Pancake City

Check out this video of LeBron James dunking. The comment occurs after the dunk.

Easy pick this week. I first heard Amber Rubarth’s witty song about breaking up on NPR’s All Songs Considered. It’s great–you really will love this song.

I enjoy the creativity of the dunks in the NBA All-Star Game dunk contest. Obviously, athletic skill is necessary to win, but there are several players with enough skill to perform an extraordinary dunk. At the highest level, the dunk contest is a contest of ideas.

With the end of the NFL season last Sunday, now is a good time to review the results of some of professional football’s most well-known prognosticators. How accurate were their predictions against the spread?

Starting us off is ESPN’s Bill Simmons. According to his Wikipedia entry, Bill has been a writer for ESPN’s print magazine and web site for over five years. He is a prolific writer and shares his sports knowledge with readers on a near daily basis. His record after Week 16 is 102-114-9.

Next up is a penny. Pennies are made with copper-plated zinc. Sometimes they are dirty. Sometimes they are pretty and shiny. On the penny is the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. After Week 16, the penny’s record is 110-110-4.

The Associated Press is the world’s largest news association, and one of the most trusted ones as well. They have over 4,000 employees working in over 240 bureaus around the world. It is unclear how many of the 4,000 employees contribute to its weekly football picks. After Week 16, the AP’s record is 110-106-8.

We come to our final prognosticator. A weather vane is a movable device attached to an elevated object such as a roof for showing the direction of the wind. A weather vane can come in many shapes and sizes, like a rooster or an arrow. Do you know which way the wind is blowing? You would if you had a weather vane! After Week 16, the weather vane’s record is 104-94-6 (the weather vane was unable to make picks in Week 15 due to excessive rust).

Pancake City will update this summary as more sport columnist picks are found.

I have had a few of my friends remark, unprompted, how it’s neat that both of the head coaches in the Super Bowl are black. It it neat. If you are not a sports fan, the significance is that no African-American coach has made it to the Superbowl before. Until the past ten years or so, few NFL team owners have been willing to hire black head coaches.

Now, whoever wins, one of them will make history and be the first black head coach to win a Super Bowl…unless the Man fixes the game so it’s a tie. Which I think would be really funny.

MADDEN: “Manning steps back, throws, and…the ball is hovering in mid-air?”
ESIASON: “Our producer is telling us that a very strong wind current in the stadium.”
MADDEN: “But it’s a domed stadium.”

[There is a short pause. The stadium dome explodes.]

ESIASON: “The football has now risen and exited the stadium”
MADDEN: “This has got to be the strangest thing I’ve ever seen at a football game. Get these guys another ball. Let’s play.”
ESIASON: “A referee has gone to the ball cart to get a new ball, and…it’s hard to make out, but it appears that someone has replaced the entire car of footballs with bunny rabbits.”
MADDEN: “There has got to be another football in this stadium.”
ESIASON: “I’m sure there is. The players are standing around, understandably confused. I tell you, John, I–”
MADDEN: “Hold on. The head referee is trotting out to the field. He has found another ball…DEAR GOD! A 30-ft wide sinkhole has opened up directly under the referee.”
ESIASON: “I tell you John, I was expecting razzle-dazzle, but not this type of razzle-dazzle.”
ESIASON: , especially Understandable when team owners only began seriously considering been willing to hire Although it’s too By the end of this Superbowl, one of the two coaches will be the first

I ended up with 25 out of 32, with only one Sweet 16 pick eliminated. Not great, but better than I usually do, and I already took a nap, so I’ll share a tip I read that likely helped me.

I read this on the blog of a professional sports bettor. It’s particularly good for people who know very little about college basketball, such as me.

For the first round, visit a sports betting web site and look at the point spread for each match-up. If the point spread is more than two points, pick the favored team. If the point spread is two points or less, pick the team most people are unlikely to pick (usually the lower seed, but sometimes it’s a higher-seeded unknown team when they play a well-known school).

There are two ideas behind this. One, bookies know a lot more about sports than your average person. They base their livelihood on accurately approximating the chance each team has of winning. If you are unsure whether a7 seed is better than a 10 seed, look at what the odds-makers are saying. They also give odds on each team’s chances of wining the tournament, which may help you picking later rounds.

