from computer woes with a fresh blogging spasm:
You’ve by now no doubt heard the doom-and-gloom about dwindling TV ratings for the all-star game. Here’s a different look at the same data- The all-star game will be, as it always is, the most-watched TV show of the summer. Despite Fox’s hideous coverage, it was the highest-rated show on that network since the “American Idol” finale.
The way it was portrayed, you’d think America pretty much shut down for the last episode of “The Sopranos.” Almost a third - about 30 percent - more people watched the all-star game.
Even if you accept that the Nielsens are legit, which I don’t, especially for sports, the way they’re discussed in the media is just depressingly simple-minded. Obviously, TV’s changed more than baseball has.
And another thing…. I’m watching “Baseball Tonight” after the all-star game, and they’re addressing the fact that the NL was only 1-for-whatever with runners in scoring position, leading to the inevitable sermon on one of the baseball media’s favorite bull-dumps, “situational hitting.”
The AL got five runs on 10 hits and an error. The NL got four runs on nine hits. But the NL happened to get two of its runs on a homer with a man on first and another on a sac fly RBI. So what? What does it have to do with anything?
According to the ESPN guys, it means that since it was the all-star game, hitters were swinging away with a runner on second rather than making the smart, percentage, fundamentally-sound baseball play and hitting a grounder to the right side, moving the guy to third.
Except that it’s not the smart, percentage, fundamentally-sound play. As this season’s (and every modern season’s) run-expectancy chart shows, giving up an out to move a runner from second to third decreases scoring. It decreases slightly the chance of scoring one run in the inning, and decreases sizably the chance of scoring more than one run. That may not be true in little league or legion or college baseball, but it is absolutely and provably true in the majors.
This is not my or anyone else’s opinion or interpretation. It has nothing to do with formulas or ratings or calculators or slide rules. It is just information, and not even new information. It is information that baseball, in its head-in-the-sand stupidity, chooses to ignore.
So if Jimmy Rollins leads off the Phillies’ first tonight with a double, and Shane Victorino or Michael Bourn follows with a roller to second to get Rollins to third, he’ll get high-fives all around and Harry and Wheels and the gang will tell you what a sound and life-affirming baseball thing that was.
That, sports fans, is what we call a load of crap.
