Book Notes: The Blind Side

Michael Lewis, The Blind Side (Norton, 2006)

I'm going to have a lot of negative comments to make about a book I liked a lot, and that has been praised universally, as far as I can tell. On the bright side, the book is engaging, well-written, and thought-provoking. What more could you want from a book? Here's what:

1. The thesis is straightforward. Lawrence Taylor and other big, fast blitzing linebackers who came to the NFL in the mid-1980's became disruptive to the passing game. At the same time, various rules changes involving the coverage of wide receivers put a premium on successful passing attacks. The combination of fast linebackers trying to disrupt the increasingly important passing game led to the need for specially quick offensive linemen to play left tackle (on the right-hand quarterback's "blind side") to protect the quarterback. And that's it. Nice angle, enough for the typical Sports Illustrated feature piece that goes toward the back of the magazine, but no more. So how does Lewis make a book out of this small story? And what's wrong with making a small story into a big book?

1. The book spends a lot of time in breathless praise of Lawrence Taylor. Praise is fine, but continual glowing tributes get tiresome. They also seem overstated. The NFL has always had big and fast athletes; in the past, a player of Taylor's size and speed would play defensive end. In the 3-4 defense in which Taylor played, the linebacker is essentially substituted for the defensive end. I know Taylor was an exceptional athlete and would have excelled in any era, but the fact that he played linebacker instead of end should not matter much: it's somewhat arbitrary where he plays and how his position is labelled, contingent on the coach's preference.

[2. On the same point, I totally don't understand why, in baseball, when discussing all-time greats, commentators will typically assess the player's offensive production in terms of his defensive position. Ryne Sandberg was a great-hitting second baseman, they'll say, comparing his numbers to other second basemen. Why? Sandberg could have played third or first or left-field just as ably, and indeed might have been assigned there had his team needed him there (see Alex Rodriguez playing third or Nomar at first). Would Sandberg be less of a hitter had he spent his career at third base? Is he more of a hitter because he played second? Why should his defensive position matter when assessing his offensive numbers? Sure, some coaches like small, quick players in the middle infield; but let's not forget that lumbering Cal Ripken spent over a decade playing shortstop.]

3. The bulk of the book involves the upbringing and eventual high school stardom of one Michael Oher, a very large young man with very quick feet: in short, a prototype for the rare athlete that fits the NFL's current model for left tackles. And it's quite a story, how a young boy from an unimaginably destitute and (virtually) parentless childhood is more or less adopted by a wealthy nuclear family, sent off to private school and propelled on his way to college stardom and presumably NFL riches. The problem is that the story about Oher's childhood and recruitment does not appear to tie into the NFL's stipulations for left tackles; an athlete of Oher's size and speed would have been desired by college football recruiters in any era. So the Oher story doesn't really fit the rest of the book. But it is a compelling story, Oher presumably will play left tackle one day in the NFL (although who knows? What if Belichick puts him on the right side?), and it does fill the book out.

4. But by forcing the Oher story into the NFL-rules-changes-Lawrence-Taylor-blind-side story, I think Lewis misses the real story about Michael Oher. What's interesting about Oher is not that one day he may play professional left tackle; what's interesting is the extent to which the people and institutions that surround this young athlete will go to make sure that his NFL career happens. It's a joke, really, and one that Lewis reports largely without comment. Oher may be a gifted football player, but by every measure he is singularly unqualified for the academic hurdles an NFL career implicitly imposes. It's not entirely the kid's fault (although part of it is), but this young man pretty much evades any semblance of an education right up to high school. Yet today he's enrolled in a four-year college program; how did this happen?