Two, the point of a NCAA pool isn’t to finish with as many points as you can. It’s to finish with the most points, or at least close to the most depending on how the payout is structured. That requires taking some risks to separate yourself from the pack, but silly risks aren’t going to help. Sure, if you pick a 14 seed that is a 8-point underdog to a 3 seed, and the 14th seed wins, you’ll earn a point when most of your competition won’t. But the chance of your pick winning vs. your gain (1 point that most other people won’t get) makes it a bad choice in the long run.

The trick is to find situations where one team is a marginal favorite over another, but due to seeding or name recognition, people will assume that the marginal favorite is a bigger favorite than the team really is. By betting on the small underdog, you’re making close to a 50/50 “bet”, but since 60%+ of the people in your pool are picking the favorite, for example, you’re essentially taking the same chance as everyone but getting a bigger reward (separation between more opponents).

Hence the guideline of picking the underdog when the point spread is small (2 points or less). For example:

Texas A&M (12) vs Syracuse (5).

Guess what the point spread on the match-up was? Syracuse was only favored by 1.5 points. Most people see the high seed, and recognize the name Syracuse, so they pick them. And because well more than 50% of people are going to pick Syrcause while it’s essentially a 50/50 match-up, it’s better to pick Texas A&M.

I would have gotten another point or two if I followed the system exactly, but I fell to the allure of the “big name school” for a few match-ups that didn’t turn out well.

I know this isn’t helpful now, but I wanted to try the system out to see if there was anything to it before promoting it. While this year could just be a fluke, I don’t think it is because the logic behind the system makes a lot of sense. I think picking 2-points-or-less underdogs will give one an edge in an office pool. For a huge pool, like ESPN’s, I would increase the guideline to 3 or 4 points because the huge number of opponents requires one to take more risks to have a shot at winning.

1st round: 14 out of 16

When one’s moment of glory will likely be brief, it must be seized, optimally for the purposes for trash-talking. IN YO’ FACE, 990,042 other people in ESPN’s cheap-ass NCAA pool that only gives two prizes although it has over a million entries. I’m in 10,245th place, a relative basketball-picking God compared to your slightly less impressive point totals.

If I do well tomorrow, I’ll share my 1st round system that has helped me do better than usual this year. If I don’t do well, I wil..I don’t know. Extra nap?

Update: Well, that was quick. Now 18,366th. I might as well be last. At 10,245th, I used to be a contender. Now I’m a joke.

Will Super Bowl XL live up to its name?

***

The deep questions are always the hardest to answer.

Will Super Bowl 143 live up to it’s name? Gee, I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine anything surpassing the drama of Super Bowl 117. And don’t get me started on the razzle dazzle in Superbowl 126: Part 2.

Here’s a real question: Will Superbowl Best Mutha-Fucking Superbowl Ever Live Up To Its Name? That would be something I’d be genuinely curious about. But Superbowl what–35? 40? Not much of a name to live up to.

One of the headlines at the Washington Post site was “Redskins Interested in Playoffs.”

You know what I’m interested in? Winning a million dollars. Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

I’m not sure what’s worse: seeing the Redskins suck, or hearing that they made a miraculous comeback late in the 4th quarter against Dallas RIGHT AFTER I TURNED OFF THE TV.

In spite of the fact that they are now 2-0, I think the Skins are marginally better this year than last. Their defense is still great, and their quarterback-deficient offense is still tepid.

Is there a rule saying you can’t replace the quarterback with another running back? Or have a decoy mannequin running back that the real running back could toss to the side to elude his pursuers? I don’t think there’s enough out-of-the-box thinking in football. Instead of a left tackle, right tackle, left wide receiver, right wide receiver, why not just have 11 running backs? Except one of the running backs would be Patrick Ramsey in a fat suit, and he would throw a bomb to the receiver (in another fat suit) when the defense would least expect it. Which would be every down, because that’s fucking crazy.

Other suggestions for Joe Gibbs: start a new quarterback every quarter. Ramsey in the first, Brunell in the second, and the new guy in the third. In the 4th quarter, start a pregnant woman. The opposing players will feel sorry for her and won’t tackle her. Until she starts shooting footballs out of her vagina. Then they will run. Because it stops being sexy once you move past ping-pong ball.

