Update - NBA Ref

I'm reconsidering my thoughts on the ref's potential impact on the game. Bill Simmons makes an interesting point when he talks about how refs can much more relatively easily the over/under. Systematically calling more fouls can lead to more points. So, if you call more fouls evenly, then you've got a legit edge in the over bet. Hadn't considered the over/under when they mentioned that a ref was fixing games. And upon further review, perhaps the easiest way to adjust scoring is with technical fouls, actually. Put up an extra T twice a game, both on the same team, and you just swung the spread by about 1.5 points. And I forgot about the human factor.

Imagine this scenario - Donaghy's doing a Knicks/Bulls game and has the orders to make sure that the Knicks cover the 5.5 points that they're getting, and that the teams should score over 184.5 points. Knicks go into halftime down 7. The refs go into their locker room, and start discussing the game. Depending on how charismatic he is, Donaghy could be able to influence the others.

"Man, we've gotta get control down there - Wallace is getting really reach happy down there."
"Really? I hadn't noticed."
"Yeah, he and Curry are getting chippy."
"Yeah? I'll take an extra peek in there. We'll get things settled down early in the quarter."

And sure enough, the refs go out there, and see the hand fighting and positioning battles a little differently than they did in the first half. Wallace gets a couple fouls, and gets T'd up. Skiles goes nuts and gets T'd up, as well. Donaghy didn't even make the technical foul calls. Wallace has to head to the bench. Net effect - Knicks score more. Total points increase. But the Bulls are the better team, and manage to squeeze out a 97-92 win. Everyone goes home thinking about how well Gordon played down the stretch or how David Lee needs more playing time. They don't notice that the teams combined for 53 points in the 3rd or how the Knicks turned a 7 point deficit into a 2 point lead by the end of the quarter, both of which would likely be statistical aberrations.

I don't know - what I said about how referee crews get together to talk about things to make sure that they get the right call is true. But if a crooked ref is an assertive, confident, influential person, then maybe what he says (or even does) becomes influential. I'm still thinking that it's hard to change the outcome of a game, but if you have the perfect storm, then you can definitely shift the tides over time, like I had originally thought.

-Chairman

Good Sports

This is late, but congrats to Roger Federer for beng one of the two most dominant athletes in individual sports, alongside Tiger Woods., and winning another Wimbledon. Strange to think that w/out Rafael Nadal, Federer may well have a Grand Slam. Of course, the same may be true of Nadal, if Federer were not around.

NBA officials shaving points? Good in theory, but it seems rather hard to do. You have 3-man crews. Officials have improved over the past few years about getting together to get calls right. You have a lot of scrutiny from TV replay, and the consistent evaluation of refs by the league, not to mention columns by folks like Bill Simmons or rants by Mark Cuban. It wouldn't shock me if this Tim Donaghy guy actually erased debts for agreeing to shave a few points. It would surprise me if you could statistically prove that he influenced games more than a point or two. of course, given that the lines in NBA games are often only 5 or 6 points, that point or two shift can be a lot over time. So, if you actually wanted to make money, you'd have to bet the line on Donaghy games over a long period of time. This probably isn't like the point shaving stuff that you saw at Arizona St., or in Blue Chips, where you'd see egregious offenses for a given game. This would probably be more like Vegas slipping 4 aces out of a 6-deck shoe to shift the odds from 51-49 to 54-46.

Evidently there's some bike race going on in France right now. Some dude hit a dog and bit it. Hard. That's pretty cool. Speaking of dogs...

Too bad the Falcons don't play in Cleveland this year. I was looking forward to the "Vick Destroys Dawg Pound" headlines. In all seriousness, I think that this is dumb. We're making a much bigger deal about something that's to some extent cultural (animal fighting has poor, rural roots, and is more recently a characteristic of the hip-hop culture). I think that there are undertones of wealth and class here - when people become too rich they can start complaining about things that other folks do. Judgments are passed on what other people "should" be doing. Some of these things are useful in creating a harmonious society. Others are just a waste of time. Folks at PETA need to get real jobs. Animals are there for us to eat. Some can become companion animals, but really, they're there to manage the eco-system and for us to eat. Let's spend our time and money on figuring out how to help people in need, instead of these animals.

My Reds are finally playing better baseball. But that recent hot streak has only got them to the "very bad" level, up from the "embarrassinge" level which they were previously at. The biggest killers? Arroyo has been awful this year. He's got a 4+ ERA since the 2nd half of last season. He's probably been about 6 games off in his contribution to the Reds this year. Of course, even if he were 10-4 instead of 4-10, we'd still be 2 games under .500 and barely in the wild card race. An even bigger problem is our bullpen. We only really have 1 reliable guy, and that's Dave Weathers. Time after time, you see the Reds leave the starter in one inning too many (or you see them leave relievers in a little too long, as well). We stopped trusting the bullpen back in May (for good reason), but that's killed our team. With a bullpen ERA of almost 5, not only do we let games slip away that we should win, we don't give ourselves a chance to steal games where we're down by a run or 2. Put this together, and that makes for a team that's staring at a 70 win season. The bright side is that we're done with Eric Milton, who has been a disastrous signing. Over $10 million in salary space opens up. Which suggests to me that we should work on signing Adam Dunn long term, rather than trading him for half-value. We've got time to see who the real Arroyo is, so we can let him pitch out his contract (which is actually reasonable), and then see where we stand.

About 3 weeks ago, I made the bold claim to some friends that the Yanks were still going to win the AL East. Obviously, I was told that I was nuts. I'm going to reiterate my bold statement and outrageous claim that the Yanks will win the AL East and the World Series. I just believe that talent rises, particularly in a sport like baseball where you have so many opportunities for luck to even out.

On ESPN's "Who's Now" segment, two of the panelists are Chuck James and Jessica Biel. If this segment wasn't already a mockery, it's become one. My reaction was that Jessica Biel seemed a little smarter when she was on 7th Heaven, at least the early episodes.

In any case, let's see how everything pans out.

-RG