5. For all intents and purposes, to play in the NFL one has to go to college. This is a mistake, one that no other sport imposes. God doesn't give out both brains and brawn to everybody. Some people aren't meant to do time in college. Making people like Oher go to school corrodes institutions, to wit:

6. Oher gets through high school with what can only be described as intense, continual and personal tutoring, special attention, begging, pleading, etc. One has to read between the lines (Lewis didn't) and wonder just how much his tutor, for instance, helped Michael learn, or learned for him, if you catch my drift. By all appearances, Michael does not seem capable of performing well academically. What was the big rush? Why not take this uneducated kid and start him over? Not much draft interest in a thirty year-old player, that's why. Oher had to get to college "on time" to maximize his professional riches.

7. Oher's grade point average, in combination with his board scores, were well below the NCAA minimum for student-athletes. So how does Michael get his grades up? How does he change F's and D's (in completed courses) to A's? Don't ask Michael: he gets A's in subjects that he can't even name. He made those F's into A's by completing (with his tutor's help) some on-line courses that Brigham Young University offers (according to the book). These courses lasted all of one single week each! Yet they can change, in the eyes of the NCAA, semesters of F's into A's. BYU, a reputable institution, should be ashamed of itself, as should the NCAA. I'll refrain from putting any blame on Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy (Michael's adopted parents), and Michael Oher himself, only because the young man appears singularly well-suited for pro ball and it's not their fault the path to the NFL goes through college. But still, I hope no one was proud of himself for changing those earned grades.

8. I could go on; read the book and you'll see. The real story of "The Blind Side" is the Blind Eye we turn toward the means by which we "educate" these young athletes. As good as the book is, I wish Lewis had seen the field a bit better.

Hey, This Is Un-American!

This court decision is from Australia and is linked at Gods of Sport. A rugby player gets hurt on the field, apparently as a result of someone's negligence, and sues for damages. So far, I understand. But his damages award was limited to $90,000 Australian (about $70,000 US) because, according to the way-down and under judge, the player had, since his forced retirement, made a boatload of money in real estate investment.

In American law there is a doctrine called "set-off" by which damages will be diminished to the amount the injured person "benefitted." This doctrine recognizes that our interactions with others may result in both costs and benefits, and that the plaintiff should only be awarded the net. But here's the limit: the costs and benefits must be to the same interest or same property. Think Spiderman, where the freak accident that befalls the young hero (a tort, if someone negligently caused it) produces costs (it hurt) and benefits (now the hero gets to shoot spider webs out from his forearms, a nice advantage in life). The same interest (health) is both harmed and helped, and so damages would be set-off by the realized monetary value of spider-web-making.

The Aussie court's theory is that rugby star's spinal cord injury enabled, in some causative way, the player to commence real estate speculation. He nearly had his neck broken, lucky bloke. Here's what's wrong in Australia:

1. There's a reason the benefit must be visited upon the same "interest" as that harmed: it's the only way to be confident in the causative link between the gain and the initial injury. We don't "set off" an injured person's inheritance that happens to arrive after an injujry because the injury did not cause or lead to the inheritance. So exactly how did suffering a spinal cord injury on the rugby pitch cause the player to become a skillful real estate investor? It didn't. Any skill or acumen the plaintiff has at investment was there already; suffering a spinal cord injury did not endow the injured person with additional insight.

2. The court's theory, a mere nod to the requirement that the harm and benefit be tied to the same interest, is that the injury "freed up time" and thus enabled the athlete to spend time in real estate. That is not a theory at all. Any life-threatening injury or illness has the wonderful benefit of freeing up time, simply because the lucky victim gets to lie around suffering and can't go to work. On the court's reasoning, any income-producing activity the victim was able to perform, even if it's painting landscapes with the brush in his teeth, should be set off from the award, since the injury freed up the time for the work. When your principle of law includes all possible activities, then it's not a principle at all, it's just an excuse to do what you want to do.

