Category: Sports

The Cavaliers winning the 2016 NBA Championship was cathartic for the city of Cleveland.  It also liberated LeBron James.  He is an undeniably great player, who has been dogged by critics who think he should have won more championships than he has.  After winning his third title in five years, the critics have less ammunition for their cause — and LeBron’s fans have reason to compare him favorably to Michael Jordan.  Of course Michael’s fans consider that sacrilege.  But is it?

Joe Posnanski, my favorite sportswriter, has an article titled Michael vs LeBron that wonderfully presents the debate.   http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/michael-jordan-vs-lebron-james/  I encourage you to read it.  Joe is a great storyteller, writes beautifully, and always takes a well-reasoned position.  He picks a winner, after concluding that there is no right or wrong answer.  I will pick a winner as well.

I have been enamored with baseball analytics for decades, since reading my first Bill James Baseball Abstract in roughly 1985.  He’s an engaging writer and a superb analyst.  Baseball analytics are universally available and relatively well understood by average fans.  Basketball analytics are not as readily accessible and I am not nearly as well versed in them.  I will, nevertheless, use a basketball metric (that is also used by baseball) because it provides a shortcut to broad picture analysis that is not otherwise available via more traditional measures like points, rebounds, and assists.

VORP stands for value over replacement player.  It’s basically an approximation of how valuable a player is compared to a replacement player, adjusted for game context (basically possessions per game) and prorated to an 82 game season.  The metric attempts to measure production and efficiency and, for my purposes, is a decent catch-all measure of quality, in part because it is available for all players since the mid-70s.  For reference, there have only been 50 players since 1973 to finish a season with a VORP of 7.99 or higher.  Anything approaching 5.0 indicates an excellent season.

The question of whether it is possible to be great if you never won a championship often arises when discussing NBA players.  The answer is unquestionably “YES.”  The top ten in career VORP are (in order): LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley, Tim Duncan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, David Robinson, Julius Erving, and Larry Bird.  They may not be the ten greatest, even allowing for the fact that VORP isn’t available for seasons prior to 1973, but these are all great players.  Two of them did not win an NBA championship and two others won “only” one.

Winning a championship isn’t necessary for a player to be an all-time great.  It doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t necessary.  Conversely, being on a team that wins championships doesn’t make a player great.  Sam Jones won ten championships in 12 seasons, the second most NBA championships ever.  He is in the Hall of Fame and deserves to be.  Yet he is never mentioned as being among the all-time greats.

Sam Jones averaged over 17 points per game, that’s more than many Hall of Famers, including James Worthy, Alonzo Mourning, Lenny Wilkins, Scottie Pippen, and Ralph Sampson.  Sam Jones was an outstanding player.  But he wasn’t as good as Bill Russell, who gets the lion’s share of the credit for all those Celtics’ championships.  For the record, Sam Jones scored more points per game than Russell.

Nine players have played on seven or more NBA championship teams.  Eight of them are Celtics from the 1960s, headlined by Russell who won 11 championships in 13 years.  (Who is the ninth guy?  Hint: he won seven total, two with two different teams and three with another team.  Answer below.)  The other Celtics with seven or more championships are Tom Heinsohn, K.C. Jones (with whom my son and I once golfed), Satch Sanders, John Havlicek, Jim Loscutoff, and Frank Ramsey.  Havlicek is the only one of these Celtics to win a championship without Russell on the floor, winning two in the mid-70s.

Instead of hopping straight to LJ v. MJ, I decided to pit them against great contemporaries.  MJ will compete against Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and LJ will compete against Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan.

Michael, Larry, and Magic each had assorted injuries or retirements, so I only counted their 11 best seasons.  (Bird 1979-1992, Magic 1979-1991, Michael 1984-1998)

		Bird	Johnson	Jordan
Average Wins Regular Season		59.8	59.8	52.7
Average Wins in Playoffs		8.9	11.5	10.3
Total Championships		3	5	6

 

Bird and Johnson played for better teams on average.  A Bird team never won fewer than 52 regular season games, Magic never won fewer than 54.  An early Jordan team finished under .500, winning 38 games.  Jordan has a championship edge, but then he wasn’t playing head-to-head against two inner circle hall of famers like Larry and Magic were.

