, hooked around that little pole for home runs.” Feller knew about the name of the pole and, apparently, decided to create a myth instead of learning the real story.

Feller described Stan Spence as a “guy who could make you sick to your stomach because he came through in the clutch quite a bit.” Sure, maybe. Spence had his best seasons during WWII when Feller and many other good players were in the military. (Spence served the military as well, but he missed only one season.) In three of the five seasons that Feller and Spence both played approximately full time, Spence hit .240 or worse. He may have given Feller indigestion, but the rest of the league seems to have handled him just fine.

Here is a classic Feller conclusion: “Some call errors ‘lapses in judgment.’ I call it not knowing the fundamentals of the game.” Huh? I’m pretty sure neither applies with regularity. When a third baseman overthrows the first baseman, it has nothing to do with judgment or fundamentals. His conclusion doesn’t make sense and it isn’t supported by a single example.

Here’s one last gem, this time about Andy Pettitte: he “has a sensational pickoff move. He manages to get the runner caught in the open, about 15 paces off first base. He’s a darn good pitcher and a gamer, competitive and honest to a fault.” A standard pace is 30 inches. A lead of 15 paces is 37.5 feet, almost half way between the bases. I could pick off a guy with a lead like that. As for “honest to a fault,” there is no example, just a conclusion. I’m not even sure whether it’s good or bad; “honest” is good, but “to a fault” doesn’t sound good.

This book is a great example of an “expert” believing that because he is an expert, pretty much anything he says about his field of expertise is real and valuable. It isn’t. It rarely is. One of the great things about Bill James, the forefather of modern sports analysis is that he repeatedly admonishes people to believe him because of what he says, not because he is saying it. He wants people to test his conclusions, not simply to believe them. Testing Feller’s conclusions leads to a lot of failures. He was much better at playing the game than at explaining it. But don’t take my word for it, read the book and see for yourself.

[1] Christy Mathewson (373), Eddie Plank (326), and Lefty Grove (300).

[2] Nolan Ryan (7) and Sandy Koufax (4). Larry Corcoran and Cy Young each threw three no-hitters.

[3] In the history of MLB, a pitcher has had 43 or more complete games in a season 208 times. Only three times did it occur after 1900, Jack Chesbro threw 48 in 1903, Vic Willis threw 46 in 1902, and Joe McGinnity threw 43 in 1903.

The Browns and the NFL Draft

The Cleveland Browns have been a train wreck for years. In the 19 years since they rejoined the NFL in 1999, the Browns have not finished in last place in their division four times. In the last ten years, they have finished last in a four-team division nine times. Their high point was 2010, when they finished 3rd in a four-team division.

Despite the surfeit of quality draft picks their on-field incompetence has garnered, they haven’t been getting better – they have somehow been getting worse. They won one game in the last two years. Prior to those two years, their lowest win total in any given two-year period was five, in the first two years of their rebirth.

The Browns have squandered many high draft picks, it’s among the things they are best at. It takes time to determine whether a draft pick is going to be a quality player. Let’s review some of the recent picks, the top two picks each year, with round selected in parenthesis:

2010 Joe Haden (1), T.J. Ward (2)

2011 Phil Taylor (1), Jabaal Sheard (2)

2012 Trent Richardson (1), Brandon Weeden (1)

2013 Barkevious Mingo (1), Leon McFadden (3)

2014 Justin Gilbert (1), Johnny Manziel (1)

2015 Danny Shelton (1), Cameron Erving (1)

It’s pretty easy to reach of couple of conclusions. This list is not full of household names. And these players have not been in many Pro Bowls. Here’s the same list with games played, possible games played, Pro Bowls, and possible Pro Bowls.

2010 J. Haden 101/128, 2/8; T.J. Ward 107/128, 3/8

2011 P. Taylor 44/112, 0/7; J. Sheard 105/112, 0/7

2012 T. Richardson 46/96, 0/6; B. Weeden 34/96, 0/6

2013 B. Mingo 78/80, 0/5; L. McFadden 34/80, 0/5

2014 J. Gilbert 35/64, 0/4; J. Manziel 15/64, 0/4

2015 D. Shelton 46/48, 0/3; C. Erving 42/48, 0/3

In aggregate, the top two draft picks for the Browns have played in 65% of the games played since they were drafted. The same players have played in five of a possible 66 Pro Bowls. Most of the players are either out of the league or off the Browns. Three of the players (B. Mingo, J. Sheard, and T.J. Ward) were lucky enough to get traded to teams which subsequently won a Super Bowl. I have unofficially set the over/under on when the Brown will win a Super Bowl at 2050.