3. And what did this judge want to do? Not give damages to a millionaire. Okay, I understand the impulse, although it's debatable. But let's be honest and say that; let's not bring in set-off doctrine to reach a result the doctrine would actually reject. Should wealthy people, like professional athletes, not be allowed to recover damages simply because they're rich? Can the rest of us run around and negligently or recklessly injure and defame wealthy celebrities and performers, and then successfully defend the resulting lawsuits on the basis that the plaintiff has enough money and so should not recover any more? Pretty silly idea, if you think that damages awards have a role in stopping people from acting carelessly toward others. That's why the judge wasn't forthright about what I think was his true reason; the idea of denying money to wealthy plaintiffs seems hard to defend.

TSLP Goes to Duke; Is Sent Home on Next Plane

Point your browser to the link below and witness the spectacle of TSLP presenting "The Beauty of Bets" at the Duke Law School. The paper argues that we should reconsider the prohibition on professional athletes betting on their games, if only to cajole players to care more about winning than their stats. Important, thoughtful questions are raised by the panelists, Professors Richman and Haagen. The questions were so good, in fact, that TSLP had little choice but to ignore them.

Would bets by athletes ruin games, or enhance them? I think the fans might like it: more than a few of them might tune in to a "winner-take-all" professional football game, for instance. (Note to league officers: before staging this event, double the stadium security detail, have teams of paramedics posted near both red zones, check the amber alert system, notify the TSA.) I want to see the winning team dancing around with fists full of Benjamins. I think some of the Dukies in the audience liked the idea too (of course, these smart young pups envision themselves on the winning side, and they're probably right).

Here's the link to the webcast. This is about as fun as academic life gets, not counting the annual faculty holiday party.

Book Notes: How Soccer Explains the World

Franklin Foer, How Soccer Explains the World (2006)

It just occurred to me that most of my Book Notes posts are going to be favorable. Although I read a lot, I'm also picky. I'll give nearly any book 100 pages and then decide if the book is worth finishing. I'm merciless, putting down best-sellers not worth further investment. So the point is, I'll write Book Notes only about books I finish, and I only finish books I like, so expect lots of nice comments. Still, maybe by giving you my reactions to these books, and mentioning their shortcomings, I'll help you decide whether or not you want to spend your time reading them. One of the differences between my Book Notes and a book review is that the person doing the latter (for pay) probably feels constrained to finish even a bad book just to tell you it's bad.

I've read two sports-law books this week, the one listed above and Michael Lewis' The Blind Side. I'll try to get to the latter in a few days.

How Soccer Explains the World:

1. Foer provides an entertaining and readable story line that basically places soccer (futbol) in the middle of regional, national, religious, cultural and socio-economic tensions all over the world, even in the U.S. Of course the monolithicity of the fans' perspectives/class/etc. seems overstated and stereotyped, but it's about impossible to tell a cultural-tension story in a couple of hundred double-spaced pages without making some pretty quick generalizations. If you're looking for endless qualifiers, careful documentation and footnotes, this is not for you. Think airport reading, but featuring some pretty thoughtful commentary.

2. Yes, it's double-spaced, lots of "air" between the lines. Why are so many books like that today? Even the New Yorker has shortened up the feature pieces noticeably. Is America dumbing down, or are we being dumbed-down by smart people like Foer who refuse to write fuller treatments? I suspect a heavy-handed editor or officious publisher in the background on something like this, but still, I think Foer had it within his obvious erudition and research to write a much fuller account. Of course then I wouldn't have read it. (Kidding.)

