Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Levels of Subjectivity and Deception in Sports

Some sporting victories are unequivocal. There is no debate. There is no question over who won and who lost, and there is no further discussion on strategy, tactics, rule interpretations, and/or alternate outcomes. The winner is the winner, and the loser is the loser. For example, there is rarely any discussion over the shot put. Whoever throws the giant iron ball the farthest wins. You can't even complain about the wind, as a gale-force zephyr would not alter the arc of a sixteen pound lump of metal.


But not every sport is like the shot put. Compare the images . . . synchronized swimming is not like the shot put. It's more subjective. You need to evaluate a lot of subjective criteria. You can't just vote for the hottest chicks in the most revealing swimsuits.


Or maybe you can.

You see the problem here. There is a continuum of objectivity/subjectivity in sports. Some sports are inarguably true and some sports are completely subjective. And I believe there is a correlation between the amount of deception (or "gamesmanship," if you like euphemisms . . . or "cheating," if you don't) and the amount of subjectivity in the sport. I'm certainly not trying to put together a comprehensive list here, nor am I completely confident in my rankings . . . but I'd like to open the discussion.  I did my research, and I could not find a single article on the internet that ranks sports from subjective to objective, and neither could I find an article which ranks the corresponding levels of deception -- and so I will give it my best shot, and you guys can do the hard thinking in the comments.

Obviously, the most truthful and objective sport is the shot put. There are a bunch of rules for throwing the shot put, but I think those were created just so shot putters had something to say about their sport. Can you really throw the thing any farther if you break the rules?

Target sports: archery, darts, jarts, corn-hole, bowling, skeet-shooting, etc. These are mainly dead on. The only reason they are slightly below the shot put on the continuum of objectivity is because of the one-on-one nature of the matches. You might be able to mention something about a tail-wind or the oil on the lanes or the lack of friction on the corn-hole board and slightly change the way your opponent approaches the target, but this isn't going to work for long, as empirical evidence is going to override your poor attempt at gamesmanship rather quickly. Also, if everyone is drunk enough and can't see straight or do basic math, then you can pad your score in darts.


Running. The clock doesn't lie . . . but you can! But I don't think telling the rest of the folks in the pack that you're not even a little tired as you ascend Heartbreak Hill has much effect on anyone's time (other than your own, because you've depleted your oxygen levels trying to trash-talk). You can draft a bit and work in tandem to box competitors out during the longer running events, but if you do this in the 100 meter dash, then you're disqualified.

Golf. Fairly clear cut. If the ball goes in the hole, there's not much to talk about. There is some deception as far as clubbing goes . . . but it's subtle. You can't actually club your opponent with a seven-iron, though that would boost the ratings exponentially, nor can you act as if you are in da club and dance around your opponent as he addresses the ball, while your caddy plays trap music from a Say Anything boombox. What you can do, however, when your ball goes flying over the green and into a sewage ditch, is say, "I should have hit a six iron," even though you actually hit a four iron. This will make your opponent think you can skull a seven iron 210 yards, and perplex him into submission.



You can also lie about how the green breaks -- it's good to use classic aphorisms, such as: "this one always breaks towards the water" and then point towards the Caspian Sea. And if everyone you're playing against is three-sheets-to-the-wind, and you're in a deep pot-hole bunker, then you can chuck your ball out and no one will be the wiser.

Tennis. Tennis mainly is makes sense. If it goes over the net and stays within the lines (or hits any part of them) then it's in. The only major elements of deception are spin and wearing a really short skirt that shows off your incredible legs -- but the latter only works if your opponent is a lesbian. Aside from those tactics, however, there isn't too much subjectivity and deception, except that most of us don't have a Hawk-Eye line calling system at our disposal, and so we have to call our own lines. I'll let you in on a secret . . . if you play me in tennis, I'll give you the first questionable call, and then I'll call the next sixteen in my favor.


Basketball. As much as it's fun to complain about the refs in basketball, each team gets a LOT of possessions. Things actually have a chance to even out. Everyone walks. And there's nothing more unequivocal than the sound of a swish. It's the sound of truth. A team can get a few good calls and a few good rolls, but statistically, there's no such thing as a streak shooter. Despite the amount of subjectivity in any team sport refereed by humans, the numbers are big enough in basketball to let the better team prevail.