Most of the good in these numbers dates to 2010. The person (whether GM or some other title) responsible for those selections was fired three or four GMs ago. Whoever drafted D. Shelton and C. Erving, the second best draft year, has been fired. And the guy who replaced him has also been fired.

There has been only one constant in the generation of putridity: owner Jimmy Haslam. He is the genius who decided that current coach Hue Jackson, whose record with the Browns is 1-31, is just the guy to turn things around. And he might. It literally can’t get worse than last year’s 0-16.

Which brings us to tomorrow’s draft. The Browns have picks 1 and 4 in the draft. Even though another new person is in charge of the draft for the Browns, there is little reason to think he will fare any better than the last four or five GMs.

There is always hope, but I expect the Browns to once again chase a fairy tale quarterback. Some commentators have suggested that they might use both first round picks on a QB. Sadly, I can’t rule it out. It underscores their belief that they can’t win without a franchise QB. As if they were one great QB away from something significant.

From 1990-2014, 60 QBs were drafted in the first round. Some of them have been outstanding Hall of Fame caliber players: Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, and Ben Roethlisberger are probably the three best. They were drafted 1st, 24th, and 11th respectively. The best three quarterbacks in that time period drafted outside the first round are Tom Brady, 6th round, Bret Favre, 2nd round, and Drew Brees, 2nd round. They are all terrific, but I might slightly prefer the guys drafted outside the first round.

And here’s the real problem: the QBs drafted in the first round included many phenomenal duds. Ryan Leaf, drafted 2nd in 1998, lasted 25 games. Akili Smith, drafted 3rd overall in 1999, lasted 22 games. Injuries didn’t end their careers, awful passing did. JaMarcus Russell, drafted 1st in 2007, lasted 31 games. David Carr in 1994 and Tim Couch in 1999 (by the Browns) were drafted number one overall. They weren’t horrible, but they weren’t good either. Jeff George, Sam Bradford, and Drew Bledsoe were drafted #1, no Hall of Famers there.

Cam Newton, Carson Palmer, Alex Smith, Matthew Stafford, Andrew Luck, and Michael Vick were all drafted #1. They have all been good, at times great, but it was never enough to lift their team to a Super Bowl victory. The only QBs drafted first overall since 1990 to win a Super Bowl are the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli.

It should be clear that drafting a QB with the first pick is no panacea. One group of football commentators concluded that only about 30% of QBs drafted in the first round become franchise quarterbacks. http://www.footballperspective.com/what-should-be-the-expectations-for-a-first-round-qb/ The percentage is higher for top five picks, but the list of duds is still pretty impressive. I would guess that half of the top four QBs in this draft will be duds – I just don’t know which two (of Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Baker Mayfield, and Josh Allen). And I’m pretty sure the Browns don’t either.

Using ten different websites,[1] I plugged the best players into a spreadsheet. Only four players appeared in the top ten on all ten lists – none of the QBs. None of the QBs managed to be in the top 20 on every list. Sam Darnold was the highest ranked QB, averaging 5.1 on nine lists; Josh Rosen averaged 5.9 on nine lists, Baker Mayfield averaged 10.9 on nine lists; Josh Allen averaged 8 on six lists, meaning he was outside the top 20 on four lists.

The highest ranked players are Saquon Barkley (RB) 2.2, Quenton Nelson (G) 3.4, Bradley Chubb (DE) 4.0, and Minkah Fitzpatrick (S) 4.6. These players could all be game changers and have low bust potential.

I suspect the Browns will select a QB. The shame of that is that they already have a good quarterback. Tyrod Taylor will not be the weak link on the Browns. The Browns have had decent QBs before, but never surrounded them with the best possible team because of their endless quest for a better quarterback. End the quest.

