Heisman Pundit

Stumbled across this site thanks to Senator Blutarsky. There series on program and talent rankings intrigues me. It reminds me a little of the work that Chris Jaffe has done on evaluating baseball managers. Could we evaluate college football coaches on how well or poorly they convert bluechip recruits into NFL performers? I don't think that's the only mission of coaches, but let's be honest. These teams are part of the de facto NFL farm system.

Conference Realignment

I expand on my thoughts from yesterday and Howard Megdal (future GM of the Mets) chimes in as well. I really enjoy writing for the Perpetual Post. I find that it challenges me and I hope my writing becomes stronger for it. Plus, I learned how much Dan Szymborski likes cheese.

Here's How to Fix College Football

The Wall Street Journal weighs in on college conference realignment. Right now the Great Realignment of 2010 is more of a whimper than a bang. The way folks were talking, it sounded like changes would've been more radical. Then again, the Pac 16 would have still been more Pacific than the Pacific Coast League.

I don't know about relegation, but there are some big conference/small conference alliances that might make sense. For instance, the MAC could partner with the Big 10 and if the Akron Zips are MAC champs, they could supplant Northwestern in the bigger conference.

Then again, the Pac 16 would have still been more Pacific than the Pacific Coast League. But we care more about college sports than minor league sports. Why? For some, it's the biggest game in town. This is true for places like Nebraska and Alabama. Others went to these sports powers or are affiliated with them somehow. For some, jhaving the last name O'xxx ties them to Notre Dame. But for someone like me, who lives in the middle of the Bowash megalopolis, it's the diversity of offensive and defensive philosophies. These guys aren't as good as the pros, but they play a different game. In football it could be the flexbone or spread. In hoops it could be the 2-3. Anyways, that's one aspect that makes me overlook the corruption in the college sports world; not that the pros are much better.

I'll have more thoughts on this elsewhere tonite.

Mini Book Review: The Catch

Crossposted from Residual Prolixity:

The Catch was disappointing. I was hoping that it would go into more about how San Francisco overtook the Cowboys as an NFC power. The book does touch on that, but it could have gone into more depth.

Sure, they mentioned the West Coast Offense, but the author didn't explain how the rule changes a few years earlier made it feasible. Or how those changes may have spelled the death of Dallas's Flex Defense.

FWIW, two parts of Landry's offense live on: the multiple formations and the shotgun. IIRC, no one else was really using those tools at the time. But I don't think the writer touched on that at all. Xes and Os may scare some folks off, but I'd like to read about them; as long as there are accessible enough for me, a layman, to understand.

These Are Their Stories

Saw this article on Law and Order over the weekend. I like how it compares L&O to a classic detective story whereas other cop shows like Homicide or NYPD Blue were more hard-boiled. Interestingly, they are both part of the Tommy Westphall Universe thanks to Detective Munch. But real life links interest me more. Through Fred Thompson, L&O (sounds like a railroad, doesn't it?) can connect the US Senate to Jason Sehorn or longtime umpire George Moriarty or the metal-rap group Body Count. But I haven't figured out a satisfying round trip yet. Ham sandwich to the best one in the comments section.

The Other USC

I started following this blog because Chris at Smart Football kept linking and mentioning it. The fact that the writer's nom de blog is Senator Blutarsky and that he has a cool pic of James Brown and (I believe) Vince Dooley sealed the deal. Anyways, he links to a preview that names the University of South Carolina as a darkhorse candidate for the 2010 national championship. Guess who beat them in a bowl game last year? That's right! UConn.

My First Baseball Piece

I think that this links to my piece on Mike Morgan. If not, run it through archive.org and see if it comes up. I used up a lot of my creative capital on that one and it was a while before I wrote something that I thought approached it in quality. I even ripped myself off once and wrote about George Blanda. I submitted that piece to Football Outsiders, but they rejected it. It was disappointing, but life goes on...

EDIT - I believe Devin McC commented on the Mike Morgan thread.

Carpetbaggers

New York UFL Team Moves To Hartford.

This will make up for Brooklyn stealing the Dark Blues way back in 1877. An 0-6 team. But the roster may be different. Jason Page said a lot of UFL players moved up to the NFL last year including J.P. Losman and Garrett Hartley.

Did anyone here catch a UFL game last year? I caught a bit of one on VS, but I forget if the style of play was more run-oriented or pass-oriented . I imagine it they passed a lot, but that's just the nature of football today.

Monday Morning Shortstop

Comment of the week, from Nick:

Jon,
(Disclaimer: I made a comment along these lines Friday, but it's never appeared on your blog. Don't know what happened.) Anyway:
Bo Jackson would be a good Maranvillian. Some of the stuff he did was breathtaking. A homer I saw him hit off Oswaldo Peraza in 1988 is probably somewhere around Saturn by now.