I went to my first Nationals baseball game last Thursday. Baseball moves much faster in person, mainly because you don’t have to watch it. You can eat, drink, talk to friends, and there’s a game on to fill in the lulls in conversation.

Baseball is a happy game. It’s laid-back and demands little from fans. Cheering is more joy than obligation. If the team doesn’t come through, it’s just one out of 162 games. And in the middle of the sixth inning, everyone gets up and sings together.

There’s one major exception to ballpark joy. The pitchers. The pitchers look like they are in prison. They are trapped in the bullpen at the outer field wall, their forlorn faces pressed against a mesh fence, their fingers curled around the metal weave. They know each other too well to talk and live in hope that a fly ball will pop up near them and they ask the outfielder how his kids are doing before the smell of his sweat leaves the air.

Tickets for National games are very affordable. The price of a beer is almost as much as a ticket in a cheap seat. I tried holding off buying anything, but I broke down after being enchanted with a sign for “Mom’s Old Fashioned Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade”.

Here’s the secret to making $5.50 “Mom’s Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade”:

1. Fill cup to rim with ice.

2. Drop half of lemon on top.

3. Fill with sugar water.

Mmm, mmm–just like Mom used to make it. If my Mom were a crack whore.

After the game I had the opportunity to partake in one of my favorite activites: being part of a mob. It was free umbrella night at the ballpark, and they waited until after the game to hand them out so rabid D.C. fans, notorious for keeping it real Detroit style, wouldn’t stab each other in the hearts with the rounded metal tips in a Miller Lite-fueled drunken rage.

The solution, for the safety of the fans, was to put eight umbrellas in each rope-tied box, put the hundreds of boxes on three tables, and surrounded the boxes with a metal gate while mobs of people shoved each other and reached out their arms over the gate like it was Free Cabbage Day in the former Soviet Union. Once someone got an umbrella, he or she, harkening back to the nobility of the Knights of the Round table, would lower it like a lance and ram through the crowd. I shook my head in sadness, and then darted through the wake.

My progress was hated until one enterprising fan had a clever idea: reach over the gate and pass out the umbrellas himself. The boxes flew open and people grabbed handfuls of umbrellas, usually at the same time, ensuring a tugging contest with an unseen opponent. It was disgusting. I got two. Some old lady took my third one.

Even without Free Umbrella Night, I might go back to a Nationals game. The crowd is enthusiastic and it’s a relaxing way to spend an evening. Although if the Nationals wanted to seal the deal, Free Numchuck Night would do it.

I’m very happy to have been wrong about the Washington Wizards. After being down 0-2, they came back to win four games straight and take their first playoff series in 23 years.

Commentators are already prognosticating about the Wizards chances against Shaq and the Miami Heat. Every time is a second round match-up between a team that has several extra days of rest between its opponent, like the Heat have over the Wizards, a sports analyst is guaranteed to make a version of this comment: “You know, the Heat haven’t played in several days and that can make you rusty. All that time off may be an advantage to the Wizards.”

Yeah, maybe if Shaq’s flight back from the Bahamas is delayed. Or if Dwyane Wade has one too many banana daiquiris before the game. Otherwise, the rest helps. Basketball isn’t like a typical 9-5 job, where after you come back for a week vacation, all you want to do is web browse for the first half of the day.

No one, not even diehard Wizards fans, are giving the Wiz a chance to win the series. With good reason. When Shaq gets mad, he will literally pick up an opposing player and eat him. Sometimes the refs will catch him with a sneaker in his mouth and call a foul, but he is a very good eater and can swallow without chewing. That’s why when Shaq is playing defense, and a forward is backing up into him, trying to get position, Shaq will slowly back up until the other player is near his courtside brick oven.

The Wizards’ coach, Eddie Jordan, will likely send skinny Steve Blake out to Shaq as an appetizer and hope his bones get caught in Shaq’s throat. Juan is safe because he’s a good perimeter player, and he greases his body with oil before the game so Shaq can’t grab him. That’s the difference between an intelligent player and a dumb one (e.g. Chris “Cotton Candy Pockets” Duhon).

* There are certain oft-quoted phrases that have a lyrical quality to them but are bereft of wisdom once you focus on the literal meaning of the phrase. Like “No rest for the weary.” Well, yeah. That’s why they’re weary. Isn’t that like saying “No work for the unemployed?” or “No sex for the guy in the Vulcan ears?”

