Fist Bumps & Flopping.

I wrote the majority of this article in June 2013.
Oh and I know the footnotes are all out of whack, it took me ages to try and sort out and I had to wonder if the 13 people who read this will really care that much. 

I’ve been watching the basketball playoffs lately, or more specifically I’ve been watching the Miami Heat. Even more specifically than that I’ve been watching Lebron James. I have been seduced by the American sports world obsession with Lebron and have given it a very special part of my life. Last year that involved staying up till 4.30 in the morning every couple of days to watch him finally silence his critics, this year its been more of a ‘first thing in the morning’ type of deal. I purchased a package called NBA gametime which lets me watch the games on replay with, and this is the attractive part, the commercial breaks cut out. A huge advantage when you invest as much time as I do in the NBA and NFL. 

There is no rational reason for me to be following the Heat as fervently as I do, none at all. I root for them because I’ve become a huge Lebron James fan, I’m a signed up, certified Lebron Kool-Aid drinker ¹  It’s all Skip Bayless’s fault really. In case you don’t know Bayless, he’s a panellist on ESPN’s show First Take and a full time loud mouth sensationalist. You either love him or hate him and I must admit, I was slightly smitten with Skip in the beginning (mainly due to his crazed defence of Tim Tebow who I have another soft spot for) but during the 2011/12 basketball season he attacked LeBron so relentlessly it just became ridiculous and the more I listened to his rants the more I wanted Lebron and by extension the Heat to win.

They did win of course and Lebron was named finals MVP, it kind of shut Skip up but being sensationalist, hypocritical and incredibly stubborn is basically his shtick so he’s still found time to criticise Lebron even when according to any respected basketball reporter, James has been nothing short of amazing all season long.  Anyway, this post wasn’t originally meant to be about Bayless even though I’m realising I could probably bang out a good 2,000 words about him and his frustrating opinions. No, its main focus is on something else that’s been consuming my thoughts while watching Lebron so closely, that is flopping, fistbumps and (unfortunately I couldn’t come up with another ‘f’ word to complete my alliterative set) basketball players obsession with helping their team mates up from the floor. 

‘Flopping’ in the NBA is what we would refer to as diving in football or more recently the GAA. I don’t know exactly why the Americans chose to go with ‘flopping’ over the perfectly suitable ‘diving’ but then they have a track record with this sort of thing, gasoline, sidewalk, elevator etc. To the ear I prefer the word ‘diving’ but as it’s generally considered quite the ignoble act maybe the more languid ‘flopping’ is appropriate. The definition of flopping is ‘to fall or plump down suddenly,especially with noise’, while diving gets the rather elegant description of ‘to plunge, fall, or descend through the air.’ Upon finding out these definitions there might actually be some practical sense to this. The opportunity to dive in football generally arises when a player is tripped or apprehended while running, hence creating more of a falling or descending motion. Basketball players usually prefer to hit the ground when they take issue with a slightly over zealous body check. This leads to said player falling or plumping¹ suddenly, and ya, generally I’d say they make some noise while doing so. Now, it must be stated that if basketball players had the room afforded to their soccer-playing brethren I firmly believe they would take to the air like Jurgen Klinsmann in his hey day but lets not get side tracked again. There is also the obvious, lets call them ‘unmanly’ connotations to the word so if we are discussing millionaire sports men throwing themselves to the ground in front of thousands of people to gain an advantage, it seems the Americans might have been right to go with the slightly more shameful ‘flopping.’

Flopping in some form exists in almost every sport. These next issues do as well but they seem more common in basketball. They are: 1. NBA players almost refusing to get up from the floor until they have at least one teammate to help them up, and 2. Ritualistic bumping of fists after every free throw. 

I find these actions both fascinating and annoying in equal measure. 

I know it’s all to do with creating and fostering a sense of camaraderie especially with the free throws, but after every single one? Wouldn’t it start to lose any meaning after a while? It’s like someone telling you they love you. It’s fantastic in the right context when the other person just understands that is what you need to hear. However, if something happened every day or even a few times a day where both people knew they had to either give or receive an ‘I love you’ wouldn’t it begin to grate on you, wouldn’t it become a burden?

Most of the time they don’t even care either. They just throw their arms out without acknowledging their fellow man or putting any effort in. It’s not a ‘you just nailed a 3 pointer with 2 seconds left’ type of fist bump, far from it, it’s a ‘I’m just gonna rub your hand because every other basketball player does and it would be weird if I didn’t’ situation. It’s the same when it comes to helping a teammate from the floor, there is an obligation and a very strange obligation at that. These are some of the fittest, strongest men on the planet. They can pick themselves up from the floor, at least a few times. They don’t need help every time, surely. I mean how much energy are you actually saving by having two guys grab your arms and pull you up, you still have to get those quads working and push yourself up. And isn’t any energy you save nullified by the amount of effort the two guys put in sprinting over to you and pulling you up while you petulantly sit waiting to be helped up? I’m looking at you D-Wade.¹ 

This photo is strange on so many levels.