3. As wonderful a read as is this book, on one level it doesn't quite work. Foer writes with charm about soccer and about specific rivalries and team histories and fan characteristics. He neatly ties much of this narrative into a cultural/political/economic story, as has been mentioned. But the next level of abstraction is where the trouble begins. He tries to tie the whole narrative together into a tale of "globalization" versus its opposite, which I guess would be parochialism or sectarianism or nationalism or the like. He also ends up throwing the terms "liberal" and "conservative" into the mix. Here the superimposition of a story line threatens to obliterate the facts of that story. Although he seems ambivalent about the virtues of globalization, Foer is a self-proclaimed liberal. Not a big deal by itself, but here's the problem: he just can't bring himself to say that "liberal," in domestic contemporary political terms, includes notions like leftist, socialist, communist, and so forth, at least in this sense: "liberal" more correctly indicates or describes the comparative position of the socialist than would the term "conservative." Not for Foer. Every movement that yearns for freedom and goodness and morality is "liberal"; every oppressive force that seeks to dampen or delay such yearning is "conservative." Thus for Foer "conservatives" take the shape of authoritarian military dictators, socialists, communists, theocrats, etc. Foer might claim that, when he says "liberal" he means classical liberal, but that's clearly not the sense in which he employs the term. By liberal he means Democrat. I appreciate people who are passionate about their politics. I worry for those who confuse their politics with all things good and reasonable.

4. It is so good to read a book like this that takes sports seriously. Tell someone you're reading a book about sports and he thinks of ghost-written hagiographical trash with nice action pictures. Many sports books fit that bill, of course. But anyone who thinks sports today exists for young boys to dream of days of glory hasn't been paying attention. Maybe we are all kids, maybe we are dumbed down, but today's sports is big, big business, one that captures the attention of huge segments of the adult population. And by capturing that attention sports has become a sieve through which much of contemporary culture is filtered, through which so much conversation and thought and even knowledge itself is processed. The only discipline or interest that matches sports as a common cultural filter is law. Is sports law irrelevant? It's the center. Visit any European museum that features late gothic or early Christian art: it is obvious the extent to which those societies understood themselves in relation to the Christian narrative. For better or worse (okay, worse), today's narrative is sports and law, maybe both. We need more books like Foer's to help us understand ourselves.

5. Here's what I like about soccer: every player is important (so no worries about whose kid gets to play quarterback), lots of running, premium on teamwork, marginal advantages combining to pay off in ultimate, long-term gains (in the form of goals, for instance), few stoppages in play. Here's what I find distasteful about soccer: can't use the hands (hard to call a sport ideal when our most useful and coordinated appendages go to waste), flopping around for calls, penalty kicks from about ten feet in front of the goal as a result of a perceived "push" in one team's box (the whole game can be decided right here), and headers. Hate headers. I played some soccer in school; we had a drill where a coach would throw a ball at your head and you had to practice heading the ball into the goal. Wet, cold New England afternoons. Look out. I saw my teammates take a few of these practice headers and stagger around, probably concussed. For TSLP? Amazingly, I always missed, every single time for two full seasons, despite my very best efforts to slam my forehead into a heavy ball thrown directly at it. I knew then that I might need to make a living with whatever brains survived into adulthood.

The Price of Baseball Players

Sure, the price of ballplayers is going up, way up, judging from the Red Sox bid for Daisuke Matsuzaka. It's going so far up, some say, that the so-called small market teams cannot compete for free agents, despite generous revenue sharing. And that's bad, at least according to this column on the Sports Illustrated web site.

Do you ever get tired of this constant whining and worrying over small-market teams? Let's consider this problem like grownups. A few thoughts:

1. What exactly is a "small-market" team? In terms of population, Boston is smaller than Philadelphia, San Diego, Detroit, Baltimore and Milwaukee. Boston is about the same size as Kansas City, and nearly every other major-league city. Yet Kansas City, Milwaukee and Detroit are typically depicted as poor small-market teams that need our sympathy and maybe need revenue sharing from the Red Sox. Folks, these small-market teams are small because the teams have failed to create a larger market. Sure, Boston proper is part of a larger metro area (as is Detroit, for instance), and the Red Sox today are a regional attraction in New England. But it wasn't always the case. The largest difference today is that the Red Sox are compelling, have captured the attention and loyalty of generations of fans, and so Boston fans care: they attend games, pay premium prices, watch telecasts, listen to radiocasts, and even follow their beloved team for a lifetime, no matter where that life takes them. Why subsidize teams in commensurately large metropolises because they've accomplished less?

