Category Archives: Sports

… And Then a Hockey Game Broke Out

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The Onion: South African Vuvuzela Philharmonic Angered By Soccer Games Breaking Out During Concerts

Spontaneous high-caliber soccer games have thus far plagued every orchestral vuvuzela performance of the season, which opened June 11 at Cape Town Stadium. As musicians took their places in the stands and began warming up for the evening’s performance of lighter pieces by post-minimalist composers, they noticed the audience was not sitting in its traditional place in the stadium’s central area.

As the Philharmonic learned later, its only spectators were the national football sides of France and Uruguay, who played to a 0-0 tie as the frustrated vuvuzela virtuosi played a full program of concerti written for the distinctive straight plastic horn.

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I can’t wait for the next Austin Powers movie, with Vuvu Zela as the annoying Jar-Jar-Binksian sidekick who drones on and on in a loud abrasive monotone, not really talking.

Dr. Evil: Vuvu, what do you think of my evil plan?
Vuvu: Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Weeeeeeeeeellllllllll, uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh …

Just a Bit Outside

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If sports got reported like science..

HOST: In sports news, Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti today heavily criticised a controversial offside decision which denied Didier Drogba a late equaliser, leaving Chelsea with a 1-all draw against Sunderland.
INTERCOM: Wait. Hold it. What was all that sports jargon?
HOST: It’s just what’s in the script. All I did was read it – I’ve got no idea what it’s really on about.
INTERCOM: Nobody without a PhD in football’s going to understand that. Who wrote this crap? It’s elitist rubbish, people will just turn off when they hear it. “Late equaliser”? “Offside”? We’ve got to get this rewritten so it’s more accessible.

They need to work in how the early goal by Sunderland violated or has rewritten some rule, except that it didn’t, in order to parallel all of those science stories that claim that relativity has been violated or evolutionary theory has been upset by some discovery, only to find that (of course) nothing of the sort actually happened.

Sit Down, Big Guy

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Foul trouble

Observers of the NBA know that the direct effect of fouling out actually has less impact than the indirect effect of “foul trouble.” That is, if a player has a dangerous number of fouls, the coach will voluntarily bench him for part of the game, to lessen the chance of fouling out. Coaches seem to roughly use the rule of thumb that a player with n fouls should sit until n/6 of the game has passed. Allowing a player to play with 3 fouls in the first half is a particular taboo. On rare occasions when this taboo is broken, the announcers will invariably say something like, “They’re taking a big risk here; you really don’t want him to get his 4th.”

Is the rule of thumb reasonable? No!

The strategy of sitting a player with “foul trouble” seems to be tied in with the notion that points scored late are worth more than points scored early, so if a player can play N minutes before fouling out, you want to have some of those minutes available at the end of the game. But if (after sitting the player longer than the normal rest rotation dictates) the player doesn’t foul out, you haven’t maximized his minutes. The article also discusses some of the caveats on this approach.

I think there’s an interesting undercurrent to all professional sports coaching, where it’s more acceptable to lose if you follow the conventional wisdom approach than if you go maverick. Bill Belichick was lambasted last fall for “going for it” on 4th down instead of punting — it doesn’t matter so much that you could justify the decision as being the better one, from a risk analysis standpoint. The strategy was not the normal one, and it failed. Ergo, it was wrong.

Added: IOW, “Conventional wisdom” seems to linger longer than than the rules and strategies that gave birth to it.

The Device That Goes 'Ping!'

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Why wood bats ‘crack’ and metal bats ‘ping’ and much more. Physics and Acoustics of Baseball and Softball Bats

There is a tremendous amount of physics and engineering that goes into the design of a baseball or softball bat, especially the new high-tech aluminum and composite bats which are currently dominating the market. There is also an amazing amount of physics involved in the bat-ball collision, and in the performance and behavior of the bat itself. My interest in the physics of baseball bats began in 1998 when I was setting up a laboratory experiment for my students and decided to have them look at the vibrational behavior of a youth baseball bat. Now, several years later, vibrational and acoustic analysis of softball and baseball bats has become my primary area of research. I have been able to correlate the vibrational frequencies of bat barrels to measured performance, and have signicantly contributed to an understanding of the trampoline effect in a hollow bat. In addition, my vibrational analysis of the bending modes of a bat has added to the understanding of perception and feel, including why some bats sting more or less than others.

tip o’ the baseball cap to Skye

Patriot Games

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The Onion: Bill Belichick Drops Off Recent Draft Picks In Middle Of Nowhere, Tells Them To Find Way Back

[T]he infamously Machiavellian coach told his draft picks that there was no potable surface water for “hundreds of miles”; that it would be in their best interests not to attempt to contact any locals who crossed their path; that only the fruit at the very center of the thornbushes would be edible; that most of the indigenous wildlife, especially the arachnids, was very, very poisonous; and that one of the things he had just told them was a lie.

“Show me what you got, boys,” Belichick said to the group from the backseat of a spotless black Range Rover. “If you want to be on this team, I’ll see you in four days. And if you’ve been paying attention at all, you’ll know exactly what to do. Oh, you can take your blindfolds off now. “

Ponder the Parabola

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In basketball, shooting angle has a big effect on the chances of scoring

It’s the elegant arched trajectory naturally formed by any projectile, from an artillery round to a tomato, moving in a gravitational field. Parabolas have been extensively studied since people started throwing stuff at each other, and they shape the outcome of many ballistic sports, such as baseball, golf, football, shot put and more. But they reach their apex in basketball, where field goals and free throws demand precision control of parabolas.

Not-So-Sudden Death

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NFL to examine 2 possessions in playoffs OT

NFL owners will vote next week whether to allow each team a possession in overtime in the playoffs if the team winning the OT coin toss kicks a field goal on the first series.

This seems a little odd. I wonder if the purpose is to entice teams to go for the TD which would end the game, rather than settle for the field goal. But I looked at my fantasy league statistics from this past year (the NFL site didn’t have league-wide stats) and there were about 800 field goals vs 1200 offensive TDs, so scoring a TD is more likely.

Hair Care at the Olympics

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Not that I need any help in that area.

I’ve been watching the curling televised in the afternoons this past week, and I have to apologize to the US teams — as soon as I tuned in, you tanked. Choked. Collapsed. Obviously, I’m bad luck and it’s all my fault. But I still enjoy watching; I was first exposed to the sport when I lived in Canada (though I knew people who curled when I was growing up; there was/is a curling rink right in the middle of Niskayuna)

Ran across this set of animations. The Physics of Curling

And obviously, you need to analyze the sweeping, too.

The claim is that the sweeping warms, but does not melt, the ice. However, there’s always some liquid on the surface, and temperature measurements don’t tell you everything, because pressure matters, too. But take all of that video with a grain of salt, because

Jenkyn’s full results are being kept secret until June 2010, revealed only to Canada’s Olympic athletes, coaches and officials.

“We’re sworn to secrecy,” he said.

It could all be a smokescreen to sabotage other teams. Maybe I’m off the hook.

Update: The men won last night. It’s not me.