Inspired choice. Bo knew strikeouts, he knew home runs, and he knew stolen bases. In 1989, he led the league with the highest Power/Speed number. A look at the yearly leaders shows some other guys mentioned here: Reggie Jackson, Mark Reynolds, Jackie Robinson, and Larry Walker to name a few. Versatility isn't just for Meryl Streep. It may also be a good quality for Maranvillains, now that I think about it. How was he as a fielder? I seem to recall him as aggressive, but most of his career coincided with my Army days and I didn't follow baseball much those years. It was hard to without a TV back then.

There was some sporting event last nite, and Brian Burke commented on the ballsiness of one coach.

A call for scoresheets.

Dave Allen has an idea for a new boxscore. To tie these last two together, Bill James had an idea in one of his Baseball Abstracts that involved a scoresheet style boxscore. I liked that and thought it was the most concise way to tell the story of a game.

One of my friends calls Joe Mauer a baseball robot, but this is a nice story about him; if you get ESPN Insider. If not, it's in the latest "The Mag."

This makes me feel old

Today’s Hartford Courant said that Tebucky Jones Jr. signed a letter of intent to attend UConn. I didn’t know Jones was old enough to have a son that old.

Tommy Brookshier, 78

Tom Brookshier succumbed to cancer at the age of 78 last Friday. He was a Philadelphia Eagle way back in the '50s and '60s, but I remember him as a color guy on TV. CBS teamed him up with Pat Summerall. I first became conscious of football around the time of the Pisarcik Fumble. I got some Sports Illustrated book about football by Bud Wilkinson for Christmas around that time and Brookshier and Summerall seemed to cover a lot of the games I watched in those days. They were the number one team for CBS. (I still remember the pregame with a young Brent Musberger, Irv Cross, and Jimmy the Greek.) My dad was a Giants fan and I became one, so we watched their games. Plus, the Cowboys seemed to be on quite often back then.

Brookshier probably wasn't that much older than I am now when I used to watch those games.

Monday Morning Shortstop

Comment of the week:

With regard to the Rabbit Maranville All-Stars and the lack of a catcher and second baseman, Nick said:

I dunno, maybe Jackie Robinson at 2B, although he played first in '47. For catcher, maybe Johnny Bench.

I like Robinson. Stealing home during the World Series? That's the type of thing I'm looking for.

A new bio of Willie Mays is coming out. A ham sandwich for the first person who can tell me who the Mets traded for him. (Don't look it up.)

Brian Burke asks if Kurt Warner is a Hall of Famer. He shows some of his advanced stats but admits that that's only part of the picture.

I celebrated SABR Day Saturday at a breakfast with some other Nutmeggers. One was a prof at Turk Wendell’s alma mater. Says that when Turk’s meal plan money ran out, he would hunt birds with rocks and eat them. Another once went to a Negro League game. Saw the Indianapolis Clowns. Goose Tatum played first.

This and That (Ctd)

To continue my thought from yesterday, I think that I enjoy sports more when they are not just a clash of two opponents, but a clash of competing philosophies. As my friend, the Sheriff, said four years ago, "Certainly, that’s something else the NCAA has over the NFL. The varied offenses provide a lot of entertainment. There’s so little difference in the pro game that a game between two random teams carries a lot less interest to me."

I guess that's why baseball during the 1980s might have been better than it has been through most of it's history; what with The Saint Louis Cardinals practicing Whiteyball versus Harvey's Wallbangers in the'82 World Series.

This and That

1. Some more thoughts on Wilt 1962:

It's the kind of book that I like; a microhistory of one particular event. I've read a couple of books like that on the Colts-Giants game (Gino Marchetti was there AND at this game, So were some other Colts, They played a warmup game against the Eagles before the main event.), Don Larsen's perfect game, and Dan Okrent's Nine Innings. The book reminded me that the game took place in Hershey, Penn.; not Philly or any other big city. It also had a lot of info about the games' other participants. It sort of game me a taste of what times were like 15 years before I started following sports. Today, there'd be a bunch of YouTube clips of the game. Then, there was one photographer and no media other than those that followed the Warriors. In any event, they moved to the West Coast the next year.

2. Bethlehem Shoals moved from TSN to Fanhouse (He still blogs at Free Darko) and recently wrote about stardom. How do you define it? I'd like to see someone tackle that for baseball. Maybe I will some day. But I still want to discuss the basketball labor struggles and haven't made much progress. BTW, Shoals alludes to those here.

