Russell is the Greatest of All-Time, PER is garbage

Danville, Kentucky- How do you measure, measure a career? In layups, in dunks, in made up stats ? Or the correct way: in wins, in triumphs and in championships? The correct way leads to one conclusion: Bill Russell is the greatest basketball player of all-time.



Bill Russell's case is like the case for a chili's old timer: dependable and the best. Bill Russell has 11 championships. Michael Jordan has six. Kareem has six. I figure the nerds would be able to calculate that 11 is greater than six, but then again, the nerds would try and isolate the effects of quality teammates v. opponents expected value over replacement teammate by era. It's time to cut the crap. The goal is to win. Nobody won more than Russell.

The haters would counter, PER is the best metric. For these morons of May and all other months, which sadly does not provide the alliteration of morons of May, they claim the box score can be calculated in a way to provide the correct value. Yet, the most important statistic in the box score is winning. Bill Russell's career box score lists 11 championships. Jordan's lists only six.

PER also fails because it says other players are bad. PER claims Allen Iverson took too many shots. PER claims Carlos Boozer was 17 spots better than Bill Russell. PER would probably claim the paternity test is correct and this isn't actually my son. Yet, there are some things numbers can't measure. Numbers can't tell you how Iverson carried Eric Snow and a team of pieces to an NBA finals. The numbers can't tell you that Carlos Boozer was too scared to re-up in Cleveland in 2004 or was so worthless the Bulls decided to use devil-magic and amnesty him. However, the numbers can tell us one thing: 11. Russell has 11 titles.


Finally, it's helpful to break down the Jordan mythology. Michael Jordan is a great player. He does have six titles. Yet, Jordan didn't have the veteran presence of mind to keep playing so he could win 11 titles in 13 seasons. Instead, Jordan quit basketball and watched the Rockets become the Republicans best stand after Newt Gingrich broke my heart and those of so many of his wives. In total, Jordan won 6 titles. Not seven, eight, nine, ten, or Bill Russell's 11.

Life is filled with a few great joys. That no-hitter in high school that would have been seven innings if not for the rain delay, but the record books still rightfully record for it's brilliance, or the sweet smell of coming back to Danville, Kentucky. Yet, in all my years, the constant in things truly great is their greatness. In Bill Russell, we had more than greatness, we had a champion. An 11 time champion. We had, quite simply, the greatest of all-time.

Why a Pitcher's W/L Record Matters

Danville, Kentucky – Pitching might be one of the most difficult feats in any sport. And I mean, pitching, not throwing or hurling or lobbing. In its highest forms, pitching is an art, like Godfather II or a well-prepared order of Fire-grilled Corn Guacamole at Chili’s. 

Done poorly, pitching can drive good baseball fans to the bottle. I should know.

It was June of 1972. My junior year at Danville High. Semi-finals of the State Championship tournament. It was one of those cool, drizzly evenings, which are so common in early summer in beautiful Kentucky. My stuff was sharp. My curveball had more bite than my basset hound Barry Goldwater, and my splitter sunk quicker than my bank account after letting my second wife use my credit card at IKEA. My fastball touched 86 miles per hour on the radar gun, and I’ve been told the gun was cold that night.

My mortal nemeses from Boyle County High were off-balance all night, confused and bewildered like the type of folk you meet when you spend all afternoon drinking margaritas at On The Border. They couldn’t touch my fastball, and the splitter had them flailing at the dirt like a lobotomized golfer.

A few hours later, I strutted off the mound like a champ, pumping my fist as the crowd went wild. My no-hitter that night led Danville High to finals of the State Championship tournament.

I did what every pitcher is supposed to do – put the team on my back. Baseball is a team game, but it’s also a game of individual glory, and individual defeat. It’s a game of Gatorade showers, but also a game of throwing your glove down in frustration as an opposing batter takes you yard and struts around the bases to rub it in.