Which brings me on to my final point and the most interesting observation. There is such a clear hierarchy going on in all this. I’ll use the Miami Heat as an example as I have watched them more than any other team throughout the year. Lebron is the alpha dog, therefore he almost never helps people up and is always helped up. He partakes in the fist bumping if he is shooting free throws, less so when he’s watching on. Dwayne Wade comes next. He will steadfastly refuse to get up until his teammates come to help him, sometimes to the detriment of his own team. More enthusiastic on the free throws bumps than Lebron. Chris Bosh and Mario Chalmers come next. They will help if they are in the vicinity and will occasionally pick themselves up from a fall without help. Extremely reliable fist bumpers. Then comes Shane Battier, Mike Miller and Chris Andersen. These guys don’t mess around and are highly aware of how lucky they are to be along for the ride with Lebron. They will accept help if it’s there but have no problem jumping back up and getting on with things, they will always fist bump the free throw shooter and go out of their way to make contact with the four other guys on the court after their own free throw attempts. But most importantly they will never, under any circumstances, let Lebron or Wade take on the mammoth task of lifting themselves off the floor on their own. They complete this task so enthusiastically that it could possibly be written into their contracts. 

I guess this is just a more obvious representation of the hierarchies that exist in every sport. Players know their place within the team and generally act accordingly. In a smaller team sport like basketball this becomes even clearer, especially when there is such an emphasis on ‘star’ power in the NBA. I have never come across a sport that so clearly breaks down the quality of players into specific categories such as; super stars, all-stars, normal stars, all the way down the line until you reach the derogatory term of ‘scrub’.  Shane Battier and co are in no way scrubs but they are far enough away from bona fide superstars like Lebron and D-Wade that when Lebron falls on his ass, someone further down the food chain will be there to pick him up. Every time. Without fail.

Thought of the day: If you have to count 413 letters, make sure you count them correctly. Or you will have to count them again. You have been warned. 

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1 If you don’t get that reference you’re not watching enough American sports in my opinion.

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1 Never had cause to use the word 'plumping' before today

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1 Chances of D-Wade reading this? I'm gonna say 6/1. I'm feeling cocky today

Baseball, why do you hurt me so?

Baseball is ridiculous. Well, let me rephrase that. Baseball is ridiculous when you're trying to pick the winners of 15 baseball games in a row. That's what I've been doing on and off for about 3 summers now. It seemed so obvious and straight forward in the beginning. Baseball is a game where one player on each team has an enormous effect on the result, namely the pitcher. The pitcher has the power to influence the game more than any other one player in sport. More than a QB in American football, more than an out half in rugby.  The pitcher's influence is so great they end up with the win or loss against their own name. So in a game where 9 people compete against each other, one person get a W or L on their own personal record. When pundits discuss baseball they talk about a teams win/loss record in the same breath as a pitchers win/loss record. There is also the fact that, like all other American sports, a draw as a result does not exist in baseball and so only two outcomes are possible. Of course, this is factored in to the odds set by the bookies but still, it shouldn't be too hard to pick 15 winners when pitching is weighted so heavily, and then of course there's this:

In case your eyesight isn't what it used to be, that says potential returns of €10,197.82. Ten thousand one hundred and ninety-seven euro and eighty-two cent. All for the investment of €1. They are investment returns I like. So when I first stumbled across this I thought yes sir I shall invest €1 a day until I hit the the jackpot. Now I know that also means the odds of me winning are over 10,000/1 but still, there were only two outcomes, pitchers rule games so I just needed to do enough research, keep on slogging away with my euro a day and then eventually I'd be quids in, right?

Wrong. Well wrong so far that is. Now I wasn't naive enough to think I'd actually get 15 predictions spot on straight away or anything but I was naive enough to think I would eventually get lucky one day. Or I dared to dream at least. And that's where I am coming to the conclusion that baseball is ridiculous. It is incredibly hard to predict. I guess it is the sheer volume of games. All teams in the major leagues play 162 regular season games over the course of about 6 months. That's a game every 1.13 days. That's a lot. In those 162 games, players on the best teams are going to have bad days and vice versa for the players on the poorer teams. No one can keep up performance levels over that period of time. The best regular season record is held by the Chicago Cubs with a regular season win/loss record of 116/36. That was in 1906. The Washington Nationals ended up with the best regular season record last year which included losing 64 games!