Baseball. Yikes. Called balls and strikes. Spitballs and corked bats. Pine tar. There is a certain truth to catching the ball before it hits the ground, or knocking it out of the park, but there's a lot of deception in between. Calling pitches is artistic deception, but giving (and stealing) signs is pure prevarication (my friend Kevin is a varsity softball coach, and I am assuming none of his rivals read this blog, so I'll reveal something deceptive that his team uses: ALL his hand signals are fake . . . the coaches sign continuously and preposterously, but none of it mean anything, because all their actual signs are verbal, so when the third base coach touches her cap, pulls her hand across her breasts, and then grabs her crotch, none of it means a thing (although it's very sexy), but when she tells the runner to "be smart" then it means she should steal).


Football. We all saw what happened last year when the real referees went on strike.  Without a team of people who know the rules really well, you can't even play this game properly. There are so many ways to cheat at football, that it's not even worth listing them.

Soccer. Good lord. I coach soccer, and the main thing I try to teach children is that soccer is lying. You pretend to go this way . . . and then you go that way. You pretend to pass . . . and then you dribble. You pretend to shoot . . . and then you get fouled. Or maybe it wasn't a foul. But you fall down and hold your knee anyway. You yell and scream. Then you get a penalty shot, and your team wins and you are the hero.


The incentives to deceive in soccer are so far beyond the incentives to deceive at shot put, that the two sports might barely be in the same category of activity.. No matter how much I pretend that my shot put is going to go really far, or my bowling ball is going to knock all the pins down, no matter how much I sell it, people are going to know the truth soon. But with soccer, there are times when you'll never know, even with a replay. Did he hit him hard enough to knock him off the ball? Were his studs up? Was that from behind, or from the side? Shoulder or arm? Did he take a dive or was he actually fouled? If the player is deceptive enough, you'll never know. And then there is offsides . . . the penalty that is literally and scientifically impossible to call.

The histrionics of coaching soccer are extraordinarily different from the quiet logic of helping someone with their golf swing, or even the frantic tactical play-calling of basketball. I have coached all three, and I love the totally fucked up nature of soccer. I am working the referee from the moment I meet him, because the referee really matters in soccer. Even if it's a U-8 game. Especially if it's a U-8 game. That's disturbing. I am also constantly mentally manipulating my players -- including my son -- because that's the only way to get children to continue to play a game that is futile, impossible, random, and unfair. There is also the problem of the law of small numbers (also known as the Poisson distribution) which makes sports like soccer and hockey incredibly specious, and then when you add in the high levels of subjective refereeing and the even higher levels of deceptive play -- the flopping and faking and diving -- then you have to consider that the entire sport is suspect . . . which is not to say that you can't be incredibly skillful at it, but half the fun is cheating.

Diving, gymnastics, surfing and figure-skating. These sports are beyond the pale. They are so subjective that no one except the judges know the criteria . . . even the commentators are often baffled by the decisions. The nice thing about these sports is that they are so skillful and graceful, that no one actually cares who wins. Everyone is impressed that anyone can achieve these feats. But, of course, when people just gawk at your ability, but no longer relate to it, then you are something of a freak. Your best bet in these sports is to simply pay off the judges. Or get involved in a parlay.


Obviously I haven't mentioned a number of sports. Curling, for example. The sport looks fairly straightforward to me, but Wikipedia makes this claim:

"A great deal of strategy and teamwork goes into choosing the ideal path and placement of a stone for each situation, and the skills of the curlers determine how close to the desired result the stone will achieve. This gives curling its nickname of Chess On Ice."

And so Summer Dave -- who, ironically, hates the heat -- is off to Bemidji, Minnesota. Bemidji is one of the coldest places in the continental United States, and it is also home of the renowned Bemidji Curling Club, which has produced a long line of champions. I hope to come back with a greater knowledge of the sport, and I especially hope to interview this beautiful curling babe.


52 comments:

zman said...

I already wrote this.

Whitney said...

Zman, are you cheating at blogging?

zman said...

No more so than Dave cheats at darts and cornhole. I have long said that real sports are completely objective: long jump, sprints, javelin, etc. Whoever jumps the highest/furthest or runs the fastest or throws the longest wins. Anything involving complete subjectivity, like figure skating, is a game, not a sport (especially when French judges are involved). Thus NASCAR is a sport while gymnastics is a game. This opinion makes some people angry, which is why it's so much fun to opine. To be clear, gymnasts are tremendous athletes, but they're just playing a game.

Jerry said...