2. Competitive sports are a joint good, which means attracting fans to Red Sox games requires that there be good competition. A long Red Sox season of uninterrupted blow-out victories would get old (although we should try it, as an experiment). But there is no reason to think that the competition today in MLB is insufficient. Baseball attendance and revenues remain high and increasing. Plenty of teams other than the Red Sox or Yankees have recently had winning seasons and even won championships. The Red Sox' high and continuing revenue stream virtually guarantees that the club will field a competitive, contending team nearly every season. The less-wealthy teams need to play it smart, pooling assets in order to make a run at a title periodically. That's about the entire difference. The Sox and Yanks will always face stiff competition from the poorer clubs, just not from the same precinct every season. What's wrong with that? Why can't the Royals put together a competitive team every third season or so? The Marlins, Tigers, Twins, A's and other teams seem able to do it.

3. What's wrong with being a fan of a team that pools young assets to compete on occasion? The accident of birthplace made me a lifelong Red Sox fan. But I would have no problem rooting for a team like the Marlins, that features a host of young, cheap, talented players and that will likely be a very competitive team in just a few seasons. Not everyone can win. Fans can wait years, even generations, for ultimate victory; it's part of the fun of being a fan. I waited years for the Patriots; I'm waiting now for the Celtics. I waited my whole lifetime for the Red Sox.

4. Of course the Red Sox have to pay a ton of money for Matsuzaka. Because all the "small-market" teams have been handed revenue sharing cash, the only way for the Red Sox or other financially successful teams to extract profits from their loyal fans is to leverage their profits even more than ever. The Sox had to raise the stakes for free agents in order for the Sox' competitive advantage, namely money, to be useful. Without revenue sharing, the price of free agents, especially those at the middle-level of major league ability, would have remained lower, and the wealthier teams could have easily outbid the poorer teams had they so chose. Now, with revenue sharing, the top teams have to bid very high for the top free agents (especially with fewer top players even reaching free agency, again due to revenue sharing). More mid-level players will be affordable by the less financially successful clubs. These "poor" teams should be happy that the Sox will have to spend a lot on one player.

5. Poorer teams can afford big-time free agents. Houston (a small-market team that of course plays in a city about three times the size of Boston) just paid around $70 million to keep Roy Oswalt. The Red Sox' total payment (posting plus salary) for Matsuzaka won't exceed that price by much.

6. Let's stop using Bud Selig's language. "Small-market team" is a misnomer. It's not a permanent condition. Let's call them "less successful" teams, perhaps to encourage improvement. And let's stop setting baseball policy to cater to the need of the least successful clubs in the game.

Selected Topics in Sports Law

For my students:

Many of you have been asking me about my new course. To save time, here's a quick description and FAQ answers:

What's this course about?
The course will cover cutting-edge topics and issues in the field of sports law, including sports betting, drug use and testing, league structures, game rules, franchise relocation, violence. (I'm in favor of about half of the above.)

Work?
Yes. Reading: some cases, articles, statutes and private contracts. I'll be handing stuff out often. The blog will be used to host some course materials too; perhaps we'll set up a private area so no non-students can read the secret stuff to which we'll be privy.

Exam?
Afraid so. Essay style, maybe a take-home if people are nice.

Classroom approach?
Discussion-style, with lots of student participation (of the voluntary kind, for those of you traumatized by Evidence). I hope for a wide-open forum to discuss these great topics.

Hope to see (a reasonable number of) you there.

Dukie For A Day

Off goes TSLP on his plush private jet for a paper presentation at the Duke Law School. See the full description here. I'll be presenting my recent paper (The Beauty of Bets) that suggests (recklessly) that professional athletes could be allowed to bet on their games without major negative consequences, and with some plausible advantageous results too. The event will take place Thursday, Nov. 16 at 12:15.