The goal should be the best possible team, not the best possible quarterback. I believe the Browns should draft two of the best four players and take a QB later, when the consequences of a bust are less dramatic. But they won’t. Even so, I think they will win more games than they won last year. At worst, they won’t win fewer.

Good luck Browns fans.

[1] drafttek.com, jenkins at nfl.com, mayock at nfl.com, si.com, bleacherreport.com, usatoday.com, philly.com, bleedinggreennation.com, sbnation.com, and miller at bleacherreport.com

A To-do List

The last post generated more commentary than most, so I decided to go with another list. Most of the comments were private: emails, text messages, etc., not public on the blog – no matter. I like them all. Keep the cards and letters coming.

This list (from Men’s Health) comprises things that a person should have done by the time they turn 50, according to a poll of 2,000 fifty-something citizens of the UK. The bottom line for me is that the list itself is 248 words long, meaning I only need another 750 or so to get near my target of 1000 words.

Buy a house. 1/1
Have kids. 2/2
Get married. 3/3
Fall in love. Shouldn’t this come before no. 3? 4/4
Eat fish and chips on the pier. I’ve eaten all kinds of things on piers. 5/5
Donate blood. Gallons. 6/6
Read 100 books. 7/7
See your favorite band live. All three – Talking Heads, REM, and Peter Gabriel. 8/8
Learn a language. I can read French as well as most 6-year old Parisians. I’m counting it. 9/9
Attend a music festival. I’ve never been to anything approximating Woodstock or Bonnaroo, but to many smaller events. 10/10
Own a dog. Many times, including now. 11/11
Learn to say no to your mother. She’s still not happy about it. 12/12
Stay out all night partying. I hope to never do this again. 13/13
See the Northern Lights. I don’t feel like I missed much. 13/14
Visit Stonehenge. Second miss, this one hurts a little. Given that the poll was UK based, the largest ancient monument in your country can probably be substituted. Not sure what that would be in the US. 13/15
Remember where the gas cap is. 14/16
Travel somewhere alone. Yes, but not lately. 15/17
Sleep underneath the stars. Great way to watch a meteor shower in Maine. The bugs were not friendly. 16/18
Watch a meteor shower. See above. 17/19
Dance in the rain. Naked even — I was quite young. 18/20
Become an expert at something. Hmmn, I probably qualify, more likely for baseball than the law. 19/21
Quit a job. Does involuntarily count? Either way, I’ve done it. 20/22
See a volcano. Does it have to be active? Either way, it’s a fail. 20/23
Visit all seven continents. Not even close. I know one person who has been to Antarctica. 20/24
Throw a coin in the Trevi fountain. I think any trip to Rome satisfies this item. Haven’t done that. 20/25
Take a helicopter ride. Not in the future either, unless I’m being rescued or medevaced. 20/26
Have sex on a beach. Pass. This is a G-rated blog.
Swim with dolphins. Not yet, not ever. 20/27
Go skinny dipping. Yes, no details — see no. 27. 21/28
Ride a gondola in Venice. I still hold it against the Doge that he led a successful attack on Constantinople in 1204. That’s not what kept me away from Venice. 21/29
Make a snow angel. Many times — in multiple states. 22/30
Take part in a protest. I have engaged in many one-man protests, primarily against restaurants and retail establishments, but no actual political protest. 22/31
Own your own business. The Pub Out Back, established in 2012, sold in 2016. 23/32
Go in a hot air balloon. See helicopter, no. 26. 23/33
Ride an elephant. I make it a practice to avoid all animals that can kill me without even realizing it. 23/34
Climb Snowdonia. I certainly haven’t climbed Snowdonia, which is in Wales. I’m going to substitute any substantial local ascent. I’ve been to the highest point in a least three states. The scariest was the drive up Mount Washington. The lanes on the road are so narrow, I recommend taking a small car. 24/35
Jump into a pool fully clothed. “Jump” suggests intentionality, so getting thrown in doesn’t count, but lakes and ponds do. 25/36
Backpack across Europe. This is an epic fail. 25/37.
Perfect a signature dish. Mine is only suitable for company at breakfast. 26/38
Drink beer at Oktoberfest. Been to many Oktoberfests in the US. Any fall Saturday when the Buckeyes are playing a home game is a comparable experience, though probably better. 26/39
Run a marathon. The longest run of my life was something over 10 miles. 26/40
Get a tattoo. I’m sure there is a price at which I would agree to get a tattoo. I just don’t know anyone stupid enough to offer what it would take. 26/41
Ride a Vespa. This is too specific. I’m counting any two-wheeled motorized vehicle driven on a road. A moped in Bermuda counts. 27/42
Watch comedy at Edinburgh Fringe. I’ll accept any comedy festival, not that I’ve been to any. 27/43
Write a novel. I’ve often said I wanted to write a novel. 27/44
Write a journal. I did this for years. It provides deep insight into the trivia that can occur to the mind of a person hell bent on writing something just for the sake of writing something. 28/45
Spend a month technology free. Many times, all before I was 35. 29/46
Try drugs. Not even pot. No regrets. 29/47
Have a threesome. Pass – G-rated blog.
Go to an airport and pick a random flight. This just sounds stupid. I can’t imagine anyone doing this, even my friends who have millions of frequent flyer miles. 29/48