* The stature of a basketball player is so great that it eclipses whatever humor people would find in an odd name under normal circumstances. Harry Dick could join the NBA, and nobody would laugh at his name as long as he got 20 and 10 during the regular season.

And Magic Johnson? He’s literally saying his penis is magic. That’s a lifetime of ridicule, even among adults, but have you ever heard someone poke fun of his name? Everyone loves Magic Johnson. The WNBA will finally hit the big time when one of their stars is called Special Vagina. “Special Vagina from downtown…IT’S GOOD!”

* “Closed captioning for Malcolm in the Middle is sponsored by…” Is closed captioning so unworthy a task that programs need to be paid to do it? “Closed captioning for Scrubs is sponsored by…no one. Sorry, deaf people.”

* A job can influence how one looks at the world. For example, I’m a dog walker. A lot of people are calling for Paula Abdul to leave American Idol because she allegedly slept with a former contestant. I don’t care if she slept with him. But I think she should be kicked off the show for this:

“He says Abdul advised him on his clothes, haircut and song selection for “American Idol,” and slept with him in the guest bedroom of her Los Angeles home, where he shared space with her dogs Thumbelina, Tulip and Tinker Bell.

What kind of sick person names their dogs Thumbelina, Tulip and Tinker Bell? I’ve walked over a hundred dogs, and still, those are the Three Musketeers of stupid dog names. What’s worse is that I’ll bet at least two of those dogs are males. I hope Tinker Bell pisses all over her sheets.

The silver lining in the Bulls-Wizards series is that it will motivate them to work on their defense next year like no regular season loss could. Have you ever had a bad habit that you told yourself you could change anytime you wanted to, and then when circumstances spurned you to change you found it was much harder than you thought?

It’s the same with defense in sports. Quick improvement is impossible. In the playoffs, it’s not something that can be boosted solely through effort. It takes months of practice, and I think losing their first playoff series in eight years is probably the only thing powerful enough to inspire them to work on it next year.

They shouldn’t be faulted for playing mediocre defense this year. You can only fix so much at a time, and for the past two years the focus has rightfully been on the offense. And while I hope I’m proven wrong and they somehow come back from a 0-2 deficit in the series, I’m happy enough to see them in the playoffs after all this time and win a game or two at home.

I’ve been watching a lot of Washington Wizards games this season, and one of the stories Steve Buckhantz enjoys trotting out is how in college Gilbert Arenas chose 0 as his jersey number because that’s the number of minutes his detractors said he would get.

Evidentially, detractors have become more sophisticated with time. Back when I was in college, we would just tell people that they sucked and, if feeling particularly creative, that their suckiness would continue well into the future. The taunt, “Not only do you suck, but the degree of your lack of skill entails one to come to only one conclusion: the cumulative number of minutes marking your playing time will not rise above 0,” never occurred to us.

It’s an inspiring story, but what about all the players who hear this anecdote and decide to pick 0 for their jersey number without realizing that they suck? So not only are they getting no minutes, they also have a giant 0 on their back, like part of a costume for a super loser.

ANNOUNCER1: “There’s Steve Zenkowich, the only player in Eagles history never to be put in a game.”

ANNOUNCER2: “And with the Eagles only up by 34, that likely won’t change in this game.”

ANNOUNCER1: “That’s right, Bill. Zenkowich’s suckiness is legendary. Although in theory adding him to the game with a minute left would be safe, that’s a risk the coach just can’t take.”

ANNOUNCER2: “Interesting story behind Zenkowich’s jersey. When he joined the team as a walk-on four years ago, Steve decided to pick 0 for his jersey number to show up his detractors who thought he would get 0 playing minutes. Unfortunately, the 0 has served as a popular target for the more unruly fans to pelt with empty cups and popcorn.”

ANNOUNCER1: “Hold on there. It looks like Zenkowich is finally getting to play in a game. Steve has gotten up and…ooh, it looks like he was just getting rid of a wedgie.”

ANNOUNCER2: “One of the hazards of staying on the bench too long.”

ANNOUNCER1: “Indeed. In fact, Zenkowich had to miss three games this season from a blood clot in his left leg.”

ANNOUNCER2: “Sitting on a bench for the whole game isn’t as easy as it looks.”

ANNOUNCER1: “No, it isn’t.”