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Not that I’ve ever really been into horse racing… But as a sports fan, yes, I pay attention to the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness. And when a horse has a chance of winning the Triple Crown, I get excited about the Belmont Stakes. I’m old enough to remember watching Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed win the Triple Crown.

When I moved to Maryland, where horses are part of the local culture, my interest in the Preakness Stakes rose a little bit, too. So over the last thirty years, I, like many other non-horse sports fans, have paid attention to the potential Triple Crown winners, and have been disappointed every time. Just so you know, I have never bet on a horse race, so I have no financial interest in any of this business.

This time was supposed to be different. This time it was supposed to happen. This time there was no reason, other than a flat out injury, that could prevent Big Brown from making history. But it didn’t happen. Instead, I watched the big brown horse fail to make his move on the back stretch and then fade as they turned for home.

The immediate assessment was that there was no injury. The horse didn’t show any signs of breakdown. I turned off the TV. I wasn’t interested in hearing any more details.

I’m just done with the whole thing. I’m done with watching the Kentucky Derby. I’m done with watching the Preakness Stakes. I’m done with watching the Belmont Stakes. I don’t care if a horse wins the Derby and the Preakness. Let me know when someone wins the Triple Crown, because until then, I’m not interested in listening to any more commentary or watching any more races.

Hey, the Phillies are 3 and a half games up in the National League East!

Tags: Opinion, Sports by BrokenClaw
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One of my pet peeves is hearing people, especially those in the broadcast media, use a particular word to emphasize their point, but use the incorrect definition of the word. Two such words are prototype and literal.

How many times have you heard a sports broadcaster describe a player as “the prototype of an NFL quarterback” or “the prototypical Major League closer”? The idea they are trying to convey is that the player has all the physical skills and attributes desired of that position. However, the word prototype does not mean that at all. A prototype is an unfinished, often nonfunctioning, novelty. The prefix, proto-, means “first” or “earliest form of”.

When manufacturers develop a new product, they often build a prototype for display and demonstration before continuing with full production. In this age of rapidly advancing technology, we hear the word prototype all the time. “Within a year, they produced a prototype of the stealth fighter.” “The trade show was full of interactive prototypes.” Can I buy this product now? “No, it’s just a prototype.” Those comments are all proper usages of the word.

However, when a broadcaster means to laud an athlete’s abilities, the correct word is archetype, which means the completed model of perfection, the principle example. Archetype is certainly not a word in common usage, although the prefix is commonly known in words such as archenemy, archrival, and archbishop.

The word literal imparts strict interpretation of the words used, by the letter, the exact meaning, verbatim. Literal is the functional opposite of figurative or metaphorical. Broadcasters, however, seem to use the words literal and literally, merely for emphasis. Vehix.com currently has a TV commercial running, in which the prospective car buyer extols the virtues of the website. She says, “You can literally take a test drive!” I think not. Perhaps you can virtually take a test drive.

I’ve also heard descriptions in the media such as “Literally every crumb was gone.” Really? I think practically every crumb was gone, unless the dog cleaned up afterward. “Her house was literally filled to the ceiling with stuffed animals.” Maybe her house was filled, figuratively speaking, to the ceiling. “The forwards on this basketball team can literally jump through the roof!” They’d be medical marvels! Another sportscaster described a team’s strategy against a formidable goalie by saying, they should “literally get in his shorts.” I think that would be a penalty. Another broadcaster informed us that a particular player “literally carries the weight of his team on his shoulders.” He’s obviously in the wrong sport.

Earlier this week Scott Van Pelt on ESPN was describing the Boston Celtics’ standing in the NBA playoff race. His meaning was that there wasn’t much of a chance that they could improve or worsen their position, so he said that they could “literally take their foot off the gas and coast” to the playoffs. It was a clever metaphor ruined by the misuse of the word literal.

I remember a scene from the movie, The Princess Bride. Vizzini, who is amazed at his pursuer’s tenacity, repeatedly describes the situation as inconceivable. Finally, his partner, Montoya, calls Vizzini’s attention to it: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” He isn’t the only one who needs a dictionary.

Tags: Humor, Opinion, Sports by BrokenClaw
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The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is one of the most exciting sporting events in the US. Unlike the NBA playoffs, what makes the college tourney so fascinating is that every game is an elimination match. On the first 4-day weekend games are played throughout the day as the field gets whittled down from 64 teams to 16 teams. The remaining teams are called the Sweet Sixteen.

The original meaning of that expression probably dates back to the 19th century in the US, referring to the 16th birthday party for girls, as a coming-of-age celebration. It’s an odd association for men’s basketball to begin with, since none of the participants are girls or are 16. But the alliterative expression has been around for a long time and isn’t going away.

On the second weekend of the tournament, the 16 teams get reduced to four. Those final four teams are called the Final Four. Not a very imaginative description, but it has similar alliteration as Sweet Sixteen and rolls off the tongue nicely. The Final Four then play the next weekend, into Monday, to decide the champion.