3. I read a couple of chapters of the Brian Billick book. He shows an awareness of the football blogosphere. Too, the added variety in the NFL since my childhood is sets, not plays; at least according to that book. Some say that most teams run the same few plays. I didn't play fantasy football this year and the Giants didn't have a good season. Without those two incentives to watch, I thought college football was more interesting. This is the reverse of how I felt about the two popular forms of basketball a couple of years ago. (I have notes on this somewhere. I just can't find them at the moment.)

Jets beat Bengals 24-14 in NFL playoffs

Story

I have to friends about my age whose dads were WWII vets. I think it's interesting that they were the dads who became Jet fans. Wasn't Joe Willie Namath supposed to be a counterculture icon? Richard Nixon may have thought so, but apparently he wasn't.

Wednesday Nite Football

Tuesday means early morning meeting, which means I have to provide content tonite for the legion of readers who glance at the Sitter over cereal and OJ. I have been meaning to get this off my chest for some time: There is a week of great bowl matchups in early January, but why is Troy facing Central Michigan Wednesday? Shouldn't that game have been played December 13th?

Blanda to Erdos - A Quicker Way

Hola. After reading Monday's post, reader Tybalt suggest offline that there's a quicker way to get from George Blanda to Paul Erdos. He suspect a link can be found through Mike Marshall or Dave Meggyesy. Both are athletes of that era who went into academe. Meggyesy (who's worthy of discussion here on his own someday) would probably be a much easier connection. He played football instead of baseball. Unfotunato, I couldn't find a link to Erdos for either. But I did find one five years ago for Frank Ryan. Enjoy.

Tommorrow, I'll recap the best of this blog for the decade. All two months worth. Actually, upcoming topics will hopefully include the fall and rise of the stolen base and the history of the NBA Players' Association (The history of the MLBPA is well documented, but this one really isn't and Bill Simmmons suggested that someone write it up. Why not me?)

The One Where The Sitter Loses His Cool

Urban Meyer chose to take only a leave of absence. He should heed his own words and put health and family first. That was a headline at Yahoo Sports on Sunday and it linked to this Dan Wetzel column. Only?

Apparently the Florida head coach announced his retirement, then reversed himself a couple days later. I hate the superquick news cycle. I didn’t even know he was resigning in the first place. Pardon me for celebrating Christmas instead of staying locked into the ####### news. The news is getting as hard to follow as Arrested Development. Miss an episode and you are lost. Am I wrong to get frustrated by things like this?

Meyer Retracts Resignation; Takes Leave Of Absence Instead

8 words. That would have worked. The thing is, 90% of the time I would have already heard about the resignation. But it was a holiday weekend and I was busy celebrating. I like Yahoo Sports for quick info. The page isn't as distractingly busy as ESPN's page. But I may switrch to NBC or CBS instead.

Is George Blanda the nexus of the football universe?

(This is something I wrote about 4 years ago. Enjoy.)

A few years ago, some Craig Fass and two of his buddies at Albright College in Pennsylvania invented a popular game about the actor Kevin Bacon. The object of the game was to start with an actor or actress and connect them with Bacon in the fewest links possible. People are linked if they appeared in the same movie. A “Bacon Number” was assigned to the actor based on the fewest links necessary to connect them with Kevin Bacon. For instance, Telly Savalas was in “Kelly’s Heroes” with Donald Sutherland. Sutherland appeared in “Animal House” (and “JFK”) with Bacon. Therefore Sutherland has a Bacon Number of 1 and Savalas has a Bacon Number of 2. In fact, the game has inspired the Oracle of Bacon website at the University of Virginia. The Oracle uses imdb.com as a database for its actor and movie data.

This isn’t an entirely new concept. Since the 1960s, sociologists have suggested that every person is connected to every other person through an average of six acquaintances. Paul Erdos, a prolific Hungarian mathematician, invented the Erdos Number. Every academic who collaborated on a paper with Erdos was assigned an Erdos Number of 1. Every co-author of these collaborators has an Erdos Number of 2. And so on, and so on. The Erdos Number became the forerunner of the Bacon Number.

Four years ago, I wrote an article at Baseball Primer (now Baseball Think Factory), suggesting that Mike Morgan was the center of the baseball universe. It turns out that I was wrong. Since then, Sean Forman has added an Oracle of Baseball section to his www.baseballreference.com website, and it has been shown that the most linkable baseball player is either Early Wynn or Bobo Newsom (any baseball player can be linked to Bobo in five links or less, while there are 87 that require 6 links to get to Wynn.) In any case, Bacon isn’t the best center of the Hollywood universe. Rod Steiger is. I think that I failed to account for the fact that Mike Morgan is a recent player. So, while he (or Rickey Henderson) may eventually become the center of the baseball universe, he ain’t there yet.