But these days, nerds want to deny pitchers the glory and responsibility that accompanies their efforts. Using stats like FIP and DRA, they try to remove the lofty burden that every pitcher shoulders when he toes the rubber, by putting things “in context.” Not only that, some nerds have suggested we abandon referencing the pitcher’s W/L record altogether, going so far as to say it is an “obsolete statistic” that needs “to be packed up and left in the clubhouse before the next game.” Other factors, like team defense and run support, make a pitcher’s Win/Loss record deceiving, they claim.

I’d strenuously disagree with this attempt to downplay a pitcher’s W/L record. Pitcher Wins and Losses are what quite literally separate the winners from the losers. Always has been, always will. As a kid in Danville in the 1960s, the pitcher’s W/L record was how the neighborhood youngsters and I chose which games to attend. If Jimmy Maloney, winner of 23 games in ’63 and 20 games in ’65 (great years), was on the mound, the hype was palpable, and you could bet I was begging my mom for my allowance so that I could get to the game. It was Maloney Day, which meant that more likely than not, the Cincinnati Reds (or Red Legs, if you’re old-fashioned like me) would win and everyone would go home happy and stay happy, at least until dad started drinking. Many fans still continue this tradition by celebrating Harvey Day and undoubtedly Kershaw Day and Scherzer Day as well. They continue this tradition, because a pitcher’s job is to find a way to win at all costs. If your pitcher isn’t getting W’s, your team won’t get W’s. Simple as that.

Nerds unreasonably object that there’s more to a W/L record than just the pitcher, claiming that run support matters, and so does the quality of the team’s defense. They use these arguments to make excuses for losers like Corey Kluber who play for irrelevant teams and struggle to put the team on their back like I did in 1972. They’ll whine: “but Will, look at Kluber’s FIP, or Cleveland’s UZR! It’s not his fault he hasn’t won any games!” Yet, a big part of the Indians’ (predictable) struggles has been the fact that they are 1-7 when ol’ Kluber takes the mound. Not only did Kluber fail to record a W in any of his first 7 starts, his team lost all 7 of those games. Not all of these losses can be laid at the feet of the rest of the team. If Cleveland’s defense is bad, Kluber should pick up his teammates by refusing to let opposing batters make contact, and indeed, it appears as though the 2015 Indians roster is actually built around this philosophy. At some point, an ace should pitch like an ace, and win like an ace, without any excuses.

Proof of Kluber's lack of fortitude.

The buck has to stop somewhere. A pitcher’s record accurately answers the question: “does your team have a good shot at winning any given game with this guy on the mound?” If a great pitcher has no run support, then they will put up zeroes if they are truly mentally and physically primed to win.

A true winner admits when they’ve lost. Veteran pitchers own up to their losses, even close losses where their teammates go missing like that child support I keep forgetting to pay.

Let’s return to October of 2013 for proof. The matchup: Jon Lackey of the Boston Red Sox and Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers, owner of the record for most strikeouts (22) thrown in an ALDS series, and Autumnal God known for dominating post-season performances. 

Verlander single-handedly preventing Oakland from advancing in the post-season.

Yet, when Verlander was out-pitched and lost Game 3 of the ALCS by a 1-0 score, Justin didn’t blame his lack of run support. He didn’t blame the Tigers DRS numbers, even with traffic cones manning 3 of 4 infield positions and at least 1 outfield spot. Unlike my ex-wife, he didn’t make a scene in front of the kids and accuse hard-working men of being unmotivated losers. He put the blame on himself:

Q: How do you avoid not being really frustrated with pitching as well as you did and having your team lose?

JV: Obviously it’s tough, you want to win every time you take the mound. Obviously, to give my team a chance to win today, I would’ve had to throw up all zeros and I wasn’t able to do that.

(his full comments can be seen in a video located here)

In three post-season starts that autumn, Verlander gave up 1 run. But that one run was the difference between a Win and a Loss. That type of failure deserves to be measured in a W/L record, even if the difference between success and failure was one pitch. Anybody who has actually played the game would agree.