Now here’s where it gets silly. Some years ago, someone decided that they needed a moniker for the eight teams that remain after the initial round of the Sweet Sixteen weekend. The term Elite Eight has been used in basketball tournaments for a long time, such as the Illinois high school playoffs and the NCAA Division II playoffs. But in both of those cases, the eight teams had a specific association to the eight regions that qualified for the tournament. In the NCAA Division I, the eight teams are just a temporary position on Friday night. The Sweet Sixteen has a weekend, and the Final Four has a weekend. Why do we need a name for the half-way point?

The phrase Elite Eight doesn’t even have the pizzazz of Sweet Sixteen and Final Four. Sure, it has the quasi-alliteration of the initial E, but the pronunciation isn’t even the same. Elite starts with a long E, while Eight starts with the sound of a long A. And it surely doesn’t roll of the tongue. You have to pronounce the final T sound in Elite before pronouncing Eight, which makes it jerky.

Personally, I think Eight Elite would improve its aesthetic quality. Try it. Say “Elite Eight” three times. Then say “Eight Elite” three times. Don’t you agree that Eight Elite rolls off the tongue better? It’s because you can cheat on the pronunciation and make the T in Eight sound like a D, as in A-da-leet. If you try that with Elite Eight, it comes out as Ely-date. Not good.

Say it often. Google it. Eight Elite! Eight Elite! Eight Elite!

Tags: Humor, Sports by BrokenClaw
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In general terms, digital means that information is contained in discrete elements, with nothing in between. For example, a digital clock with an Hour:Minute display shows you the time as discrete elements of minutes. By glancing at the clock once, you cannot tell how close you are to the next minute. There is no in-between. A digital clock can not only show you the time, it can also tell you the time. Since digital time is just a number and not an abstract point in time, it can transfer that information easily to other devices.

The opposite of digital is analog. With an analog clock, with hands in constant motion, you can see how far past or close you are to a minute. The analog clock can show you the time, but it cannot tell you the time. In other words, it can’t transfer its information to another device. Think of the old cartoon time bomb with an alarm clock attached. The bomb has no idea when it’s going to go off. It has to wait for the alarm clock to ring.

For a slightly more technical explanation, read Digital Bits and Bytes.

Baseball is digital

A baserunner can only be on first base, second base, or third base. He can’t be on 1 and a half base. A batter can have a count of 0, 1, 2, or 3 balls, 0, 1, or 2 strikes. There’s no such thing as 2 and half balls. There can only be no outs, 1 out, or 2 outs. You can stop a game for rain, come back, look at the scorebook, and put the game in exactly the same condition. They do it all the time.

Football is analog

The ball is placed on the field where the play ends. Football records are digital, by downs and yards and points, but the play of the game is analog. If a team has the ball with 2nd and 7 at the 35 yard line, can you reproduce that by the numbers? No, not without seeing exactly where the ball and the chain were located between the yard markers. The field can show you the precise location, but it can’t tell you the precise location. The officials demonstrate this limitation every time they use the chain to measure for a first down or move the ball at the end of the first and third quarters.

Basketball wants to be digital

Sports that use a clock, like basketball, have used digital clocks for a long time. Sports fans over 50, or anyone who’s seen the movie, Hoosiers, knows that the time clock for basketball games used to be an analog sweep second clock on the wall. But everyone switched to digital clocks in the 1960s. With a digital time clock, you can see how many seconds are left in the game. But even that has proved insufficient, since the clock can stop and start between ticks of a second. As a result, they now use a digital clock with tenths of a second as the game winds down.

Table Games

Most table games, like checkers, chess, Scrabble®, and Battleship®, are digital in nature. In other words, the pieces on the board are placed at specific positions. That’s why they are easily converted to computer simulations. But you can’t play pick-up-sticks on the computer, because it depends on analog placement and movement of the pieces.

Tags: Digital, Humor, Sports, Tech Explained by Smilodon
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Yesterday Sam Bradford, the Oklahoma freshman quarterback, threw four touchdown passes against the in-state rival Oklahoma State Cowboys enroute to a decisive 49-17 victory. The victory gave the Sooners the outright division championship of the Big 12 South and bragging rights in the state for another year.

The four touchdown passes brought Bradford’s total to 32 for the season. And that, my friends, is an NCAA freshman record. Yes, I know it’s just a freshman record, and nowhere near the all-time records of 61 thrown by Brett Elliot at Linfield College or 58 by Colt Brennan at Hawaii, but the fact that a quarterback at Oklahoma holds any kind of passing record is rather amazing in itself.

Over the last nine seasons Coach Bob Stoops has certainly changed the look of the Oklahoma offense, and the quarterback’s passing skills are among the major factors. Compare that to the years when I was a student there, when Thomas Lott’s passing stats were often something like: 5 attempts, 3 completions, 62 yards, 1 touchdown, 0 interceptions. In fact, there were games when Barry Switzer’s Sooners attempted no passes the entire game! It’s true, you can look it up. That’s not a knock, that’s a praise. But times have changed.