I’ve always liked lists – longest rivers, home run leaders, most populous cities, deadliest snakes, etc. This one is pretty good. One obvious omission (to me) is attend a live sporting event featuring your favorite team.

I look forward to hearing about your success rate. I figure my 60% will be on the low side.

p.s. Microsoft Word indicated that this post had 999 words. WordPress (blogging software) indicates that this post is 883 words. Although this “p.s.” has pushed it over 900. The discrepancy is usually under ten words.

Are you well-read?

It’s no surprise that I like to read or that I read a lot. So when Inc.com published an article entitled 30 Books You Need to Read to Earn ‘Well-Read’ Status, I was intrigued. Feel free to grade yourself at home and please report your findings.

Western Classics — Forced to choose four books to represent the western world, I’m sure I would produce a different list. But this one is pretty good. Note that Russia used to be part of the West, now it most definitely is part of the other.

The Odyssey – I’ve read an English translation. That’s one point. Give yourself two points if you read it in Homeric Greek. Maybe only Stephen will qualify.

A Tale of Two Cities – How did an Englishman capture the emotion of the French Revolution so well? Another point.

Pride & Prejudice – It was a long time ago and part of a class I took. Not the kind of thing I would read today, though it gives some insight into the English Victorian world. 3/3.

Anna Karenina – It is surprisingly good, though not as good as War and Peace, which is more readable than its length suggests. Again, I read the English translation. Russian readers get two points. 4/4.

Dystopia – Given my penchant for this topic while in college, I’m surprised I missed one. I will rectify that oversight. Adding Fahrenheit 451 to the list would enhance it.

1984 – It’s as good and almost as prescient as you’re heard. 5/5.

Brave New World – Also outstanding, also scary. 6/6.

The Handmaid’s Tale – I just ordered this from the library and will read it soon – after one of the 130 copies the library system has is returned. Quite a recommendation, every single copy is checked out. 6/7.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Lord of the Rings – Of course I’ve read it — more than once. And the three movies were the best I’ve ever seen. Another friend named Steve stated at the time the movies were released that they were the best movies of all time – past, present, and future. 7/8 (9/10 if we count it as three books).

The Foundation series – This is a revolutionary series. The three law of robotics are cited today by scientists and scholars studying artificial intelligence. That’s pretty heady stuff for a novelist who wrote them over 50 years ago. 8/9 or 16/17 (I’ll stop that now).

Neuromancer – never read it, never heard of it. If someone recommends it, I’ll read it. 8/10.

Great American Novels

The Great Gatsby – It must be included, I guess, but I probably prefer This Side of Paradise. 9/11.

Bonfire of the Vanities – This is a terrible choice. Especially when you realize that the list doesn’t include anything by Mark Twain. The book isn’t horrible, especially if you’re into self-indulgence, but give me Huck Finn any day. Or Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 10/12.

The Grapes of Wrath – So good, so evocative. A true must read. 11/13.

Literary Heavy Hitters – Stuff only a masochist would read.