FIP might tell us how a pitcher would perform in an idealized world without humans with flaws and shortcomings playing defense, but it will never measure the presence of mind and toughness that separates the winners from the Klubers. The FIP crowd won’t be happy till we call off the season and just simulate all 162 games on my nephew’s Nintendo. Baseball isn’t played in FIP/Nintendo world, it’s played by humans who bleed and bruise and falter and sometimes even manage to win in spite of all these things.

For the pitchers who do manage to put their team on their back, they deserve to have a W next to their name in the box-score. 

Big 12 Football Preview

One True Champion. Before advanced statistics and realignment, words meant what they actually mean. Yet, for the ten men representing ten institutions along one of America's best highways and West Virginia, they decided words have no meaning and declared no champions. Many fine schools and Texas A&M have left the Big 12, and after last season, few could be blamed for not wanting to follow a league unwilling to follow its signature commercial.

I cannot quit the Big 12. Its coaches are characters and its characters could probably coach. The league hasn't won a title since 2005, but not since the rising climax of the early sequence of "Willie Wonka and the Charlie Factory" has someone been more deserving of a golden ticket than Oklahoma State was in 2011. Instead, a bunch of nerd sports writers decided they were positive based on 10,000 simulations of a team's Pythagorean triangle formula that Alabama and LSU were the best over a 95% confidence interval. Folks, let's play it on the field. And with that, here is how the Big 12 will finish this season: 

1. Baylor- Art Briles. Not since "Friday Night Lights" have I loved a new quarterback more than I like Seth Russell. Beyond Russell, Corey Coleman eats, while Andrew Billings eats more along the D-Line. Baylor will finish 10-2. 

1. TCU-  Gary Patterson. Two years ago, TCU was like that ex-wife you'd run into at the Applebee’s. You knew she was there. She knew you were there. Yet, you both didn't want to acknowledge the other because you had little to actually talk about anymore. Eventually, you both respected each other more for avoiding each other, and then shocked everyone by going back to what you once had- in TCU's case like the Rose Bowl or with your ex-wife that 2002 Ford Taurus you haggled down- and TCU went 11-1. This year, TCU will go 10-2. 

1. Oklahoma State- Mason Rudolph had me from the 4th quarter of the Baylor game. This man has "it." Few teams have the momentum Oklahoma State has from the end of last season. If Oklahoma State's players avoid the beer cave and the Stillwater Chili's, they have a chance to be the best thing to happen on a bus since "Speed." Oklahoma State will go 10-2. 

1. Oklahoma- Bob Stoops. He has spent more falls hoisting Big 12 titles than I have spent recording "the Godfather II." Baker Mayfield will challenge Trevor Knight for the QB job, and Oklahoma will finish 10-2. 

The Rest: Who cares? Football is a game of winners. We wrote about the pathetic Cleveland Indians in our AL Central preview. I'm not writing about bad football teams. 

The Big 12 will have "Four True Champions." Expect Ohio State, the SEC team, and USC to make the playoff. Then, expect the Big 12 champion to once again get excluded from the playoff because the league chickens out and refuses to name a champion or play a championship game. Sure, they have tie-breaker rules, but breaking a four way tie is tougher than figuring out if I violated the Danville Applebee’s ban by selling cassette tapes in the parking lot. I'd love to see two of those four teams battle it for a Big 12 title. Instead, the nerds decided they understood history and a title game would kill the league's champion. Folks, the emperor has no champion. Folks, those boys thought they were going to form a singing French Republic. Instead, the Big 12 will once again have no playoff, no real champion, and be left wondering: what if we just let the teams play?