		Bird	Johnson	Jordan
Average VORP		6.9	6.6	8.2
Average Best Teammate		3.9	4.2	4.0
Percent of Team VORP		39%	38%	48%

 

Recall that a VORP over 5 denotes an excellent season.  Each of these guys averaged significantly better than that, with Jordan having the upper hand.  On average, their best teammate in a given season was at least a notch below excellent.  Jordan separates himself because his teammates were worse.  On average Bird generated 39% of the total VORP of the seven players on his team with the most minutes played (including himself).  Johnson was a bit worse and Jordan generated substantially more of his team’s production.

I get it – I’m not looking at points, turnovers, etc.  I’m not considering defense, where Jordan excelled.  I’m not looking at strength of competition, I’m not looking at a lot of things.  But I’m not cherry picking either.  After poring over the statistics readily available, I chose these six and didn’t deviate based on results.  It’s pretty clear that in this battle of giants, Jordan wins the pre-2000 semi-final.

Now the same information for three post-2000 giants, based on their first 13 years in the league.  (Kobe 1996-2009, Duncan 1997-2010, LeBron 2003-2016)

		Bryant	Duncan	James
Average Wins Regular Season		52.2	55.3	52.5
Average Wins in Playoffs		8.6	8.2	10.1
Total Championships		4	4	3

 

This is really close.  LeBron has a won a few more playoff games, but one fewer championship.

		Bryant	Duncan	James
Average VORP		4.3	5.5	8.4
Average Best Teammate		4.8	4.3	2.9
Percent of Team VORP		29%	33%	55%

 

This is a landslide.  On average, Kobe’s best teammate was better than he was and Duncan’s was relatively close.  LeBron’s best teammates have been solid players, but not nearly as productive as Kobe’s or Tim’s teammates.  And LeBron’s overall level of production is much higher.  No shame in coming in 2nd or 3rd to LeBron.

We can quibble about the numbers.  Maybe I should have selected different ones (win shares or advanced plus/minus) or more, maybe I should weight them, maybe this, maybe that.  But for a broad-brush approach, these statistics tell a tale, and it is obvious that LeBron is the tallest.

Now the two champions go head to head.

		James	Jordan
Average Wins Regular Season		52.5	52.7
Average Wins in Playoffs		10.1	10.3
Total Championships		3	6
Average VORP		8.4	8.2
Average Best Teammate		2.9	4.0
Percent of Team VORP		55%	48%

 

The first two categories are a wash.  Obviously, Jordan won more championships.  Each great’s overall production (VORP) is basically the same.

The main difference is the quality of Jordan’s teammates.  His average best teammate has a VORP of 4.0, but that number is dragged down by Charles Oakley (2.3), Dave Corzine (1.3), Orlando Woolridge (2.4), and Horace Grant (2.2).  In those four seasons early in his career, Jordan’s teams won a total of 13 playoff games.  Once Scottie Pippen blossomed into a superstar, Jordan’s teams never won fewer than 15 playoff games in a season – if we ignore (as we should) the second year of his first retirement when he returned late in the season and the team never really came together.  Pippen had four seasons with a VORP over 6, almost eclipsing Michael one year, 6.7 to 6.8.  In those seasons Pippen was one of the best players in the league.

LeBron can only dream of having a player as good as Pippen as a teammate.  One teammate in 13 years has had a VORP over 5, Dwyane Wade with 5.7 in LeBron’s first year in Miami.  This year, Kevin Love was LeBron’s most productive teammate with a VORP of 2.8.  The caliber of teammates is not close.  Over the course of his career, LeBron has averaged a significantly higher VORP than his six teammates with the most playing time combined, 8.4 for LJ vs. 6.8 for his teammates.  MJ produced 8.2 VORP to his teammates’s 8.8.