Ulysses – I’ve tried. I really have. The book remains on my bookshelf, taunting me. 11/14.

Infinite Jest – I haven’t tried. I don’t intend to. Twenty-five of the library’s 52 copies are available. Over 1000 pages of unconventional narrative is the stuff of literature classes, not my rarer-by-the-minute reading time. 11/15.

Gravity’s Rainbow – as unreadable and unenjoyable as Ulysses (and presumably Infinite Jest). I read it for a class. 12/16.

Popular Fiction – this is really not my bailiwick.

A Song of Ice and Fire series – People like the show, the books must be pretty fun. 12/17.

The Hunger Games – People like the movies, the books must be pretty good. 12/18.

Fifty Shades of Grey – Not on a dare. 12/19.

Immigrant Experience – From a US/UK perspective.

Interpreter of Maladies – I’ve heard it’s pretty good. 12/20.

Joy Luck Club – This strikes me as the type of book that most women have read and that most men haven’t. 12/21.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents – never heard of it. 12/22.

Non-Western Classics (Ancient) – This doesn’t bode well.

Ramayana – Never heard of it, which probably says more about me than the book. 12/23.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms – At least I’ve heard of it. 12/24. Remember to give yourself two points if you read it or Ramayana in the original language.

Non-Western Classics (Modern) – I would have liked to see something by Borges. He was a much more influential writer than the three listed.

One Hundred Years of Solitude – This is quite good. It’s been so long that I might reread it, which would fit in well with the theme of redundancy. 13/25.

To Live – Never heard of it. 13/26.

Things Fall Apart – Another must read, makes you think on both a global and a personal level. 14/27.

Satire – I’m not sure this warrants its own category.

Cat’s Cradle – I enjoyed this and every other book Kurt Vonnegut wrote. 15/28.

Catch-22 – I remember this as one of the funniest books I ever read. When I tried to reread it, it didn’t work as well. 16/29.

The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy — Everybody I know who has read it has recommended it – to no avail. 16/30.

Overall I consider this a pretty good list, though I would certainly make a different one. But would take too long to proper consider all the books I’ve read and even longer to properly consider all the books I haven’t read.

Two things I like about the author:

She abandoned a career in law (I appreciate a kindred spirit), and
She concludes by stating that any self-respecting well-read person, never considered him or herself to be well-read.

My current read percentage is 50% plus one. I don’t consider that well-read. After finishing The Handmaid’s Tale, I will indisputably vault into the well-read stratosphere, losing my sense of self-respect at the same time I become insufferably smug about my well-readness. I await your scores and your recommendations.

Valentine’s Day

A friend called this morning and said “you have to write about love.” He was talking about the increasing use of the word by young adults – they love pizza, they love a movie, they even love the idea of using the word “love” in papers and emails intended for professors. He thinks they use the word excessively and inappropriately. He’s probably right.

So I decided to write a post about love. Well, not really. I had most of this already written because I have been thinking about love since Valentine’s Day. (Not non-stop.) A professional blogger (one who hopes to make money) would have posted a blog of this nature, you know, on Valentine’s Day. Amateurish me took the prompting that the day provided and thought about it for three weeks.

Valentine’s Day has all the makings of a Hallmark holiday: one that is designed primarily to sell greeting cards. But its roots are Roman, long predating the advent of Hallmark Cards, Inc. or the trappings of commercialism. It is and always has been a day associated with love.[1] Something similar can be said for country music.

I grew up in Maine and was inundated with what is now called classic country music. My mother’s favorite performer was Conway Twitty and for good reason. He had an outstanding emotive voice, remains a country legend, and was a good enough baseball player to be offered a contract by the Philadelphia Phillies. Twitty also had significant success singing pop music, peaking with the number one hit It’s Only Make Believe.[2] But his true calling was country music, where he could sing about strong, passionate, unending love.

In the song Fifteen Years Ago, which was written by Raymond Smith, the singer bumps into a friend, who mentions the name of a woman the singer used to date. Twitty sang:

“Fifteen years ago and I still feel the same.

Why did he have to mention your name?