[For the newcomers, here's how academic paper presentations work: I'll get the floor to outline my paper, add a joke or two, and nervously filibuster as long as they'll let me. Then one Duke law professor (Barak Richman) will ask me questions (that's academic-speak for an attempt to make me look foolish with well-planned surprise attacks) until he's good and done. Next another Duke law prof (Paul Haagen) will do the same, perhaps with a few taunts added in from the audience. It ends when the blood-sated students have to go on to their next class.]

Seriously, I am very grateful to Michael Sopko and the Duke Sports and Entertainment Society for the invitation. I look forward to revisiting Duke. I'd really like to play Duke's golf course (nice one) but couldn't fit the clubs into the Gulfstream. As with every time I present a paper, I'm sure I'll find out that I have much to learn.

Posting, Japanese Style

Japanese baseball star Daisuke Matsuzaka is making his way to the United States, much like Ichiro Suzuki and Hideo Nomo did before him. The process these Japanese player transfers take is, well, quite foreign to American baseball.

I may not have it all straight, so I'll state what I think are the relevant rules. When Japan's professional clubs have a year remaining on a particular player's contract, the club can "post" the player, by which is meant offer the player to auction by MLB clubs. The auction is conducted by sealed bids with each bidder kept in ignorance of the other bids. The selling club is not made aware of the identity of each bidder. Presumably the highest bid is accepted and the winner announced to the MLB commissioner, who then authorizes the MLB club to negotiate a contract with the player within the next thirty days. If a contract is formed, the winning team may keep the player or trade the player to another team (as the Padres did with Hideki Irabu, who went to the Yankees). Only if a contract is agreed to does the American club have to pay the posting fee. If no contract is reached, the player returns to his Japanese club for his final year. The following year the player is a free agent, able to sign with any club, anywhere.

This is a curious system, to say the least:

1. The danger of collusion by the American clubs is substantial. The commissioner's office polices the clubs for collusion, as I understand the agreement between the Japanese and American professional leagues. Collusion is a real possibility with this type of auction. After all, the U.S. Treasury used to sell debt this way, before it wised up after the bidding scandals in the early 1990's.

2. Offering a high bid raises the probability of winning but lowers the value of the player to his new team. So in a sense, teams are bidding against themselves.

3. An American club appears to have a large incentive to offer an exorbitant bid: it looks from here like a free swing. If the bid is accepted, the American club has a cost-free option to sign the Japanese player for the coming year. The winning club also controls the right to trade the player for that year, and presumably recover its posting fee, along with some players, from the trade partner. The winning club at worst keeps the player from his rivals for the coming season, without losing the right to bid on the player in the following year's free agency period. Plus, because of the anonymous bidding system, clubs can offer over-large, non-serious bids each auction with apparent impunity.

4. Compelling incentives appear present for the Japanese club and its star player to collude, too. A club whose player cannot reach an agreement with the winnning American team forfeits that very large posting fee. Surely the club will consider slipping some of that fee back to the player to induce him to accept the American bid. If no contract is reached, the Japanese club essentially "pays" (in the sense of foregone payment) for the player a huge fee for one year's service. If the numbers I'm reading are correct, this penalty could be as much as forty million dollars. An astute bargainer could easily play the Japanese club off against the Japanese player. Cops do this all the time.

5. So in essence when a team bids for a player like Matsuzaka, it is trying to hit the top of the market. The team understands that the high bid is costless, and entitles the bidder to either negotiate the price downward with the Japanese player or the Japanese club, or trade the player. The system seems designed to elicit very high bids albeit without very high seriousness.

Book Notes: The Wages of Wins

The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport
David J. Berri, Martin B Schmidt, and Stacey L. Brook (Stanford University Press, 2006)

With this I start an occasional series I'll call Book Notes. Not a full-fledged review (not getting paid enough for that), but a few observations on the sports-related books I've recently read. I promise to be brave enough to be honest about these books, even if some of them are written by people I'll likely bump into at academic conferences. Yes, academic conferences can be threatening places. TSLP leads a life of danger.

