Sport – Page 5 – St. Eutychus

Mathletes: Reforming sporting endeavours… again

First it was football free kicks and tracking the path of the ball in flight, then it was baseball – and finding the most efficient path around the bases – now mathematicians have turned their attention to basketball. And the free-throw.

You may already have seen this gravity defying shot on YouTube…

8 million people have in a pretty short amount of time. So nailing the perfect free-throw is no doubt something lots of people care about. Not me. I hate basketball. Even though I’m 6’3. I’m rubbish.

It turns out 45 degrees is the perfect angle for a free throw shot. So says this study reported on by the NY Times. Some people probably knew that already. It shouldn’t be too hard to work out. The distance from the line to the hoop is constant. The height of basketball players is a variable, but there’d be a pretty small standard deviation from the average (very tall). This story is actually about a shooting school for basketball players like me. But players who want to spend thousands of dollars being better. It deals with this guy named Andres Sandoval (who is in that photo).

“As the free throw swishes, the building’s silence is broken by a disembodied voice announcing “46.” Another nothing-but-net, another “46.” Sandoval follows with one more 46, a 43 and a 49, all of which reflect the angle of the ball’s arc.

At courtside, the device speaking in a computerized monotone has snapped high-speed digital photographs of Sandoval’s shots and combined them. The composite is displayed on a screen, with color arcs tracking the trajectory of each try. The ideal for a standard player is 45, though Sandoval earns a solid green.

The screen also indicates precisely where the ball, which is a little less than nine and a half inches in diameter, lands inside the rim, which is 18 inches in diameter. The objective is for the center of the ball to hit 8 to 10 inches inside the rim. Sandoval usually settles on 12.”

December 30, 2010

My Cricket Clearance List

This is, in order, who I’d get rid of from the Australian cricket scene if I could.

1. Ricky Ponting. Can’t bat (anymore). Can’t captain.
2. Bill Lawry. The most annoying commentator in the world.
3. Mark Taylor. Only just beaten by Bill Lawry. These two have ruined my summer almost more than Ponting.
4. The selectors. Seriously. Get some new material.
5. Mitchell Johnson. Bowls well sometimes. Doesn’t know what he’s bowling the rest of the time.
6. Michael Clarke. Doesn’t seem to be able to see the ball most of the time.
7. Phillip Hughes. Needs some time to get his head right.
8. Peter Siddle. Hard worker, gets wickets eventually, but seems to lull opposition batsmen into form with his boringness and stupid goatee.
9. Ben Hilfenhaus. How long can we carry this guy? Has done so little that I almost forgot that he was in the team.

December 28, 2010

NBA Jam: Jordan meets James

Last year this basketball player named LeBron James sent shockwaves through his home city because he turned his back on the team who had nurtured and created him. He moved. He changed teams. He didn’t do it in a very classy way. Anyway, he’s probably the best basketballer going around – and he’s a Nike sponsored superstar.

That intro is necessary for you to understand why this mashup of Nike commercials where Michael Jordan gives LeBron some advice is pretty cool.

December 3, 2010

Misstifying…

There is surely a sermon illustration, or something, in this…

From a recent international between Qatar and Uzbekistan.

November 23, 2010

Minority Report: Professional Athletes as victims

Here’s a hint. If you’re an ex-professional sports star, particularly an incredibly well paid member of one of the most lucrative sports in the world, say the NBA, and you’ve made millions from being an oversized white, anglo-saxon, possibly protestant male – that doesn’t entitle you to claim minority status if you’re in the running to be governor of your state. Being tall also doesn’t qualify you for “minority” status in a way that helps you empathise with the marginalised and downtrodden.

“When Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Dudley addressed the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs’ monthly “Coffee & Issues” breakfast on Sept. 24, he reprised a comment he’d made at an earlier interview with the Urban League of Portland.

“I heard him say he ‘understood what it was like to be a minority because he had played in the NBA.”

Yeah, even if he meant it as a joke it’s a pretty stupid joke to be making when you’re running for office. Basically, if what you say as a joke kicks up a media controversy and turns significant portions of the community against you, it’s a campaign no go zone.

Especially if your “minority” is one that millions strive to become and never achieve rather than being a quirk of your birth (though being ridiculously tall probably falls in that category).