I’m as broken up inside as if it’s been a week or so

Takes a mighty strong love

To keep a man thinking of

A girl he hasn’t seen since fifteen years ago.”[3]

After fifteen years, the singer still feels the pain of the breakup as if it happened last week. That is a “mighty strong love,” but not singular. In the song Hello Darling, which Twitty (real name Harold Jenkins) both wrote and performed, the conceit is that the singer runs into an old girlfriend. Upon being asked how he is, he replies:

“How am I doing?

I’m doing alright

Except I can’t sleep and I cry all night ‘til dawn.”

As they say goodbye, he sings:

“If you should ever find it

In your heart to forgive me

Come back, darlin’

I’ll be waiting for you.”[4]

We are supposed to believe that he has forsaken all other women and is forlornly waiting for her to return to him. Again, “a mighty strong love,” and again not unique.

George Jones sang the anthem of one-sided love stories: He Stopped Loving Her Today. Jones hated the song when he first heard it, but he made it his own and it remade Jones, whose career had faltered. Written in 1980, the singer tells of his friend who has been in love with a woman that he hasn’t seen since 1962. Alas,

“He stopped loving her today

They placed a wreath upon his door

And soon they’ll carry him away

He stopped loving her today.”[5]

These are tales of powerful love that caused sad lives. This is the kind of stuff that, fortunately, you don’t see every day. I don’t know of anyone who has forsaken relationships forever because of a lost love. Do you? I believe this brand of love belongs exclusively to country songs, romantic novels, and the like. It certainly isn’t the love of today’s college students, who apply the word to any fleeting fancy.

One last thought – imagine that you are the subject of such a song. That you caused someone to give up on love, that they loved you so much that they can’t envision loving someone else. Would you feel good about that? It seems like it might be a significant ego boost. Or would you feel bad, that you had (however inadvertently) caused a life of sorrow? I can say with a high degree of confidence that I have never inspired anybody to write such a plaintive love song.

[1] The day is named for a bishop who performed marriage ceremonies for couples who were otherwise forbidden to marry each other. His actions did not please the emperor, who had him beheaded.

[2] It doesn’t take much imagination to hear a little Elvis in this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJefPaBsSug

[3] To hear the song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCRH9JLaoiM The quoted portion starts 44 seconds in. There is no video.

[4] This link has video of a young Conway wearing a suit and tie in front of a fireplace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og1QRtcWdEY The first excerpt starts at 40 seconds, the second at 2:06.

[5] This song is haunting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubKUP8c0FHE The quoted verse can be found at 1:54.

A Proposal to Consider while Watching the Super Bowl

Football is a great spectator sport, whether in person, at a bar, or sitting at home. It’s also fun to bet on. There is a relatively big game this weekend with many people expected to watch and wager. We are having a small party at our house and will have the requisite supply of sheets for people to bet on Super Bowl Props (propositions). I keep it pretty simple – first touchdown, first commercial after half-time, etc.

Random trivia: Since the 1950s, one job classification tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been rendered obsolete by technology. What is it?

As great as football is, it could be better. For one thing, there could be fewer concussions, which the guardians of the game appear to be working on. But it is a violent game and injuries are inevitable.

My radical proposal is not designed to address that issue, though it would have a bit of an impact. My proposal is to eliminate kicking. Entirely. No more kicks. Now the details of my 14-word (15 depending on how your treat hyphens), 4-point plan.

Punting is ok. We can’t require a team to go for it on fourth and 20 from its own ten-yard line. It wouldn’t be fair. So for the sake of sticking with my “no more kicks” theme, I declare that a punt is a punt, not a kick.
No more kickoffs. This will have a modest impact on concussions. Kick returns are among the plays that are most likely to result in injury because the players are going in opposite directions at full speed and some of the collisions are vicious. Even now, many kickoffs aren’t returned. At a minimum, 35% of kicks were not returned in 2017 because that is the lowest touchback percentage for a team. At the other extreme, 85% of Carolina’s kickoffs were not returned.

The 1000 or so kicks that were returned yielded only seven touchdowns. I’m suggesting that we wouldn’t miss much if we got rid of kickoffs. Just give the appropriate team the ball at the 25-yard line to start each half and after each score.