The Case Against BABIP

Danville, Kentucky – Folks, by now you’re all quite familiar with my positions on sabermetrics and advanced statistics with regards to the wonderful game of baseball. After all the divorces, all the altercations at Applebees, all the jobs lost in Danville because of NAFTA, my basset hound Barry Goldwater and baseball are about the only things left in this world that bring me joy. But my fourth wife won Barry in our divorce settlement, and now the nerds are trying to take baseball from me too. 20 years ago a man could go to a baseball game, buy a hot dog and a Miller Lite, sit down in the sun and talk to the locals, reveling in the glory of America’s pastime and conversing about the boys of summer and the latest catchy Hank Williams Jr. tune.

These days, one is assaulted from all directions by nerds. Nerds bring laptops to the game, checking on the leverage index or some such nonsense in real time. 

They’ve even put OBP and OPS on the scoreboard in some parks. Presumably nerds like to be able to chat about such things as they sip craft beer and talk about Game of Thrones.

I can’t even go to watch my nephew lay down a perfect sac-bunt in a little league game without other parents heckling the poor kid for lowering the team’s run expectancy. It’s enough to make a man cry, cry for the by-gone days of packing into a heated car on a sweltering summer day with only your dad and your glove for a day of magic at the ball-park.

I should be up front that I don’t hate all numbers. The Triple Crown stats never hurt anyone, and neither did pitcher wins or saves. What really irks me is these new-wave stats, the ones that try to rob the game of its mystery and charm. Stats like BABIP.

Ah yes, BABIP. Batting Average on Balls in Play. It’s been described as luck, magic, or even a fairy, sometimes all at once. BABIP is one of the chief metrics nerds use to proclaim the imminent regression of a player; a pitcher with a low BABIP is begging to get shelled, and a batter with a high BABIP is just getting lucky, nerds will say. I’ve never heard a bigger load of crock. BABIP is the perfect example of nerds trying to remove the human element from the games by turning everything into a mathematical simulation.

Nerds assume that a pitcher is powerless to influence their BABIP; once a ball is put into play, everything comes down to chance -- whether or not a ball finds a gap, a glove, or the grass is just a matter of luck in a cruel and uncaring universe, devoid of any higher meaning or significance. Taken to its logical endpoint, BABIP would suggest that pitching to contact is a futile enterprise. It would dismiss the winning habits of pitch-to-contact types who have mastered the art of pitch location and changing speeds, from Jeremy Guthrie to Greg Maddux, as nothing more than luck and statistical variance. Once we accept this logic, the notion that some pitchers are just better than others at limiting hard contact is thrown out the window, like my television after an argument with the ex-wife.

The same goes for batters. Like the attorney who prosecuted me for racketeering at the Danville pawn-shop, BABIP only tells part of the story. Some guys are just good at getting on base, or stroking a hit to the sweet part of the field, but you wouldn’t know that from the way BABIP is thrown around in baseball conversations. Quicker players will simply have a higher BABIP because they can beat out throws to first, just like I beat out that drunk & disorderly conduct rap I got for scrapping with a Giants fan at Game 5 of the 2012 NLDS.

In sum, nerds love to rub their BABIP crystal ball and pronounce the inevitable of doom of any of a number of players, but it just goes to show you how far removed all this math stuff is from what actually happens on the field. Not only does BABIP have very little explanatory power; it strips players of the credit they deserve for their performance.

Lately, lots of stuff gets called unsustainable by the chicken-littles of the world. Global energy usage, industrial farming practices, and my finances, for starters. There’s really no need to add “Dee Gordon’s .495 BABIP” to the end of that list. Instead of worrying about whether what you’re witnessing is a statistical anomaly, nerds should just grab a beer, kick back, and soak in the sublime aesthetic experience that is a Major League Baseball game.

Ban Brady

Danville, Kentucky- We all hope to shape our legacies by our best moments - the no hitter in high school, our amicable divorce, and the time we haggled the car price down just a little lower. However, the toll of time leaves us with a dark legacy as well - the loss in our final football playoff game, our later less amicable divorces, and the time we realize that car is useless when the G.M. plant we'd drive to is closed.