October 26, 2010

The fastest path between four points: Math and Baseball

No, I’m not exploring my creative side by doing one of those drawings where you get those little coloured plastic cogs, and a pen, and swirl them around a page. That diagram is the result of careful mathematical study of the geometry of baseball, it represents the fastest path around all four bases – useful only if you hit a deep ball that doesn’t go over the fence and you want to run home – it’ll shave milliseconds off your time.

If you are running to first, or between first and second (or second and third, or third and home), which I believe in baseball parlance is a single (what would I know, I’m from Australia, we play cricket) the straight line is no doubt still the best bet. This circuitous route shaves about 25% off the time taken for the run – because turning sharp angles slows runners down substantially.

Some quotes from the story:

The issue is that turns slow runners down. The tighter the turn, the greater the slowdown, so while the straight-line path between the bases is the shortest, its sharp corners make it one of the slowest. Rounding the corner is faster, making the path a bit longer in favor of an efficient turn. And indeed, baseball players typically do this: They run straight along the baseline at the beginning and then, if they think they’ve hit a double or more, they bow out to make a “banana curve.”

But this can’t possibly be the quickest route, observes Davide Carozza, a math teacher at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., who studied the problem while was an undergraduate at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. It’d be faster, he reasons, to veer right from the beginning, running directly from the batter’s box to the widest portion of the curve. Of course, a runner is best off running straight toward first base until he’s certain he’s hit more than a single. But Carozza noticed that even when the ball heads straight for a pocket between fielders, making a double almost certain, runners almost never curve out right away.”

One of Carozza’s colleagues, Stewart Johnson, optimised the path by computer (coming up with that diagram).

“The result was surprisingly close to a circle, both in its shape and its speed: It swung nearly as wide and was only 6 percent faster than Carozza’s circle. On this path, a runner would start running 25 degrees to the right of the baseline — toward the dugout rather than toward first base — and then swing wide around second and third base before running nearly straight to home. Johnson also computed the best path for a double, and it swings nearly as wide, venturing 14 feet from the baseline.”

October 26, 2010

New entry to the Dictionary of sporting idioms: Doing a Rooney

Doing a Rooney (idiom): The act of very publicly voicing one’s opinion against something, and then acting to the contrary to your statement within days.

Etymology:

The curse of Manchester United’s Fergie looked like it was going to smite Wayne Rooney as it had myriad players before – players like Jaap Stam, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, and David Beckham were all golden children who moved from hero to an integer followed by seven or eight zeroes in a matter of weeks. Fergie has no real qualms about selling anybody who thinks they are bigger than the club. And it looked like Rooney was on his way out of the Old Trafford revolving door this week when it was revealed that he, and the manager, disagreed on his level of fitness (Fergie said Rooney was injured, Rooney said he wasn’t), this followed a pretty public revelation of some pretty extreme sexual misconduct on Rooney’s behalf, which was sure to put Fergie’s nerves on edge. He’s spoken pretty publicly about players with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Then it turned out that Rooney wanted out, and had ceased negotiations on a new contract weeks ago. Then Fergie said he could go. And everybody thought he was gone, many suggesting he had played his last game in a Man Utd shirt.

Until, in a pretty massive backflip, Rooney committed himself to the club for a further five years. Signing a new contract today. Bizarre.

My inner conspiracy theorist thinks they may have signed him to such a long term deal so that they can extract a greater transfer fee now that the sharks are circling.

October 23, 2010

Why Cycling is incredibly cool

It looks, to the uninformed, like an individual sport. But check out these quotes from the Aussie guy who came fourth at the Commonwealth Games after essentially sacrificing his energy, and his lead, to help a fellow Australian take gold. Chris Sutton won’t get paid for his sacrifice, nor does he get a medal.

“I never got a medal, but I came here to lead Allan Davis out and that’s what we did, he won,” Sutton said.

“I was so happy when he won because that means we did our job perfect.

“The reward is to represent your country, it’s such an honour, and to be part of a gold medal like that is incredible. Allan Davis, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

This would be an awesome photo, though it has to be described in words because I can’t find it on google images, or any of the stories…

“I saw him put his arms up and I put my arms up and looked to the sky and just went ‘that’s great, that’s what we came here to do’.”

Here’s the SMH story. The SMH seem to understand cycling a little better than the ABC who ran this picture with the story, cropping Sutton out…

October 11, 2010

Losing is such a shame – when you’re from North Korea

The North Korean football team started the World Cup on such a high note – going down 2-1 to Brazil – that the nation’s cultural apparatchiks decided it would be good for moral if the next game was televised live. North Korean history in the making… but things didn’t go quite to plan. The North Koreans fought valiantly in the first half – but then Portugal put their feet to the North Korean team’s throat – and smashed them 7-0. This was unacceptable. And made Kim Jong Il feel very ronery.