The one exception would be onside kicks late in a game, when the team behind needs to get the ball back. In those situations, teams recover approximately 20% of the time. Surprise onside kicks are recovered over 50% of the time, but there aren’t very many surprises. http://archive.advancedfootballanalytics.com/2009/09/onside-kicks.html

The NFL has already legislated away one surprise tactic – going for two. Extra-points used to be initiated from the two yard line, meaning that teams occasionally attempted a surprise play to garner two points. Now extra-points are initiated from the 15-yard line. Nobody attempts to score two points from there. The lack of surprise onside kicks would have about as much impact on a season (and my enjoyment) as the lack of surprise two-point attempts.

No more extra-point kicks. Repeat after me: this is the most boring play in sports. In 2010, NFL kickers made 1203 out of 1214 extra-point kicks, that’s 99.1%. After a rule change, extra-point kicks are now from 13 yards farther back. In 2017, NFL kickers made 1066 out of 1134 extra-point kicks, 94%. Slightly more suspenseful, but still boring. What a collective waste of time for the players, the fans at the field, and the fans at home.

Here’s one way to handle it moving forward. Consider all touchdowns to be worth seven points. If a team chooses to “go for two,” they can. If they make it, the touchdown would be worth eight points; if they miss it, the touchdown would be worth six points. That would truly be taking points off the board. I estimate there would be as much furor over eliminating the extra-point kick as there was when Major League Baseball started allowing automatic intentional walks.[1]

No more field goals. This would definitively change the game (in my opinion) for the better. First, let’s restate the obvious: kicks are boring, whether they are for extra points or for field goals. The snap is almost always good, the hold is almost always good, the kick is almost always good. Modern NFL kickers are absurdly good.[2] That makes them extra boring.

Field Goals in 2017

Yards	Attempted	Made	Percent
0-19	9	9	100%
20-29	243	238	97.9%
30-39	301	258	85.7%
40-49	320	254	79.7%
50-59	154	107	69.7%

Even beyond 50 yards, NFL kickers are 70% accurate. That causes a problem: coaches are relying too much on their kickers for points. With kickers this good, a scoring drive might only require one or two first downs. It’s too easy. Coaches are too prone to take the points instead of going for the first down.

If this “plan” is ever implemented, touchdown scoring will go way up as coaches forcibly become more creative. Instead of handing off to the fullback on third and 12 from the 35-yard line (and settling for a 40-something yard field goal), the coach will have to try to gain 12 yards on two plays. That seems much more interesting to me than kicking another dull-as-dishwater field goal.

There are no more elevator operators. Did anybody guess that?

I haven’t even mentioned the side benefits: freeing up a roster slot and a bit of money for a non-kicker, freeing practice time for real football plays and players, and avoiding all the photos of kickers celebrating game-winning field goals or depressed about misses. The list likely goes on and on. And what’s the downside of eliminating kicks? Well, there would be an unseemly rise in the unemployment rate for kickers.

[1] The only people I can imagine complaining are kickers and their immediate families. Because they are not a protected group, I am not concerned about legal complications.

[2] Has a job ever been eliminated because the people performing it were especially good?

Big History

I like learning and thinking about the big picture. I am more likely to read a book about the Byzantines than about a particular emperor, about the 20th century than about 1929 or 1968. Imagine my wonder upon encountering Big History.

I came to the subject obliquely. I found and read (in 2014) a book called This Fleeting World: a short history of humanity. The book was certainly big picture; it covered all of human history in under 100 pages, separated into three sections: the era of foragers, the agrarian era, and the modern era. If you don’t like names and dates, this is the history book for you. It was a good read, interesting, etc., but its real import (to me) was the introduction to author David Christian.

Christian is credited with coining the term “Big History.” The concept is simple: tell the story of the universe within the confines of single course, whether in high school or college. It’s audacious, fascinating, and (of necessity) multi-disciplinary.

Audacious is describing the history of the universe with four words: cosmos, earth, life, humanity, as Walter Alvarez does in his book A Most Improbable Journey. That is the simple progression, each succeeding concept impossible without whatever precedes it. Obviously, each word expresses much and needs significant explanation.