Now, with everyone acknowledging what we were the first to report 8 hours ago -- that Tom Brady will sit the four games next year, we're left to assess: what defines Tom Brady's legacy? His best moment, or his worst?

Tom Brady's best moments are legendary. He's a Michigan Man with a soldier's spiral. Brady handles his first baby momma with class and his second marriage with the dignity I've never showed when I get hustled in a game of pool. Brady has four super bowl wins, and by stepping on a field, he has more wins than Nate Silver. Brady was the man I wanted my nephew to be. In truth, he was the man I wanted to be.

Yet, today Brady's legacy takes the biggest hit in sports history. Tom Brady cheated. He took an instrument of the game and played us all. When I watch the game with my nephew, I expect the game is played within the rules. However, Tom Brady cares about one rule: cheating. Well, Tom Brady, the man who made kids from Michigan believe the snows of December were a necessary path on the journey to stardom, you are no star. You are a cheater. You belong in no Hall of Fame. Fortunately for Tom, they don't let me vote for anything after a misunderstanding at the Danville Pawn Shop. Unfortunately for our younger followers, Tom Brady is still allowed to play.

Roger Goodell has a chance to fix the sins of his past. In this case, the sins of this day. Goodell has never been a man with a spine or often, a brain. Well Roger, I'm calling on you to ban Tom Brady. No poor child should ever have his Madden create-a-player relegated to receiving hand offs from a cheat. Sure, you may counter, the kid could request a trade. No. I will not accept a generation that learns the best option is to force their way out of a town. I will not accept Tom Brady playing in a town that is the basis for the movie 'The Town." No, I will not stop until Touchdown Tom is Terminated Tom.

Barry Bonds was the greatest baseball player of all-time. He hit the most dingers. He stole more bases than analytics have stolen fun from sport. However, people refuse to vote Bonds into the Hall of Fame because he took awesome drugs to make himself better. Now, we're going to accept a player that changed the tool of the game. Bonds changed no ball. He merely demolished them. Brady did more than change a ball: he deflated us all. 

TWTW's Tigers @ White Sox Preview - 5-7-15

Danville, Kentucky---Kyle Lobstein occupies a precarious position within the Tigers clubhouse. As a spot-starter filling in for the injured Justin Verlander, he has immense shoes to fill. During his pre-game internal monologues, the bespectacled crustacean frequently reminds himself that his time in the majors is potentially finite, just as my kids undoubtedly persevere my miserable company by remembering that they only have to stay in my filthy, beer-can littered apartment on weekends. Kyle finds no such reassurance in his status as an interloper, however. Sometimes, the pressure feels too much, as if he is a sea-food item being cooked in a super-heated culinary apparatus of some sort.

Today is one of those days where the Lobster will feel especially pressured. Following last night’s all-too-familiar bullpen implosion, Kyle has the unenviable task of toeing the rubber in a game that could see the Tigers swept out of Chicago, swept harder than the broken glass that coats my apartment floor following the routine break-ins that occur when I forget to pay my bookie in Louisville.

Today, Kyle Lobstein will answer the challenge and lead the Tigers to a 5-4 victory over Chicago. He will pitch 6 and 2/3^rd quality innings, delivering the ball to a frail Tigers bullpen that will just barely manage to not squander another game. Lobstein will be backed up by a reawakened Tigers offense which will tag Jose Quintana for several runs and tag the White Sox bullpen for several more.

As he packs up his belongings following the game, Lobstein, peering from behind his rectangular glasses, will notice Justin Verlander lingering in the clubhouse and staring with cold, stern eyes at the nameplate posted above his locker. Many players have come and gone from this locker room since 2006, when Verlander took the team to its first World Series in decades and won rookie of the year. Lobstein knows better than to get comfortable in this clubhouse, and like many Detroit Tigers prospects and role players keeps a travel bag packed in his apartment in case of the eventuality that Dombrowski trades him for a relief pitcher that won’t pan out.