1. Much of The Wages of Wins appeared as articles in various economics journals, including the prestigious American Economic Review. The articles were adapted for a lay audience. (Thanks, authors.) By this is meant the footnotes were truncated, equations omitted, and subjects and verbs added (only half-kidding on the last point; academic writing can be abstruse). So the book is entirely readable yet not overly dumbed-down for us dummies, which is an economics term for non-economists.

2. Buy this book. Really, it's a good read and makes a big contribution to all kinds of sports debates. It's under twenty bucks at Amazon. The book will definitely offer some conclusions you'll disagree with, even strongly, but it will make you think again about the common wisdom you once readily accepted. Lots of crazy, wild propositions here, all meticulously supported by arguments and digestible data. Perfect for starting those barroom sports arguments, which TSLP loves to do, again on the danger theme.

3. Part of the book was indispensable. The authors dispel the "myth" that the wealthiest teams in baseball have automatic advantages in fielding winning teams. They also use regression calculations to suggest Allen Iverson is not the star player he's cracked up to be; basically he gets his lofty scoring numbers by using up opportunities to score that might have gone to teammates. They show that scoring averages of NBA players are overvalued by the adoring public and by owners at salary time. Even the "fan drawing power" of the NBA star is called into question. You get the idea: lots of economic iconoclasm served up jargon-free. Think Freakonomics, except that you care about the topics.

4. Part of the book I could have done without. The subtitle promises to dispel myths, yet a chapter or so is devoted to proposing a numerical measure for NFL quarterback performance. Umm, authors, there are already a host of quantitative measures of NFL quarterback performance; it's hard to keep them all straight. The NFL even employs one of its own. So the battle over whether or not athletic performance can be captured with some plausibility in numerical data has long been over. The accountants have won. The authors argue that their measure of performance is better because, as the result of regressions, the measure is more closely tied to game outcomes. I'm convinced. But I wouldn't quite think that the authors' improved technology should be thought of as myth-busting.

5. My test for a book about sports is roughly this: do I feel more intelligent having read the book? (Some sports books are so bad that, on completion I feel like a need a shower.) This book is a good one. It's wonderful when people with giant pulsating brains like the authors of The Wages of Wins point their throbbing cerebral cortices at sports issues. Sports are big business and, in this scattered age of internet fragmentation, an important cultural circumstance. Our games are more than games, and we need to treat sports with the care they require. That careful treatment includes thoughtful examination.

This book makes a valuable contribution.

Questions About The New Gambling Act

I've written about the new federal gambling act (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006) before. In one post I wondered why the wealthy purveyors of on-line poker fun don't go ahead and seek a declaratory judgment to define the contours of the statute before they close up their lucrative store to U.S. customers. In another post I wondered about the wisdom and efficacy of the law itself. Okay, so much for the preliminaries. What I really want to write about is what every lawyer's client really wants to know: does this new law mean I can't keep playing online poker?

My answer is not legal advice. No one can rely on what I'm saying. (Happily, TSLP is used to not being relied on.) As the disclaimer on the blog's front page makes clear, it's all for amusement. So let's have some fun. The statute:

1. Purports (lawyer's term for dubious claim) not to regulate gambling. It only regulates funding of gambling. Of course, since gambling by definition involves money, it's hard to see how this statute does anything other than attempt to regulate gambling. Basically the law says we can go ahead and gamble, just not using money. That sounds enjoyable.

2. Defines "bet or wager" to "mean" one thing, and to "include" a number of other things. This is just bad writing. If a word means one thing, then by definition it can't "include" other things that are outside of what it means. Right? Since this statute carries criminal penalties, this ambiguity could prove a problem.

3. States that a bet means risking something of value in a game "subject to chance," and then says a bet includes a purchase of a chance where the "opportunity to win is predominately subject to chance." Well, which is it, subject to chance or predominately subject to chance? Virtually any game is subject to chance to some degree; luck is always marginally present in any contest. Or did the Congress mean to say, "predominately subject to chance" exclusively? If so, what percentage of poker is luck? (Depends on if I'm winning or losing.)