I don't claim to be a baseball expert or anything, although I have watched my fair share having spent some Summers in America, but there seems to be an inordinate amount of luck involved in winning any one game. Even what seems like a sure thing (as much as that can ever be in sports) can blow up in your face. Take Justin Verlander. Widely regarded as one of, if not the, best pitcher in baseball. He won both the AL MVP and the Cy Young Award in 2011. He's not having the best season ever but his E.RA. is still a very respectable 3.50. 1 He also plays for the Detroit Tigers who are either the 5th or 9th best club in baseball at the moment, dependent on your view.  Last week he was pitching a game against the rather poor Chicago White Sox. The Tigers were at home. Verlander was 1/3 favourite. I had them picked as one of my bankers in my 15 team accumulator. They lost

Of course upsets can and do happen in every sport but they seem to happen with alarming regularity in

baseball.2 The St. Louis Cardinals currently hold the best record in baseball at 57 wins and 36 losses. The Houston Astros have the worst at 33/61. To put this in context, Man United ended up with just 5 losses all last year while QPR finished with just the 4 wins. The worst team in baseball could beat the best team 3 times in a row. No big deal. There's barely any rhyme or reason to it. But still I solider on.

Last Summer while I had a scary amount of free time I got to thinking. I knew I couldn't possibly cover all possibilities for 15 games and I'm sure no bookmaker worth his salt would make that financially viable but I wanted to know just how many outcomes there actually was. Not being too au fait with statistics I asked my brother. 32,768. That's how many outcomes there are in 15 games of baseball. Unperturbed, I spent a whole evening drawing up a plan of sorts. Not mathematically or statistically based, just on gut or a 'surely if I cover enough possibilities, something will hit.' Some might term it generic gambler I guess. I think I invested between €30 and €50 (I'm not willing to go back through my account to find the actual figures) and got so confused by all the possibilities I didn't really know what I was doing by the end. Still I went to bed that night thinking well there's always a chance, I've covered more possibilities than normal, all I need is a bit of luck and I'll wake up to a couple of thousand quid from Mr. Power. I didn't. It wasn't even that close as far as I remember. So maybe it's me who is ridiculous rather than the sport of baseball but regardless, I'm off to put on my €1 accumulator. 

Though of the day - Coughing and sneezing at the same time results in the most unsatisfying sneeze ever.

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1 If you don't know what these stats, acronyms and funny names mean then why are you reading a blog called 'The Usual Baseballs'? I'm kidding, I don't have enough readers to do that. The AL MVP is the American League MVP. The Cy Young Award is the award for the best pitcher, there is one for both the American and National leagues. Finally an ERA is an earned run average. There are better and more accurate pitching stats but this is still seen as the go to grab all stat for pitchers.^↩


2 I use 'alarming' in a completely personal sense as no one cares a huge amount about what happens game to game in the regular season.
^↩

A new blog for a new month

This blog has been a while in the making. Well at least 6 months or so, which seems long enough when it's something that you can do pretty much any day at anytime. It's hard to blame other people for your lack of motivation in setting up a blog that you yourself want to do. Anyway, its here now, and again only I can be blamed for not keeping it updated regularly. Unless I get a fulltime job that pays me a huge salary with a built in section that strictly forbids blogging, then you can blame complicated work contracts if you feel the need to do so.

Which bring me on to my first topic. Probably a topic of first blogs everywhere - it's strange writing a blog to an audience that you positively know does not exist - I have only just come up with the name of this blog, it hit me while playing online poker (make of that what you will) and so there is not one other person on this planet who is aware of its existence. Maybe this is a platform to say something radically controversial and intentionally offensive. Or maybe not, not this week at least. I suppose the hope is that when I have graduated to bigger and better things people will flock to this first post and chuckle and guffaw at how witty and insightful it is, and how of course I was destined for bigger and better things. Much like I did with Ezra Koenig's old college blog recently. Or else it will end up as a common 21st century relic that litter the unforgiving planet internet - the enthusiastic blog started by a bright eyed and brushy tailed blogger only to be dumped by the wayside and left loveless after a few months or years.

I think this blog will be about sports mainly, possibly some thoughts on films and filmmaking and (in the style of Adam Carolla who I have been listening to a lot recently) a healthy dose of complaining about things, cos why not, it's my blog I can do what I want with it. I plan to post something every day for the month of July along with a post on Vine. Maybe the posts will interlink or refer to each other in some way but if i were a betting man (see above) I would say they probably wont.

That's about it, I wanna work out how I can get this noticed in some way so if anyone does end up reading this and is well versed in the area of blogging do let me know if there are some special techniques or skills I need to know about.


Thought of the day - If there was any chance listening to an ipod on an airplane could in any way affect  the safe landing of a plan, they wouldn't let you bring them on the plane.