Grading Experts

So with the end of the post-season near, let's grade the ESPN experts on how well they predicted the outcome of the 2010 MLB season. Scoring is as such, one point for each correct pick, 0.5 pt if incorrect, but the team still made the playoffs.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview10/news/story?page=10expertpicks

Jorge Arangure Jr. 3
Matthew Berry 3
Steve Berthiaume 3
Aaron Boone 4
Jim Caple 5.5+
Tristan H. Cockcroft 3.5
Jerry Crasnick 2.5
Richard Durrett 2.5
Gordon Edes 4
Pedro Gomez 4
Christopher Harris 2.5
Orel Hershiser 2.5
Tony Jackson 2.5
Eric Karabell 1.5
Tim Kurkjian 2.5
Keith Law 4.5
AJ Mass 2
Joe McDonald 3
Joe Morgan 2.5
Amy K. Nelson 2.5
Rob Neyer 4.5
Buster Olney 3.5
Peter Pascarelli 4
James Quintong 3.5
Karl Ravech 4
J.P. Ricciardi 3
Brendan Roberts 2.5
Mark Saxon 2.5
Jon Sciambi 2.5
Dan Shulman 4
Mark Simon 3.5
Chris Singleton 2.5
Jayson Stark 4
Rick Sutcliffe 2
Jon Weisman 4
Gene Wojciechowski 2

God, that was boring. Out of a possible 10 points, only one person did better than 50%. When one considers the actual probabilities of choosing correctly based on pure chance, it would lead to a score of 1.5 or so. When you consider that 0.5 was guaranteed if one chose either the yankees to make the playoffs in the AL, and then another point pretty much guaranteed because everyone (except four, including the guy who did the best) chose the phillies to win the east, then many of these "experts" were pretty useless. I guess if they scored a four or higher, I might listen to them in the future, and probably coincidentally, 2 of the 3 guys (Keith Law and Rob Neyer) that I think provide good insight into baseball on ESPN scored higher than that, and the other (Buster Olney) was just under at 3.5. Then again, hindsight is 20/20, and so is my vision now that I got my new glasses.

HEY HOLIER THAN THOU PEOPLE

Hi,

I root for several sports teams. In football (college and pro) and basketball, there happen to be many incidents involving the players, that are not exactly flattering in most people's eyes. As far as I know, there is not a single team that consists entirely of players that have experienced zero criminal incidents. As far as I know, there is not a single Fortune 500 company that employs only people with zero criminal charges (chick-fil-a?).

So when someone (these people are referred by Jason Whitlock as Palinites) says my team sucks because there happens to be someone who committed a crime on the team, I say, your team is no better. And thus begins the pissing contest of whose teams criminal charges are worse (my opinion rape worse than manslaughter, better than murder 2, accusations of rape worse than robbery, unless armed robbery).

After reflecting upon these arguments (nobody ever wins these arguments, we don't ever even say "agree to disagree"), I came to a conclusion, WTF, I DON'T CARE. If I wanted to root for a team based on how good the people on the team were, I'd go around to private Catholic high school games or I dunno, do nuns play ball? With the actual professional teams that I root for, all I care about is their ability to win and the style that they choose to go after the win. What a player does off the field/court/playing surface is irrelevant. I mean look, do I like the fact that Mike Vick trained dogs to fight and sorta (I say sorta ironically) tortured them? No, but he was caught, served time, and now he gets to play football. Mike Vick, the athlete, is defined by his performance on the field. Mike Vick, the person, is not someone I care to know. I don't care what any athlete does off the field, they are humans, maybe a little richer on average than the Average American, but am I surprised when an athlete is a dick or full of themselves or a nice person? No. They are people. Do I think it is news that Ben Roethlisberger attempted to have sex with a girl, who may or may not wanted to have sex? Nope. Do I think it is kind of funny? Yes, but only because normal people manage to have sex without all these sorts of issues. Do I think it will affect his ability to play football? Nope, I mean unless they put him in jail, but that's less affecting his abilities, and more affecting whether or not he can leave jail to go to Heinz Field.

In the end, I vow never to argue the merits of any sports team based on the criminal records (or some in cases lack of criminal records). In fact, I won't ever argue that the personalities or anything that is superficial about the athletes (like he struggled when he was younger so obviously he has great heart and wants to win even more) make any sort of difference in competition. Well, maybe basketball, because the great player's personality is imprinted in their style of play.

Conclusively (sort of),

Ed

When you surround yourself with idiots....

LeBron's manager Maverick Carter has been accused of false imprisonment. Isn't this an open-shut kind of thing? If he has the pendant and the lady doesn't have any new money, then he stoles it. Which is silly. If he was the original owner, obviously he lost it at some point, and he obviously didnt put up flyers in the neighborhood asking for it back....so he gets to just take it back? Classic bully bullshit right there. What is he going to tell the po-lice, she just gave it back to me? Naw, he just won't snitch, he won't talk, cause when you are idiot, its better to keep your mouth shut, rather than remove all doubt.



Lebron, I don't know you personally, but damn this summer, you have done, said somethings that makes me wonder, why? I understand you live a life that I can not relate to in any fashion, and that can skew a man's perspective. Apparently you weren't at the house when this pendant got took, but as the kingpin, this reflects on you. She put that thing up on eBay, because she straight up wanted some money, so there was an easy solution. Now, the cost went up. You want to be a billionaire? It's not happening through basketball, you can't sell shoes, barely can sell jerseys, winning championships just means you get into the conversation. But shit like this, this costs. That's money coming out of your pocket.