Only four times in 13 years have LeBron’s teammates out produced him – according to VORP.  Jordan out produced his teammates his first five years in the league, when the team wasn’t ready for primetime, but never after that.  He also never made it to the NBA finals without Scottie Pippen producing at a high level

LeBron gets unfairly dinged because he has lost four finals.  But he lost to the Spurs twice.  They are the best team of the last 15 years.  Jordan’s Bulls defeated very good teams (Drexler’s Trailblazers, Barkley’s Suns, the Jazz of Malone and Stockton) but only one team that ever won a championship (the 1990-91 Lakers).   LeBron made the NBA finals with Zydrunas Ilgauskas as his second best player with a VORP of 2.1.  Jordan would not have taken that team to the NBA finals, let alone defeated the Spurs.  Yet, LeBron is discredited for making it to the finals but losing.

Only Kobe ever had a teammate as good as Pippen.  At his best, Shaquille O’Neal was outstanding, maxing out with a VORP of 9.3.  Jordan and Kobe each had five teammates with a VORP over 5.0, Duncan had three, Bird had two, Magic and LeBron had one.

The year after Jordan retired for the first time, the Bulls won 55 games and a playoffs series.  The first three years after LeBron left for Miami, the Cavaliers won a total of 64 games and attended a playoff game only upon the purchase of a ticket.

Michael Jordan was a transcendent player without amazing athleticism, work ethic, and competitive fire.  But he wasn’t a champion without a superstar Scottie Pippen playing beside him.  LeBron is all the things that Michael was and he’s 6’9”.  LeBron is at least as good a player as Michael, but he has not been blessed with outstanding teammates.  Maybe Kyrie Irving will become a superstar.  If he does, I predict more championships are headed to Cleveland.

Michael never had to carry a team the way LeBron has.  Maybe he could have, but the fact is that he didn’t get out of the Eastern Conference until the Celtics got old and the Pistons started to slide.  If my team already has a Scottie Pippen on it, I’ll draft Michael and win a bunch of games and championships.  But if my team doesn’t have a superstar, I would draft LeBron because he has proven that he can win a championship without a superstar at his side.  In my opinion, LeBron is a better player than Michael was because, although their production is roughly equivalent, Lebron has received much less support from his teammates.  And remember, LeBron is still only 31; he has a lot of years left.

 

 

Answer to trivia question:  Robert Horry won two championships with the Rockets (best player Hakeem Olajuwon), three with the Kobe/Shaq Lakers, and two with the Duncan/David Robinson Spurs.  He was almost as good as picking teammates as Sam Jones.

I have spent a lot of time through the years thinking about how to make this or that better, in large part, to no good end.  For example, I think all power lines should be underground.  It would be a significant aesthetic improvement, would lead to fewer automobile accidents involving utility poles, and would result in fewer power outages, which are often caused by falling trees or tree limbs.  It’s a great idea, certainly not original to me.  Though I have no authority to implement the concept, it is fun to think about.

Recently Bill James, the patron saint of baseball analytics, engaged in a thought experiment.  He thinks the NBA should consider a significant tweak to its draft to lessen the incentive for teams to tank seasons.  His idea, in short form, is to allow each player eligible for the draft to be drafted by up to three teams.  Then the teams that draft a player could negotiate with him and he could sign for the best situation, most dollars, or some combination of the two.  The scheme calls for a cap on dollars that can be spent on draft picks over a time period, say five years.  It’s just a thought experiment, if a good one, so all of the potential kinks have not been analyzed.

Steven Goldleaf recently offered his own thought experiment on Bill James Online.  He wants us to consider the impact of a new scheme governing walks in baseball.  Again, in short form, he envisions each team having nine free balls per inning.  The tenth ball would be a walk, as would each subsequent ball.  He believes (almost certainly correctly) that this scheme would lead to more hittable pitches, more balls in play, more runs scored, and a vastly different record book.  It’s an interesting idea and like most thought experiments is unlikely to be implemented.  It hearkens to a bygone age when the pitcher was supposed to initiate the action, not dominate it.

There are many others thought experiments out there.  Some, like Brexit, have real world impact – whether for good or bad remains to be determined.  Today I offer my own thought experiment.

There has been much talk lately about whether the Big 12 should expand.  Much of the discussion has centered on football.  My idea is to leave the conference as is, meaning that we do nothing to change the structure of any sport, whether baseball, soccer, basketball, etc. — except for football.  I believe we should consider distributing the Big 12’s football teams to the other four conferences that comprise the so-called Power 5 (SEC, Big Ten, PAC-12, ACC and Big 12).