It turns out, by the way, that the North Korean fans who made their way to South Africa were in fact Chinese ring-ins who were paid to be there.

When these players, and their poor coach (who became the fall-guy during the tournament, as players were instructed to blame him for the results – I guess the North Korean administration learned something from the English, Argentinians and most importantly – the French).

Since returning to the Peoples’ Republic of Korea the players and coach have been put through a rigorous process of public shaming at the hands of the nation’s administration. The coach copped the worst of it:

“The team’s coach, Kim Jong-hun, was reportedly forced to become a builder and has been expelled from the Workers’ Party of Korea.

The coach was punished for “betraying” Kim Jong-un – one of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il’s sons and heir apparent.”

August 1, 2010

A love match

An author, and former professional drummer, Nic Brown, took on his friend, and former (low ranking) tennis pro Tripp Phillips, the rules – if Brown won a single point he was to be declared the winner.

It’s a question I guess we’ve all asked – though, having been to the gym with dual international footballer Brad Thorn, it’s not a question I ask myself very often.

But like any sports fan, I’ve wondered: How would I stack up? I mean, I know I’m not going to win. But I’m not bad. When I play my friends, I almost always win. I hit the ball cleanly, serve consistently. I’m not embarrassing. I play smart.

The conclusion might seem foregone (but read the piece anyway) but here’s the gap in ability…

“No matter what,” he says, “I was going to have you off balance. And no matter what you did, I was going to be perfectly balanced. I knew where you were going to hit it before you hit it. It’s the difference between me and you. But if I played Roger Federer right now, he’d do the exact same thing to me.”

July 13, 2010

Cup half empty

Ahh, the post World Cup low. I didn’t think it’d come so quickly, but now I’m wondering what I’m going to do with 4am. We’ve only recently become acquainted. Alas, I think our relationship will be brief.

Here are some World Cup odds and ends to help you overcome your fixation.

Starting with an analysis of the metaphysics of the World Cup from Overthinking It – Overthinking It is, without doubt, one of my favourite blogs. Other good recent posts include overthinking the problem of Mortal Kombat’s fusion of fantasy and verisimilitude (a form of plausibility),¹ and a novel solution to the BP oil spill – namely the use of a band of merry men epitomised by the A-Team to clean up the spill.² They also suggested the producers of Burn Notice might be criminally negligent or indeed open to prosecution under anti-terrorism laws. Here’s a quote from the World Cup post about England’s unfortunate goal line decision:

“The real world does not have official review. Even if we can determine the exact causes of a misfortune, we cannot rewind time to unmake it. All we can do is grit our teeth and try harder next time. But a sport — like any game — is a fenced-off version of how we’d like the world to be. It’s the World Plus Rules for Fairness. The arrow of time has less hold in the world of sport. We have the power to wind back the clock.”

If that’s not filling a World Cup void for you how about this video of Lego players reproducing the highlights of the round one clash between England and the USA?

Or this commemorative poster featuring all the nations from this year’s cup in the shape of the real star of the tournament – the Vuvuzela.

Or indeed, pre-order your copy of the best game spin off from the tournament.

Or you could be inspired by Remi Gaillard and drum up a gang of supporters to crash your local league game, turning it into the World Cup Final you wish you’d had this time around (H/T Tim).

It’s been a while since Argentina was knocked out – but if you’re a lady type hankering for some Maradona action (lets face it, he was one of the stars of this World Cup as demonstrated by this photo (h/t Dave Miers, from Boston.com))…

… you’ll be happy to know that Diego Maradona is most definitely not gay.

Perhaps you’re an aspiring player. If that’s the case there are two things you can do ahead of the next World Cup – sign me up as your agent/publicist and check out the mechanics of the perfect freekick (from FlowingData).

Also, check out this piece on why the pressure involved in taking a penalty kick may cause a player to choke (metaphorically of course).

“The “Yerkes-Dodson Law” predicts that participants in a penalty shootout should buckle under pressure. According to the theory, human performance follows an “inverted U shape.” Under the effect of mild stress, or “arousal,” proficiency improves as the subject expends more concentration and energy. But past a certain point, too much pressure leads to panic and attention problems, and choking ensues.”

