Launch him to the Moon

I have watched too much sports in my life and I have never gotten teary eyed over any situation. I found myself in a weird situation last night. As I watched the clip of Mariano Rivera being removed from the mound for the last time at Yankee stadium.. it hit me. Not only was I watching probably the most dominate player of his generation, but one of the classiest professional athletes in our lifetime. As a lifelong Red Sox fan, I was touched by the moment of Mariano getting removed from the game by Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter. Mariano did something on the mound that I have never seen him do... he lost his composure. He sobbed in Pettitte's shoulder for a few minutes and shared tears with his manager Joe Girardi at the top of the dugout.

I will try not to bore you with too many stats, but a few to chew on. His postseason numbers look like this.
8-1 0.70 ERA  11 EARNED RUNS 0.759 WHIP in over 140 innings pitched. Mariano was born the same year (1969) the U.S. landed on the moon. 12 astronauts have walked on the moon since 1969. Mariano has allowed 11 men to walk home safely on his watch in the postseason. Really the only stat you need to remember when you are arguing with some young buck 30 years from now who the greatest closer of all time was and he did it with one pitch.... that F'ing Cutter. Hurry up and get to the Moon, MO.

Best Two Weeks of the Year

Admittedly a baseball homer, but how can these last two weeks not excite the casual fan. In the American League there are 6 teams vying for 2 playoff spots. The Orioles, The Yankees, The Royals, The Indians, and The Rangers are all within 3.5 games of each other. Most teams have 12 games or less left to play. After 5 1/2 months of grinding baseball it comes down to playing the best two weeks of baseball. This makes people people in Kansas City and Cleveland have something to care about. Even with this new format, people in these cities are not coming to the games. There was 10,786 announced gate at a Rangers/Rays game on Tuesday. There was 60,870 at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers New Orleans Saints football game this past Sunday. I know football is king in this country, but come on Tampa Bay! You have a team that could win the World Series. The Buccaneers lost to the East Rutherford Jets in Week 1.

I had the privilege of attending the Atlanta Braves Washington Nationals day game yesterday. The Nationals have been playing fantastic baseball and have a real outside chance to make the playoffs in the National League if the Cincinnati Reds collapse. The announced gate was 25,066.. they were lucky if they had 8,000 people. To be fair, people were probably still spooked from the Navy Yard shooting the day prior. There was 82,743 at the Washington Redskins home opener. I sat 5 rows back and I think Bryce Harper was trying to use me as the cut off man in the 9th. It was a fantastic game with the Braves coming back from 3-0 to score 5 runs in the last three innings to take a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the 9th.
The Braves sent out their lights out closer Craig Kimbrel to finish the game. Kimbrel had not blown a save since early May. The Nationals willed there way to a win with walks and ground balls  to a 6-5 win. I am pulling for the Nationals, but I do not think this city is equipped for playoff baseball. Any city where the majority of people are wearing jackets to a game that I get a sunburn at do not deserve Autumn baseball.

American League
AMERICAN	W	L	PCT	GB	HOME	ROAD	RS	RA	DIFF	STRK	L10
Texas	82	68	.547	-	39-35	43-33	667	599	+68	Won 1	2-8
Tampa Bay	82	68	.547	-	46-29	36-39	640	601	+39	Lost 1	5-5
Cleveland	82	69	.543	.5	45-30	37-39	686	631	+55	Won 1	6-4
Baltimore	80	70	.533	2	42-33	38-37	699	652	+47	Won 2	5-5
NY Yankees	79	72	.523	3.5	44-31	35-41	619	636	-17	Lost 4	4-6
Kansas City	79	72	.523	3.5	41-36	38-36	610	570	+40	Lost 1	6-4
LA Angels	73	78	.483	9.5	35-40	38-38	692	688	+4	Lost 1	6-4
Toronto	69	81	.460	13	37-39	32-42	663	708	-45	Won 1	5-5
Seattle	66	85	.437	16.5	33-42	33-43	578	710	-132	Lost 3	2-8
Minnesota	64	86	.427	18	31-43	33-43	577	710	-133	Lost 2	3-7
Chicago Sox	60	91	.397	22.5	35-40	25-51	559	665	-106	Won 2	4-6
Houston	51	100	.338	31.5	24-53	27-47	591	793	-202	Lost 4	4-6
National League
NATIONAL	W	L	PCT	GB	HOME	ROAD	RS	RA	DIFF	STRK	L10
Pittsburgh	87	64	.576	-	48-28	39-36	582	541	+41	Lost 2	6-4
Cincinnati	86	66	.566	-	48-26	38-40	662	549	+113	Won 2	6-4
Washington	81	70	.536	4.5	44-32	37-38	620	594	+26	Won 3	9-1
Arizona	76	74	.507	9	43-33	33-41	632	632	0	Lost 1	5-5
Philadelphia	71	80	.470	14.5	43-34	28-46	581	698	-117	Won 2	7-3
San Diego	70	80	.467	15	41-33	29-47	574	659	-85	Won 3	7-3
San Francisco	70	81	.464	15.5	38-38	32-43	593	647	-54	Won 4	7-3
Colorado	69	83	.454	17	42-32	27-51	660	696	-36	Lost 1	3-7
NY Mets	67	83	.447	18	31-44	36-39	582	648	-66	Lost 1	4-6
Milwaukee	67	83	.447	18	35-41	32-42	593	652	-59	Won 3	7-3
Chicago Cubs	63	88	.417	22.5	29-46	34-42	578	637	-59	Lost 4	3-7
Miami	55	96	.364	30.5	31-44	24-52	485	618	-133	Lost 4	2-8