The Big 12 has been getting picked apart for years anyway.  Primarily based on football considerations, the conference lost Nebraska to the Big Ten, Colorado to the PAC-12, and Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC.  The Big 12 is no longer the force it once was, though, to be fair, each year the conference’s top teams remain among the best in the country.

My idea of distributing the Big 12 teams to the other conferences dovetails nicely with my belief that college football should have an eight-team playoff.  As currently constituted, the ACC has 14 teams, the Big Ten has 14 teams, the PAC-12 has 12 teams, the SEC has 14 teams, and the Big 12 has 10 teams.  That’s a total of 64 teams.  Remind you of anything?

It reminds me of the NCAA basketball tournament in its most perfect form, before the abomination of the First Four was invented.  The only good thing about the First Four is that they no longer call it the First Round.

If the Power 5 became the Power 4, or some better name please, and each conference has 16 teams, then we are most of the way to an eight-team playoff.  The winner of each division would play in a quarterfinal game.  Whether the two division winners from each conference play each other or the eight teams are seeded by the current playoff committee doesn’t really matter.  What matters is having eight teams determined by the results on the field, which then determine a champion on the field.

Because this is my thought experiment, I would seed the eight teams and hold the four quarterfinal games at the home field of the higher seed.  The stadiums would be packed and we would likely see matchups that college football fans can now only dream of.  The semis and the championship game could remain in rotation with the existing bowls.

There are a few issues outstanding.  (Yea, right, just a few.)

First, the Big 12 teams have to be distributed.  I would do it essentially by geography.  The easiest decision is West Virginia, which would join the ACC along with Iowa State; Kansas and Kansas State would join the Big Ten; Texas, TCU, Texas Tech, and Baylor would join the PAC-12; and Oklahoma and Oklahoma State would join to the SEC.  That’s not perfect, but if you look at a map, it makes a lot of sense.

Second, some pretty good football schools have been left out.  It may have occurred to you, for instance, that Notre Dame’s football team isn’t in any of these conferences.  This is football’s chance to convince Notre Dame to join a conference.  ND won’t have to, but if they don’t, they will be ineligible for the national championship.  Others schools of note on the outside include:  Boise State, Louisville, Hawaii, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Northern Illinois, and the University of Central Florida.  Each of these teams has played in at least one BCS bowl within the last ten years.

Third, scheduling is always tricky, but this format allows the powers that be to enforce some standards.  Each team would of necessity play the seven teams in its division each year.  In addition, each team would be required to play at least two games against teams from its conference’s other division or from the other Power 4 conferences.  I would require each of the Power 4 matchups to be home and home.  Teams would still have the opportunity to schedule two or three revenue games against teams from outside the Power 64.

Fourth, strength of schedule and the eye test would become things of the past.  There would still be much discussion about whether this team is better than that team, but there would be only one crystal-clear criterion for advancing to the year-end tournament:  division record.  The two-way tie-breaker would be head to head performance.  Multiple team tie-breakers would have to be established, let’s say fewest points allowed against the teams in the tie.

Fifth (and most controversially?), relegation should be adopted.  This is a large topic deserving of its own post, but I’ll be brief anyway.  Because there are so many good teams on the outside looking in and because there are some many bad teams on the inside, there should be a process to replace the bad with the good.  There are many valid ways to approach this issue and they are all disruptive.  But, again, it’s my thought experiment, so here is my idea:

Every five years, the two teams in the Power 64 (“P64”) with the fewest wins against P64 schools should be replaced by the two teams outside the P64 with the most wins against P64 teams.  That’s not perfect and it could lead to serious geographical dislocation, but not likely much worse than West Virginia having the entire Big Ten between it and the Big 12.  A tiebreaker could be paid attendance.

Sixth, let’s face it:  football is different.  It is (roughly) the cash cow of college sports, though men’s and women’s basketball also provide healthy revenues.  In the main, the other sports do not.  There is no reason football can’t be treated differently, as a separate entity with a sort of super-structure imposed outside the current conference format.  And, let’s face it, conferences have changed frequently throughout the years, there is nothing sacrosanct about the current structure, nor should there be.