Wow. Words, sports philosophy, the Poisson Distribution, the hot hand fallacy. I want to make out with you.

The only alleged controversy on the target sports was internet-aided cornhole.

Depending on the rules of this list, I think there's an argument to put pro golf ahead of pro tennis, more from the subjectivity side than the deception side. Our perception of golfers is based on outcomes and outcomes in golf, I think, are more influenced by randomness/luck (the lie, wind, bounces, putts lipping in/out etc.) than tennis. Also "the lie" is a big part of golf and lie = deception.

Also the hot hand issue isn't completely settled yet. There are some strong arguments against the idea of streaks and it's probably proven that streaks aren't as big a part of shooting as people think they are, but there quite a few confounding factors and I'm not sure that there's a way to set up an analysis to completely disprove it.

A couple weaknesses in the linked analysis: 1) It doesn't factor for timing. "Hot hand" would have to be a guy shooting a lot in a compressed time frame, not make-miss-make-miss over the course of 3 quarters. 2) Doesn't distinguish types of shots. Every shot is different, but I think you'd have to at least factor in the distance of the shot to get meaningful results.

TR said...

Who is the lady tennis player with the nice bosom?

Danimal said...

Bowling is referenced but should be near atop the list imo.

On golf, lie and lip-outs are sometimes but rarely affected by luck and more so skill. i don't have the data in my hand but feel pretty comfy making that declaration. if a professional golfer's ball comes to rest in the fairway it is with very little exception due to skill. if you land in the rough and have a shitty lie, well, it's because you suck, or at least on that particular swing you sucked. luck can shirley come into play but over a 4-day tourney & 72 holes and 143 other golfers, if you win a tourney then luck had almost nothing to do with it. if a player lips out, he/she shouldn't be just a hard-knocker or edge-skimmer.

as we've seen recently though - tiger/masters, there is room for subjectivity but very rarely.

am disappointed no one mentioned steeplechase. i watched that the other day on the telly during airing of track & field championship. i meant to google the origin of that fucked up event. will do so now.

zman said...

Marta Domachowsksa.

TR said...

That's not a real name.

zman said...

Marta Domachowska. Do a google image search at home or on your phone. Not with your work computer.

Dave said...

i knew you guys would figure the rest of this out for me. and sorry for stealing your topic, zman.

i hope this bodes well for summer dave -- my wife was out with the ladies last night, so i drank beer and wrote an endless post, and searched a lot of pictures of very hot athletic ladies. when do we get to retire and do this for a living?

Danimal said...

Z wins the intraweb

Clarence said...

I first discovered what a rabid cheater Dave is in 1988, when Dave and Hightower cheated at a vodka-drenched game of Pictionary so shamelessly that there was nearly a fight. I have seen him cheat or try to cheat at every contest every since. It's uncanny. And usually very funny.

T.J. said...

well holy shit...the Supreme Court did something right...

T.J. said...

headed over to the steps of the Supreme Court to party like a fabulous gay

rob said...

if i read the doma ruling correctly, we're all gay now.

Greg said...

I'm surprised there's no musings on the subjectivity/objectivity of boxing which usually hinges on the outcome. Knockout your opponent and it's objective. Win by points and it's subjective. Cosmic.

rob said...

teej, we'll need some pics. i imagine that's going to be a shitshow. in the best possible way.

Mark said...

People don't like to hear this but I find hockey very random. Often goals are scored or not scored based on bounces, weird deflections, etc. It doesn't take away from the skill and athleticism of the players but it does lead to really random results

Mark said...

See ya later, Aaron Hernandez.

Danimal said...

On gymnastics, sync swimming, and diving it would be prudent to hide the country of origin from the judges as well as to judge on the replay, especially im diving. Why can you use the benefit of replay in track or basketball but not something like diving? I get outraged everytime I think about it.

Danimal said...

Outraged goddammit!

Am sitting in Miami airport awaiting a fella from Panama for a brief pow wow. Flying back in a bit. #baller #notdrugrelated

T.J. said...

large crowd outside Supreme Court, was only getting bigger as we just walked back

it is 90+ and what seems like 100% humidity, so not sure how long folks can last out there, but it is a celebration

TR said...

They're gonna get nekkid soon.

zman said...

If you want to read it for yourself instead of letting a talking head parse it for you:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-307_g2bh.pdf

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-144_8ok0.pdf

Mark said...