Yet, for all the instability in the clubhouse, Lobstein will find security in the fact that Verlander remains, and will continue to remain. The time is approaching for Verlander to return from the disabled list and either fulfill his destiny or enter the twilight years of his career having failed to do so. Even though Lobstein knows Verlander’s return might herald his own exit from this plot-line, he can’t help but look at the autumnal God and feel hope and inspiration swell within his crustacean heart. 

TWTW's 5-5 Royals @ Indians Preview

Danville, Kentucky---Folks, in this strange and wonderful game we call baseball, there’s no worse feeling than losing, and no worse way to shake off that feeling than being denied the opportunity to wake up the next day, retake the field and redeem yourself. That’s why my nephew and I spent today's off-day in Lexington at Chili’s happy hour, eating appetizers, drinking margaritas and watching little-league game tape on the kid’s i-pad.

On his off-day, Eric Hosmer did no such thing. During his ride to Kauffman on Tuesday, Eric Hosmer will be similarly quiet and reflective.

On Friday night, Hosmer and the Royals had decisively defeated division foe Detroit to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the first match-up of the season, prompting Royals fans everywhere to consume copious amounts of Fireball Whiskey & White Castle in celebration of the glory of baseball and the associated youthful hedonism. The world was in the palm of their hand; the Tigers had been tamed, tamed like a man being dragged by his third wife to IKEA to witness her draining his savings on tacky furniture that he doesn’t know how to assemble.

One Cy Young and one Royal-killer later, the boys in blue were left with a 2-2 split and an off-day to get the bitter after-taste of cinnamon and sliders out of their mouths.

Left to his own devices, Hosmer rests his head against the car window and lets his thoughts drift off to familiar places: his mighty two-run jack in the 11^th inning of ALDS game 2, which announced his arrival onto the stage of glory with authority. The 2014 World Series, which was so real and so tangible to Eric, yet beginning to feel like a distant memory.

More than anything, Hosmer will contemplate the growth and maturation of his friend and brother-in-arms, Moustakas. The hopes and dreams of so many people had been hoisted upon their shoulders for so long, with phrases like “youth movement” and “future of the franchise” being lobbed around with all the thoughtfulness of a drunken karaoke night at the Danville Applebees. Yet, now more than ever, and in spite of the frustrated hopes of 2014 and the past weekend, Eric could see himself and his companion Mike blossoming into the players they were always meant to be; the players nerds once thought they could be, before they lost patience and revised their projections downward as nerds are so wont to do.  

Buoyed by this new found sense of confidence and purpose, Hosmer and Moustakas will lift the Royals to a 5-3 victory over Salazar and the Racists. Vargas will not be sharp, but it will not matter, as MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has forbidden Cleveland from beating left-handed pitchers. Later that night, in an uncharacteristic display of maturity, Eric will invite Mike and Dyson back to his hotel room for a glass of scotch, muted celebration, and subdued conversation. No Fireball or White Castle will be consumed on this night.

Dyson will wonder out loud if times will always be this good, and if such bonds of friendship can endure in the face of time’s cruel march. The young third-baseman will retort: “All things must pass, especially in this business. Players get designated. Prospects get traded. Stars walk for bigger paychecks and bigger markets. But that doesn’t make what we have right here in this moment any less real.” Dyson will nod appreciatively at Mike, and drift into a peaceful slumber while sitting in the arm-chair in Eric’s hotel room, exhausted from an evening spent chasing Jason Vargas gopher-balls around Kauffman.

Before going to bed and helping Dyson to his room, Eric and Mike will share a knowing glance, and see within each other’s eyes their own unfulfilled potential reflected back at them. Nerds may have lost faith in that potential when they projected the Royals to win less than 80 games, but Eric and Mike never doubted each other for a second.