Seventh, however bizarre relegation would be, it would provide a new arena of intense interest as schools battle to avoid relegation and others battle to gain admission to the P64.  Instead of tracking wins, we might instead track football related revenues.  That may well be a bit more honest than we want to be.

Eighth, Texas will want to retain the Longhorn Network.  They can, but football will be outside that network.

Ninth, Notre Dame will likely succumb, which means we have 65 schools.  Someone must go.  I would nominate either Vanderbilt or Wake Forest.  It’s a favor to whichever gets booted.  Wake and Vandy are the only two schools in the P64 with a student enrollment under 10,000 and they play in two of the smallest stadiums, only Washington State is close.  Perhaps one of them would volunteer to become an independent.

Tenth, of course it will never happen.  Who cares?  As my friend Parker likes to say, discuss and debate.

The drought is over, long live the King.  King James, of course.

The Cleveland Cavaliers won the 2016 NBA championship and they did it the hard way, winning three games in a row against a team that hadn’t lost three consecutive games in a long long time.  They beat the defending NBA champions and they beat them on their own home floor twice in a row, including in game seven.  They did it against the two-time reigning MVP.  They came back from a 3-1 deficit, the first time it has happened in NBA finals history.

Cleveland is once again a city of champions.

Another champion was crowned recently, just a short two and a half hour drive from Cleveland.  The Pittsburgh Penguins added to that city’s  lore by bringing home another championship defeating the still champion-less and still only one sports team city of San Jose.

The composite index that I have put together really and truly rewards recent success.  Cleveland vaulted from fifth from the bottom to fifth from the top.  A championship will do that.  It purges all the losses, it soothes all the pain.  It even vanquishes demons, both citywide and individual (LeBron).

Pittsburgh had no demons to vanquish, just Sharks.  Their victory moves them into first place in my rankings.  Below is the updated information.  Remember this is just for fun, do not use these rankings as the basis to make or settle any bets.  Remember also, that the rankings may change markedly as soon as this fall when some city will celebrate a World Series championship.

Trivia question:  which professional team (NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB) finished the season with more post-season losses than regular season losses.

Bonus trivia question:  which professional teams (two) finished the season with as many post-season losses as regular season losses.

Answers below.

City                              (# of franshises)    (1950-2015)	Champships	Seasons     since last champship	Cumulative seasons      since last champship	Composite
San Diego (4)	1	53	110	9
Vancouver (2)	0	46	50	16
Buffalo (3)	2	51	104	16
Milwaukee (3)	2	44	88	20
Atlanta (4)	1	19	76	24
Ariz./Phoenix (4)	1	15	60	28
Cincinnati (3)	3	26	52	30
Washington (6)	4	25	87	30
Minn./Minn. (5)	5	25	100	31
Brooklyn (2)	1	61	6	33
Nashville/Tenn. (2)	0	19	19	35
Charlotte/N.C. (3)	1	11	33	37
Tampa (3)	2	12	44	39
Houston (4)	4	22	45	39
Toronto (4)	7	23	67	40
New Jersey (2)	3	14	28	46
New Orleans (3)	1	6	12	50
Indianapolis (2)	4	10	20	55
Montreal (2)	18	24	36	55
Philadelphia (5)	8	7	28	64
Detroit (4)	15	8	32	66
Seattle (4)	2	2	4	67
Dallas/Texas (6)	8	5	20	69
St. Louis (5)	7	4	12	70
Miami/Florida (4)	7	3	12	72
New York (8)	33	4	28	77
Baltimore (4)	8	3	6	79
Kansas City (4)	3	0	1	82
Los Angeles (9)	22	2	12	82
Denver/Col. (4)	5	0	2	87
Oakland (3)	8	1	3	89
Cleveland (3)	5	0	0	90
Chicago (7)	13	1	4	91
San Francisco (3)	8	1	1	91
Boston/N.E. (5)	27	1	4	95
Pittsburgh (3)	13	0	0	100

The only team with fewer regular season losses than post-season losses is the New England Patriots, who went undefeated until losing Super Bowl XLVI.