I remember watching a replay of an Oklahoma game from the 1970s on ESPN Classic. The Sooners had a drive of about 70 yards, where they ran the same option play, either right or left, for 9 straight plays until they scored a touchdown. The Sooners didn’t pass because they didn’t have to.

In 1999, Bob Stoops’s first season as coach, Josh Heupel set the new standard for Oklahoma quarterbacks. That season he broke the Oklahoma all-time record with 33 touchdown passes. He threw 20 more touchdowns the next year in leading the Sooners to the 2000 National Championship. In 2003, Jason White threw 40 touchdown passes in his Heisman Trophy year, before finishing his career with an Oklahoma record of 79.

There are no guarantees in sports, and quarterbacks are probably more vulnerable than other players, but Sam Bradford’s future at Oklahoma sure looks bright.

Tags: News, Sports by BrokenClaw
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In case you hadn’t noticed, the FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament is in full swing in China. We all know that football is the most popular sport in the world. That’s soccer to those of us in the USA, and since this article is about the USA, I will call it soccer. Last month I wrote an article about youth soccer, but this time I’m thinking about soccer as a spectator sport.

I remember listening to a sports talk radio program during the men’s World Cup. The host was interviewing a spokesperson from the local Major League Soccer team. Naturally the conversation turned immediately to the topic of why soccer has never caught on as a spectator sport in the US, and will probably never be able to compete with football. The spokesperson said that people need to see the game and learn about each player’s strengths, in the same way that fans of football know the difference between a defensive lineman and a running back. By knowing more about individual players, the fan can appreciate the subtleties of individual play. Hmmm… that makes sense, but who’s going to sit through a bunch of games to try and do that? Sorry, not me.

Then the host brought up the issue with scoring. Sports fans in the US love to see scoring, he said, and soccer just doesn’t have enough scoring to get fans excited. You could tell that the soccer spokesperson was tired of answering that question. He responding in a slightly sarcastic tone with something like, “If we made a goal worth seven points, would that make it more exciting?” And then he added, “A 3-2 game in soccer has just as much scoring as a 21-14 game of football.” Well… not quite.

Technically, a 7-point touchdown consists of two separate plays — the touchdown and the extra point. So a 21-14 football game has at least ten scoring plays. And that’s the real difference. On every single play in football, either team can score. There is always the possibility of the defense intercepting a pass or recovering a fumble and scoring themselves. Every play. In soccer, when the ball is at one end of the field, there’s no way a guy is going to kick it into the other goal. The goalie might as well be having a snack. In football, every player is involved in every play.

So I sat down and actually watched a whole game from the World Cup. What a surprise, the score ended nil-nil. That’s zero-zero. No goals. Nada. Zilch. In fact, there were three games played that day. Two of them ended 0-0, and the other one ended 1-0. The only goal scored that day was scored on a penalty kick. Gee, I wish I had watched that game instead. I imagine there were quite a few exciting close calls, too, with corner kicks and such. Are the goalies that good?

So what’s with the goalie thing anyway. In a sport which touts itself as true football, why is the most prominent player on the field, with his colorful costume, allowed to use his hands? Doesn’t that make it handball? And another thing, what’s up with the flops that players take whenever someone bumps them? It seems like it’s part of the game, to pretend someone made you fall down on the grass. What’s up with that? In football, if you get knocked down and don’t get up, your team gets penalized.

But let’s get back to that facetious suggestion of making a goal worth more points. It might not be such a bad idea. Not just to make it worth more, but to have varying points based on how the goal is scored. For example, if a goal is scored from outside the penalty box, make it 3 points. That would include corner kicks that go in untouched by another offensive player. That would be cool. For goals scored from within the penalty box, you get 2 points. And penalty kicks would be 1 point. Hey, it’s beginning to sound like basketball. Then you’d have some excitement.

Imagine a team with a 2 point lead in the closing minutes of play. The opposing team could still take the lead with a long goal. The leading team can’t just play keep-away like they do now. If the opponent gets the ball deep, should they commit an intentional foul and give the opponent a penalty kick? Hey, I’m beginning to like this soccer thing… oh, wait, it’s imaginary soccer.

While doing a little (very little) research for this article, I typed www.worldcupsoccer.com into my browser. Sure enough, there’s an unofficial fan site there with pictures and links and stories. The headline reads, “Brazil Champions!” Uhhh… wasn’t that 2002? Isn’t Italy the reigning champion since 2006? Yeah… apparently even the soccer fans lose interest.

Earlier this year, ESPN started a campaign to advertise their coverage of Major League Soccer. They used the slogan, “You’re a fan, you just don’t know it yet.” Sorry, I’m not, and I know it.

Tags: Humor, Sports by BrokenClaw
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