When it comes to football, I think that I have the center of the universe pegged and I think that I found a way to prove it. I’m sure that many folks would guess George Blanda off the top of their heads. The quarterback/placekicker had a 27-year career that neatly straddled the middle of pro football history. Ever since I wrote that Morgan article, I’ve thought that Blanda would be the perfect choice for the center of the football universe. But I couldn’t think of a way of proving it. Then, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the http://www.databasesports.com/ website. I don’t know much about the site (it may be a Justin Kubatko project, but I’m not sure), but it has listings for all players, not just skill players. It may be feasible to run a query of the database to determine who the most linkable and least linkable football players are. I’m no database expert, but I know that there may be some out there who are football fanatics and may try to tackle (no pun intended) this project.

Just fooling around with Blanda, it only takes three steps to get him to 2004 (Blanda played with punter Ray Guy, who played with Howie Long, who played with Tim Brown.) It only takes four steps to link Blanda with George Halas as a player (Blanda played with Sid Luckman who played with George Musso, who played with both Red Grange and Bronko Nagurski, who both played with George Halas.) So, the recently retired Brown has a Blanda Number of 3 while Papa Bear’s Blanda Number is 4.

Let’s play the “Blanda Game” with a couple of Hall of Famers. Jim Thorpe played with Mickey McDonnell on the 1928 Chicago Cardinals. McDonnell played on the AAFC Miami Seahawks in 1946 with Lamar Davis. Davis played on the 1949 Baltimore Colts with Y. A. Tittle. Tittle and Blanda were teammates the next year on the Colts. Thorpe’s Blanda Number is less than or equal to 4. (There may be a quicker link. I haven’t done exhaustive research on this.) Steve Young has a Blanda Number of 5. Young played on the 1985 Tampa Bay Bucs with Steve DeBerg. DeBerg was the QB in San Francisco when O. J. Simpson was a Niner in 1978. One of O. J.’s teammates on the Bills his rookie year was Tom Flores. Fred Biletnikoff chain-smoked for the 1966 Raiders when Flores played there and later was a longtime teammate of Blanda’s.

So, is George Blanda the nexus of the football universe? Crawling the Databasefootball data may determine whether or not he is. Blanda has around 450 teammates in 1100 teammate-seasons. The other candidate that comes to mind is Earl Morrall. Morrall played for 21 seasons with 6 different franchises. I’m not sure what the record for most franchises played for, but it may be held by Tillie Voss. Voss played for 11 teams in the 1920’s, but I’m not sure what the franchise continuity was in those days. Voss was too early in pro football history to make him that linkable, in any case. Morton Andersen, and Gary Anderson have both been kicking since I started high school, but they are two recent in football history to link quickly to the real old-timers. Kickers, punters, and quarterbacks seem to be prime candidates for connecting other players. There are a few linemen with lengthy careers. But a lot of them seem to stay in one place for their careers.

JUST FOR FUN

Kevin Bacon has a Blanda Number of 3. Kevin Bacon was in In the Cut (2003) with Julius LeFlore. Julius LeFlore was in Rocky III (1982) with Carl Weathers. Weathers was a linebacker for the Raiders in 1970 and 1971.

Paul Erdos, arguably, has a Blanda Number of 7. Erdos and Hank Aaron both received honorary degrees from Emory University the same year. Aaron played with Dennis Menke for the 1965 Milwaukee Braves . Denis Menke played with Hal McRae for the 1972 Cincinnati Reds. Hal McRae played with Bo Jackson for the 1986 Kansas City Royals. Jackson played with Howie Long on the Los Angeles Raiders. As mentioned above, Long was a teammate of Ray Guy who was Blanda’s teammate.

Larry Bird has a Blanda Number of 6. Bird played with Danny Ainge, who was a Toronto Blue Jay third baseman before joining the NBA. Ainge was a teammate of Dave Stieb, who later played with Bo Jackson. And so on and so forth.

Football Maranvillians

A backfield of Jack Kemp, Dan Towler, and Gale Sayers may have been the most Free Darko football backfield ever. Tom over at Residual Prolixity tipped me off to a couple of posts over at the Pro-football Reference blog. Heh, it's almost fitting that none of these guys played after I was three years old or so and I have no memory of watching them.

I'm glad that Sayers is on the list. As a kid, I read I Am Third (which was the basis for Brian's Song.) I loved to read and I loved sports, so I gobbled it up. Bill Cosby wrote the introduction to that particular edition. I may be misremembering it, but The Cos commented on how exciting Sayers was to watch and even said that he saw one play were he split in two to avoid being tackled. Hyperbole, of course, but I still remember that description to this day.