This year’s Warriors lost nine games in the regular season and nine games in the post season.  The 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks lost seven games in the regular season and seven games in the post season.

Much has been written about the championship drought in Cleveland.  And it is real.  It has been 52 years since the original Cleveland Browns shut out the Baltimore Colts 27-0 on December 27, 1964.  There are lots of other droughts, some are even worse than Cleveland’s.

I’ll start with a few disclaimers.  First, I am just one person.  I compiled a lot of data and double-checked as much as possible, but I am certain that something somewhere is a year (or digit) or two off.  Because my ultimate conclusions are based on rounded off numbers, and are not intended to be fractionally precise in any event, the assumed mistakes do not significantly affect my analysis.

Second, the data starts in 1950.  I had to pick a year and that one is nice and round.  There are certainly people alive who remember championships that were won before 1950, but I’m guessing that none of them place too much importance on those championships.  Philadelphia residents don’t place much emphasis on the Eagles’ 1949 NFL championship.  The same goes for the Yankees’, Red Wings’, and Lakers’ championships in 1949.  Each of those teams (and therefore each city) has won since then and more importantly, most fans weren’t alive then.  And the further back in time we go, the less important historic championships are.  Just ask Cubs fans how much pride they take in the back to back World Series the Cubs won in 1907 and 1908.

Third, I didn’t consider defunct teams.  The records of ABA and WHA teams are part of the equation only if their franchise continued in the NBA or the NHL.  The Indiana Pacers won ABA championships in 1970 and 1972, those count.  The ABA championship won the Pittsburgh Pipers in 1967 does not.

Fourth, I decided to lump Anaheim in with Los Angeles.  Maybe that isn’t fair, maybe they are separate cities.  But I consider them the same city even though they are no more distant from each other than San Francisco and Oakland.  It’s just that San Francisco and Oakland have always been separate and one of Anaheim’s teams is the Los Angeles Angels.

Fifth, cities with only one professional team were eliminated from consideration.  There really is no point in comparing the utter futility of the Columbus Blue Jackets, which are only 15 years old, with the cumulative horror that Buffalo fans have endured:  104 seasons since their last championship.  Also, what would I do with Syracuse, which hasn’t won a championship in 63 years or had a team for 55.

Once the one-sport cities (Calgary, Columbus, Edmonton, Green Bay, Hartford, Jacksonville, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Ottawa, Portland, Quebec, Rochester, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Jose, Syracuse, Utah, and Winnipeg) are removed, the database contains 36 cities.  Removing the one-sport cities eliminates three cities with five or more championships (Edmonton 5, Green Bay 7, San Antonio 5).  That would be troubling if I were assessing the quality of franchises, but I’m not, I’m assessing the cumulative misery of cities and I have artificially determined that a city without more than one team can’t be considered to have suffered as much as Cleveland, whose three teams have gone 150 seasons without a championship.

None of this should be taken too seriously.  My conclusions would change if I had chosen a different starting point or compiled different numbers – winning percentage, for instance.

With the disclaimers out of the way, here is a brief recap of my methodology.  I ranked the 36 cities in three categories:  championships won since 1950, the years since the last championship or 1950 or the years that a city has had a team (whichever is lower), and the cumulative seasons played since the last championship.  I then ordered the three categories and gave a team one point for the worst position, two for next worse, etc.  Any ties were averaged.   The team with the lowest point total is the unchampion.  A truncated chart below shows the totals.

Let’s start at the other end of the spectrum.  The top five cities for championships (according to this no- doubt-flawed methodology) are Boston, San Francisco and Chicago (tied), Oakland, and Denver.  Between them they have won 61 championships, over 22% of all championships since 1950.  And they have all won within the past year or so.  New York, which has the most championships, hasn’t won for four years, meaning that 28 seasons have passed since the last championship.

The members of the axis of misery (in order): San Diego, Vancouver and Buffalo (tied), Milwaukee and Cleveland (tied).  Cumulatively, they have won only nine championships, well under 4% of all championships.  The most recent was the Bucks triumph over the Bullets in 1971. These cities haven’t won a championship since the Nixon administration.  The aggregate of the seasons played in these cities since each last won a championship is 502 years; the aggregate for five cities at the top of the rankings is 14 years.  That is a chasm.  But it can close quickly.