Jerry mentioned the hot hand debate. It's really interesting. Almost any basketball player can tell you if times they were hot and felt in the zone. Statistical guy maintain such a thing does not exist. An interesting debate that I'm not sure there's a definitive answer to.

TR said...

On the topic of sports, there was a HUGE sports betting bust in NJ. I saw that it was focused on the Jersey Shore, and that 22 folks were arrested. I guessed I would know one of the folks and sure enough, here is the older brother of a girl I went to high school with:

Anthony Benyola, 43, of Toms River.

Charges: Second-Degree Racketeering Conspiracy, Third-Degree Promoting Gambling, Third-Degree Possession of Gambling Records, First-Degree Financial Facilitation of Criminal Activity, and Second-Degree Conspiracy to Commit the Foregoing Offenses

Bail: $200,000 with no 10 percent option and a bail source hearing required

They confiscated a BMW 750 series and a 2011 Lexus LX5 from him. His full-time job, you might ask? Deputy Director of Public Works in Toms River, NJ. Way to be low-key, dumbass.

zman said...

Are you trying to say that a DPW worker doesn't make enough money to have $200,000 worth of foreign iron sitting in his driveway?

I'm neither an athlete nor a statistician, but I believe that athletes get in "the zone" from time to time, regardless of what the numbers indicate. Federer, for example, claims that some days when he's really on the ball appears to be the size of a basketball and it moves in slow motion.

Danimal said...

Former fulll-time job. He shoulda watched goodfellas.

Jerry said...

Larcher De Brito (we'll call her "Steve") giving Sharapova all she can handle. Visually appealing match as well.

TR said...

I bet a lot of guys here would love to give Sharapova all she can handle.

(But not me. I love my wife.)

Jerry said...

I have a feeling this is the match where they both get naked and run around the court after match point. It's gotta happen sometime, right?

Jerry said...

Take it off!!!

Spoiler alert: Clothes stayed on

Danimal said...

Traveler tip...if ever meeting someone flying into miami who is from central or south america, plan on a 2-hr customs stop.

zman said...

Hopefully they'll show some old Sharapova matches to fill the void.

Aaron Hernandez hid his arms in his tshirt as he was being led from his house to the cop car. I assume he did so to hide his tattoos? Because it will be easy to find a jury in Boston that doesn't know who he is or that he's seriously inked up.

Dave said...

i've read (and believe) the hot hand premise that there is no such thing as a hot hand, but when i play basketball, i am totally a streak shooter -- i'm either in the zone or not. major cognitive dissonance. and i really wanted to mention the randomness of hockey -- i feel that way too -- though the guys are amazing at stick handling and skating, but i drank so much while writing the post that i forgot to add hockey. boxing point is brilliant and maybe i will steal it and put it in the post and pretend i thought of it (because i am a cheater).

TR said...

Combined stats of Gronk/Hernandez/Welker/Woodhead last year: 264 catches, 3,073 yards, 25 TDs.

As a Jets fan, I can at least enjoy some pain for Pats fans.

Danimal said...

Did I say 2 hours?

zman said...

My secretary does a great job staying on top of my expense reports. Part of her approach involves an email with the subject "It's that time of the month!" which makes me laugh for reasons unrelated to my expenses.

Jerry said...

Holy balls - Steve Stakhovsky? What the deuce is going on over there?

Danimal said...

in miami airport still. haven't left. been here since 7:20 a.m. and i missed my 3:30 flight. only at miami int'l. this is the airport i was in last time, flying the same airline (AA), when we discussed the rules of drinking at airports. and i'm at the same bar. don't need any help w/the rules today.
the guy i was supposed to meet and spend a few hours with - i spent 10 min with him b/c he was stuck in customs for three (3) hours.
done bitching. all is fine. carry on.

zman said...

Summer of Steve.

rob said...

i think it's pretty obvious federer was in a hurry to get gay married.

T.J. said...

hey danimal, tough day, but I'm thinking Aaron Hernandez is having a worse day

Danimal said...

Yessir....just a 30-second vent. Happy as a clam now.

Danimal said...

Weiner Coming Hard

rob said...

weiner rising in the polls.

TR said...

Weiner Spurts to Lead
(h/t to NY Post, of course)

TR said...

Weiner Leans Left

Danimal said...

That Fucking Weiner is Not To Be Played With

rob said...

weiner found to be synonym for cock

Danimal said...

Weiner On Hernandez: "He's fucked"

TR said...

Weiner on Deen: "She's fucked"