Glossary

CONCACAF and the World Cup

Grant Wahl over at SI.com came out with an article a little over a week ago where he made the following statement:

"The dirty little secret of CONCACAF is that the region doesn't deserve its current 3.5 World Cup slots and probably should get no more than two. World Cup qualifying in CONCACAF is one of the most forgiving formats in world soccer, allowing you to mess up again and again and again (as Mexico has during this Hex) and still have a chance of advancing to the Big Show in Brazil."

 I don't know much about other confederations' qualification processes, but that is surely nothing to hold against CONCACAF.  CONCACAF directly benefits from sending its best teams to the World Cup so why would it have an unforgiving process that could send the BVIs?  That was a dumb comment, Grant.  Regardless, and as I'm sure you've guessed, I added the emphasis on what struck me as a particularly - nay, painfully - subjective statement.  And, quite naturally, Mr. Wahl provides nothing - not even overall win/loss records or something lame like that - in order to back up his assertion.

So I decided to help:

I know it's a little messy so let me explain.  The "FIFA coefficient" number is essentially the win-ratio average at the last 3 World Cups (since the far majority of players don't last more than 3 World Cups and it could be argued that the sport fundamentally changes sufficiently in 12 years to make anything before that more or less irrelevant).  Anyways, 1 point for a win and 0.5 for a draw in all matches against opponents outside your confederation in the World Cup (to maintain consistency throughout the rounds).  That total is divided by the total matches played for each of the 2002, 2006, and 2010 World Cups and the average is obtained.

[ (Total Points/Total Games) + (Total Points/Total Games) + (Total Points/Total Games) ] / 3

= FIFA Coefficient for the confederation for all 3 World Cups

Then, I simply divided the FIFA-allocated "WC Spots" by each Confederations' "AVG FIFA Rank" and multiplied it by the "FIFA Coefficient" number.  I think this should standardize everything and removed any of the bias that is entered due to some confederations having so many more countries than others.  I'm not really a statistics guy though.  Although I did enjoy Moneyball.

Anyways...The numbers seem to quite clearly indicate that CONCACAF, if anything, deserves one of Africa's spots.  UEFA and CONMEBOL are quite clearly a long ways ahead of everyone - and deservedly so - as South Korea in 2002 was the first team since the USofA waaay back at the beginning to make the semi's and NOT be Euro or Latino.  Those confederations are significantly better and as a result deserve commensurate representation.  If you take one of Africa's spots and give it to CONCACAF the coefficients look like this:

Much better distributed.  CONCACAF has performed better internationally (a higher FIFA Coefficient) even though it has a lower average FIFA ranking.  Asia and Africa have an identical FIFA Coefficient and if you take away one of Africa's spots and give it to CONCACAF, they now have a comparable "World Cup Slot Allocation Coefficient."  (I should really give the resultant column a title.)

Anyways...very messy...Again, I'm not a Stats guy.  I actually hated Stats...but I think these numbers show that Grant Wahl is nothing but a big, fat, lousy HATER.  U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

...JG

Side Thoughts:
1.  Is this why Luis Suarez received so much shit for the handball that prevented Ghana going through to the semis?  (because you all would have done the same thing.  Lying is a sin.)
2.  I feel like something needs to be done with the outliers.  The guys that really, really suck and will never have a chance to win.  But if you do that don't you have to remove the guys up top too?  In sports that doesn't seem to work.
3.  I had my doubts but UEFA really is the best confederation.  Thank you, Spain.
4.  Poor, Poor Oceania.