For instance, if the Cavaliers win, they would vault to fifth place, from 33rd.  Such quick rehabilitation might be a flaw in the system, but it might not.  After all, if the Cavs win, the 52-year drought becomes zero years, the cumulative seasons since the last championship becomes zero seasons.  That is worth a lot.  Cleveland fans would be as muted as Red Sox fans after 2004, when their 90-whatever year drought became zero.  It’s hard to proclaim “woe is me” when your last championship was seven minutes ago.

Recency is a powerful force.  The perfect answer to the question: what you have done for me lately, is: won a championship.  The next question from Cleveland fans would be:  what about the Browns.  I have no answer for that.  Even worse, I have no answer for Padres’ or Chargers’ fans.

CITIES and CHAMPIONSHIPS

City (# of franshises)    (1950-2015)	Championships	Seasons since last championship	Cumulative seasons since last championship	Composite
San Diego (4)	1	53	110	10
Vancouver (2)	0	46	50	18
Buffalo (3)	2	51	104	18
Milwaukee (3)	2	44	88	22
Cleveland (3)	4	52	150	22
Atlanta (4)	1	19	76	27
Arizona/Phoenix (4)	1	15	60	29
Cincinnati (3)	3	26	52	31
Washington (6)	4	25	87	32
Minneaplis/Minn. (5)	5	25	100	33
Brooklyn (2)	1	61	6	35
Nashville/Tenn. (2)	0	19	19	38
Charlotte/Carolina (3)	1	11	33	39
Tampa (3)	2	12	44	41
Houston (4)	4	22	45	42
Toronto (4)	7	23	67	42
New Jersey (2)	3	14	28	48
New Orleans (3)	1	6	12	54
Montreal (2)	18	24	36	57
Indianapolis (2)	4	10	20	58
Philadelphia (5)	8	7	28	67
Detroit (4)	15	8	32	68
Seattle (4)	2	2	4	71
Pittsburgh (3)	12	7	21	72
Dallas/Texas (6)	8	5	20	73
St. Louis (5)	7	4	12	74
Miami/Florida (4)	7	3	12	76
New York (8)	33	4	28	80
Baltimore (4)	8	3	6	83
Kansas City (4)	3	0	1	85
Los Angeles (9)	22	2	12	89
Denver/Colorado (4)	5	0	2	90
Oakland (3)	8	1	3	93
Chicago (7)	13	1	4	95
San Francisco (3)	8	1	1	95
Boston/N.E. (5)	27	1	4	99

Joe Posnanski, the best sportswriter in the country, doesn’t like instant replay.  See this recent column:  http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/replay-lose-nuance-of-game/.  He knows that people think he is crazy to have that opinion but he lays out his case with humor and aplomb.  Joe doesn’t think we need to get every call right and I agree.  His solution is one that I think is spot on, one that I’ve been telling my children about for years.

The two most fundamental problems with instant replay are the time expended and the creation of phantom errors.  The phantom errors are those that, but for the excellence of technology, would not exist.  A couple of simple examples are provided in Joe’s column.  Whether a player loses contact with a base for a ten of a second or less should not be reversible.  People do not regularly operate at that minute level of separation.  Similarly in football, re-spotting a ball because a player’s knee came did or did not touch down for a micro-second is too minute a level of distinction to justify reversing the call of a seasoned sports official.

A simple change to the way the various leagues operate their replay protocol would solve both of these issues:  wasting time and creating phantom errors.  The simple change would be to have a replay official review the various angles available one time at real speed.  That official should only be able to reverse the call if it was clearly wrong.  There is no reason to stop a game for five minutes or more to allow officials to look at every segment of stop action that is available.  There is also no need to scrutinize every call made by an official at the microscopic (whether in time or space) level.

Professional officials, whether baseball, football, or any other sport, generally do a fine job.  Of course, some are better than others, just as players are.  And of course, they make mistakes.  But every single mistake should not be reversible or there will come a day, because of advances in technology, when every single play will be reviewed.  Instead, we should ensure that the calls that are obviously wrong get reversed and learn to live with minor or barely discernible mistakes.