Somebody should be fired...

for the terrible uniform designs for this weekend's NBA All-Star Game.

Check out these two pictures: 1 and 2.

Not bad, eh? (Sorry, don't want to get in trouble for posting the pictures here due to property rights and whatnot.)

Now check out this one.

What? There were three teams? No, in fact, the uniforms were as follows.
West: white front/gold back
East: blue front/(whitish) silver back

So, depending on the direction the players were turned, there appeared to be between one and three teams on the floor at any given time. I often had trouble distinguishing between the teams and I was watching on a 55 inch HDTV. (Look at the last picture again, zoom out a few times, and you'll see what I mean.)

Besides that, the All-Star Weekend shows were pretty great. TNT's team of Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson are the most entertaining in any sport. Largely due to Dwight Howard, the slam dunk contest was the best since 2000 (which featured Vince Carter). The dunk people are talking about most starts at 2:40.




It was almost as good as last year's All-Star Danceoff.

Crazy fan, crazier goalkeeper

This clip has been showing up on all the soccer blogs lately:



So, why did he fake the injury? Well, some would argue that it's natural to soccer players. But the situation is a bit different when it involves a fan. He was probably hoping that the home team would be forced to forfeit due their fan's behavior.

Jason's Law of Pickup Soccer

In any pickup soccer game with at least six people, there is always someone who takes it way too seriously.

Now, back to icing my face.

Depressing that this is news

This headline is about the latest game for one of the best US soccer players playing abroad:

Beasley Booed But Not Racially Abused By Red Star Fans

Baseball discrimination estimates

Will comments on my previous post and does some math to argue that the level of discrimination estimated in this paper is too small to fuss about. (Of course, I'm sure he would agree that a small amount of discrimination is worth stomping out if the cost is small enough so let me focus on the magnitude.)

The paper finds that a pitcher is 0.34 percentage points more likely to get a strike if the umpire is the same race. Yes, this is a small number. Relative to the probability of getting a strike when the umpire is a different race, the gain is a bit over 1%. Still somewhat small but I don't think that's quite the right comparison.

It's important to keep in mind that more often than not, the strike/ball call is obvious. How many pitches in a game are really "close calls" that "could go either way?" My point is that the small estimate is expected since there so few times in a game when the umpire really has an opportunity to discriminate. He's discriminating a lot more on the margin than he is on average.

I'm sure you get the picture but here's an example. Think about a team that only uses pitchers that match the race of the umpire. How much more likely are they to get a strike on marginal pitches? Assume 150 pitches and 20 close calls. Further, assume that the umpire only discriminates on the close calls.

Increased probability of strike = 0.34 =
(# close-calls / total pitches) * (increased prob. of strike on close calls)
+
(# obvious calls / total pitches) * (increased prob. of strike on obvious calls)

Filling in the knowns,
0.34= (20/150)*(increased probability of strike on close calls) + (130/150)*(0)

Solving, we get that the increased probability of a strike on close calls is 2.55 percentage points. If you think there are less close calls per game (which I think there probably are), then the impact on the margin is greater.

EDIT: It's important to note that the 0.34 estimate is barely statistically significant at the 5% level and that they haven't clustered their standard errors. They should probably be clustering on the umpire. And if they did, my guess is that the estimate would probably no longer be statistically significant. So, despite the fact that I think this magnitude can be meaningful, I'm with Will in the skeptics camp as far as the overall effect is concerned. But the non-questec stadium (where umpires aren't monitored so closely) results are quite compelling.

More discrimination in sports

This time in baseball. Very much looking forward to reading the whole paper. The Sports Economist tips us to the main results from the paper's FAQs.

1. What are the main results of the study?
There are three. First, umpires are more likely to call strikes for pitchers who share their race/ethnicity. The second result is an extension of the first: Umpires are more likely to express a preference for their own race/ethnicity only when their behavior is less closely scrutinized: 1) in parks where QuesTec (a computerized system set up to monitor and review an umpire’s ball and strike calls) is not installed, 2) in poorly attended games, and 3) on pitches where the umpire’s call cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat. Finally, game outcomes are influenced by the race/ethnicity match between starting pitchers and home-plate umpires. Home teams are more (less) likely to win a game when their starting pitcher and home plate umpire have the same (a different) race/ethnicity.

I don't doubt that there may be discrimination in MLB. At the same time, I worry about publication bias. I mean, with this study and the NBA study, it really leads you to believe that racism probably pervades all of sports officiating. That's two out of two, right? (Actually, neither are published in a journal yet but both have received considerable attention--you know what I mean.) I'm sure there are more studies on the way, for the NFL at the very least. Someone should do a comprehensive study of soccer leagues as well since so many countries have leagues--it would be interesting to see how the results differ across countries and continents. In any case, hopefully we'll hear about such papers regardless of the result.

Beckham Debut: What Could Have Been

Early in the second half, the LA Galaxy were down 1-0 to DC United with Beckham warming up on the sidelines. The perfect scenario for him to come on and play hero, right? Well, his teammate, Kyle Martino, thought he'd raise the ante further and got himself thrown out of the game for a nasty slide tackle. Even Becks couldn't turn the tide with a one-man disadvantage.

The buzz when Beckham started warming up on the sideline was pretty amazing. It seemed like the whole stadium stopped watching the game to watch him jog laps. How do I know this if I wasn't at the game? Well, the TV producer apparently forgot there was a game going on as well as the Beckham bliss was only occasionally interrupted by the soccer game.