Or, you could fill that gap by reading St. Eutychus.

¹It’s a cool word, worthy of its own post, but I’ll footnote it in this one with Overthinking Its definition: To say something is “realistic” — a loaded word in itself — means that it could have come from real life. To say something has verisimilitude means that it appears that it could have come from real life. An explanation does not need to be plausible, but it needs to sound plausible, for it to have verisimilitude. It needs to stand up to casual regard, if not a concerted investigation.

Example: “Superman can fly” is fantastic. “Superman came from a planet with much higher gravity, so he can jump so far that it appears he can fly” has verisimilitude.

² Such a team would traditionally feature: “individuals who fit into one of five types: Mastermind, Grifter, Hitter, Hacker, and Thief.”

July 12, 2010

Microanalysing the World Cup

It turns out world cup success does not depend on the ability of the players a team fields – but rather the presence of a particular parasite within their home country. This parasite, Toxoplasma Gondii (which sounds like the name of a footballer), may influence the natural dopamine levels of those infected. This diagram (from wikipedia) shows its life cycle, though it omits the bit where it helps win a World Cup for its host.

From Slate:

If we set aside the qualifying rounds (in which teams can play to a draw) and focus on matches with a clear winner, the results are very compelling. In the knockout round of this year’s tournament, eight out of eight winners so far have been the teams whose countries had higher rates of Toxo infection. If we go back to the 2006 World Cup, seven out of eight knockout-round winners could be predicted by higher Toxo rates. The one exception to the rule was Brazil’s defeat of Ghana, a match between two nations that each have very high rates. (Aside from having the winningest team in World Cup history, Brazil has quite a few cases of Toxo: Two out of three Brazilians are infected.)

It gets better. Rank the top 25 FIFA team countries by Toxo rate and you get, in order from the top: Brazil (67 percent), Argentina (52 percent), France (45 percent), Spain (44 percent), and Germany (43 percent). Collectively, these are the teams responsible for eight of the last 10 World Cup overall winners. Spain, the only one of the group never to have won a cup, is no subpar outlier—the Spaniards have the most World Cup victories of any perpetual runner-up. “

Coincidence? Perhaps. But I wish I’d read this before tipping a World Cup winner.

July 8, 2010

The Nike Curse: Unwriting the future

Have you seen Nike’s “Write the Future” advert during the World Cup? It was brilliant. A viral masterpiece. It was everything Adidas’ involvement with the World Cup was not (they made the Jabulani ball) – popular, successful, brand-building. And then this curse struck. Every player in the ad campaign has been bundled out, somewhat unceremoniously. Even Roger Federer, who made a cameo in the ad, was knocked out of Wimbledon prematurely.

“Because Write the Future was so well-executed, and because it became so popular so quickly, it effectively functioned as an inspiring prelude to the kickoff. And when that decisive moment came for Rooney (or Ronaldo, Ribéry, Cannavaro, et al) and they crumpled exactly as they had done in Nike’s vision, the entire meaning of the ad shifted away from “just do it” and toward a prognostication of doom.”

From Slate.

Maybe this is what got Tiger Woods.

July 7, 2010

Football and communism

Foxtel’s Football commentator Simon Hill, in a piece assessing Luis Suarez’s goal line handball, suggests that the “communist” mechanism by which we assess and participate in sport is at the root of our misunderstanding of the game, and our failure to embrace it. Seems a little heavy handed really… I reckon our failure to embrace the game is linked to our failure to master it.

Many in Australia loathe football’s unpredictable nature – it plays havoc with their established order. In their sports – more communist by nature – only the strongest win by imposing their power on the weak. Sportsmen like Suarez wouldn’t get near their team – he is too small, too renegade, too individual.

In their communist world, draft picks and salary caps ensure everyone remains equal. Even bottom place on the ladder is rewarded by the party comrades, and of course, there is no promotion or relegation….everything must stay the same.

To them, toughness is a mantra. An indoctrination akin to political brainwashing, where the ability to give (or take) a punch is the sole measure of manliness. Not individual thought, nor creativity – just sheer brute force. It’s how communist regimes work.

July 6, 2010

YouTube Tuesday: Vuvuzela Concerto

James Morrison, on Santos, Sam and Ed the other night, said the Vuvuzela actually pitches somewhere between a and b flat. Just in case you were wondering… he played a vuvuzelaphone on the night – basically a set of vuvuzela pan-pipes. It was clever. So is this video.

June 30, 2010