The typical view of history starts with 99.9% of the universe in the distant rear-view mirror. Most history starts with writing or artifacts and focuses exclusively on humans. Big history starts at the very beginning, which requires forays into chemistry and physics. Starting at the beginning reveals how lucky we are. We tend to think that what has happened was inevitable. But almost nothing is inevitable, instead history is contingent — agency and chance influence almost everything that happens.

The Goldilocks principle is alive and well. Gravity is just right. Any less or more and the Earth would be a very different planet. The Earth’s distance from the sun is just right. Any more or less and Earth would be a very different place. The moon is just right. Any bigger or smaller, farther away or closer, and the Earth would be a very different place.

Something I never thought about before, but which Alvarez and other Big History thinkers and writers focus on, is the creation of elements. Do you know where the elements come from? When the Big Bang occurred, the universe was approximately 75% hydrogen and 25% helium. So where did oxygen and iron and carbon come from?

The answer is the stars. Somewhere along the line, stars formed. Their heat synthesized new elements and when the stars died, the resulting explosions scattered those new elements about the universe. That’s when planets and other objects started forming. The universe remains mostly hydrogen and helium, but planets are whatever they are. Earth happens to be mostly oxygen, magnesium, silicon, and iron.

Big History uses chemistry and physics to explain what happened billions of years ago, introducing concepts like radiocarbon dating. It uses biology and geology to explain what has happened on Earth through the rise of (very) modern humans, introducing concepts like genetic analysis and mathematical modeling.

Another important Big History concept is “scale.” Alvarez conveys how much time has elapsed on Earth by stating that human history starts roughly 5,000 years ago and that Earth history starts roughly 5,000 million years ago. Much has happened without our intervention. Alas, our intervention is becoming increasingly decisive.[1]

Another way to think about Big History is to emphasize inflection points, moments of fundamental change. A source (which I didn’t write down, how embarrassing) separates history into eight inflection points. We have already (briefly) discussed five of them: the Big Bang, the formation of stars, the formation of elements, the formation of Earth, and the beginning of life on Earth. Once life began, it contingently increased in complexity, culminating in us.

The human span comprises the next three inflection points, pretty similar to those espoused by Christian in This Fleeting World. The transformative human-centered moments are:

When we started collective learning,
The farming revolution that allowed people to be able to do things other than grow or collect food, and
The modern revolution, which includes leveraging our efforts with efficient energy and the quickening pace of knowledge accumulation and transfer.[2]

Books have been and will be written about any one of these topics. The concept behind Big History is to encapsulate everything that has happened into one book or course so that we appreciate the giant movements and events. Much of the history studied and written today emphasizes a micro-event or a small niche of something or other. Big History is partially a reaction to this increasing specialization, but it is also much more. A branch of Big History (according to Alvarez) is little big history, where a writer focuses on the entire history of a particular feature of the human experience. For instance, Mark Kurlansky has written Salt and Cod, which concentrate exclusively on those two food items.

There is certainly room for books about specific events or people. Otherwise, we would be unable to accumulate and build on the knowledge accrued by others. But there is also great value in a broad big-picture approach to history and the world, and A Most Improbable Journey is a great introduction to Big History.

It won’t spoil anything for me to quote Alvarez’s last paragraph, “Almost 14 billion years of Cosmic history, more than 4.6 billion years of Earth and Life history, a couple of million years of Human history, all of it constrained by the laws of Nature but playing out in an entirely unpredictable way because of countless contingencies – this history has produced the human situation in which we live. We few, we fortunate few, are the ones who have inherited this world and this situation, and it’s our actions that will influence the next chapter in the unfolding journey of Big History.”

[1] Alvarez gives another (crazy) example of scale. He explains that the current humans on Earth will directly produce roughly one billion people. A billion is 10 to the 9th; approximately that many grains can be found in two handfuls of fine sand. But the current human population is capable of producing 10 to the 25th people — if all available eggs and sperm were used as efficiently as possible. In terms of sand, it would take ten Grand Canyons full to yield 10 to the 25th grains. That is a lot sand. Imagine if there were that many humans.

[2] What might the next inflection point be? Life on other planets? The emergence of artificial intelligence that supplants us? A new ice age? Any other ideas?