4. Does not apply to bets that are not bets, most notably, "over the counter derivative instruments." Friends, I'd rather bet on a rookie quarterback on the road than take a flyer on some of those derivative instruments. Their complexity can be daunting; people can make bets without ever understanding the outcome they're betting on. So people can't bet on the turn of a card but may fund bets on the strength of the Mexican peso as measured in Macedonian denars? Okay, whatever. But why can't a gambling site just structure its bets as an over the counter derivative (which basically means a privately negotiated derivative transaction)? Can anyone out there organize a swap? Should TSLP quit his day job, move to some sunny locale with weak extradition laws (as if I knew of such a thing!) and offer swap/bets to American gamblers left high and dry by the new act? Hmm.

5. Finally, the act regulates payment transactions only where they resulting bet is prohibited by state or federal law. There is a pretty significant body of legal opinion available on the issue of whether or not poker is contrary to state or federal law. Let's just say there's a lot to consider there. But certainly a lawyer, paid by the hour, could give an interested, wealthy, poker-providing client a pretty solid legal opinion on this one. I'm nearly certain some pretty well-paid lawyers are spending some of their hours on this one right now.

TSLP however is not paid by the hour, so I'll close on this for now. My prediction: the lawyers are going to figure this statute out pretty soon, and just a little bit later we'll see on-line poker back on the screen.

Graduation Rates Are Going Up

This is such good news. The NCAA just announced that graduation rates for scholarship athletes have gone up again this year, and are now approaching eighty percent, even outpacing non-athletes. What progress we've made.

1. Does anyone realize that graduation rates are manipulable? Offer easy enough credits and any university will graduate more students. Can I offer evidence that credits are today comparatively easier to obtain? I just did. Graduation rates are up. Res ipsa loquitur.

2. Could someone please check the academic rigor of some of the courses populated by today's student-athlete? Universities and coaches wanting to field winning sports teams, yet brag about high graduation rates, have every incentive to coddle and cajole their distracted young stars through to graduation. Easy courses, special tutors, flexible deadlines, friendly professors made aware of grade requirements, etc. It's not that hard to graduate a student. The incentive is obvious.

3. Yet the popular media and everybody else ignore this obvious incentive and repeat the propaganda about graduation rates without hesitation or qualification. University presidents must giggle at our ingenuousness.

4. It is a profound mistake to think of graduation as the aim of a college education. Education is the aim. College degrees are laudable (and financially valuable) because they reflect educational accomplishment and completion. Take away the education and the degree is worth the paper on which its printed. Let's not graduate our athletes; let's educate them.

Scandal Exposed: Helpless Babies Redshirted!

In an shocking revelation, TSLP has learned that certain parents, mimicking the college practice of "redshirting" players to extend their athletic eligibility, have been redshirting their children. Yes, just like Peter Pan, certain selected American children can stay young forever, or at least for one year. Here's what I've learned: parents have been holding their children back at the start of the child's schooling. What they get from this plan or scheme is a child who is over-age for his grade, and who thus enjoys a mental and physical development greater than his right-age school chums. Why do parents do this? They want an advantage for their child in youth sports.

My sources? Many quiet conversations on the sidelines during numerous youth sports contests. "Gee," TSLP might wonder aloud to the proud parent screaming at the referee, "your child is just amazingly large. I've never seen a twelve-year old with facial hair!" Of course a moment's inquiry reveals the young stallion is a year or even a year and one-half older than the fearful competitors running from his shadow. How wrong is this?

1. Ever since college (Catholic school) I've tried to forget Kant, but man, what if everybody operated on this ethical principle, the one that says I'm going to cheat to get ahead? Yes, holding your kid back for athletic advantage is cheating. There's a reason sports are generally organized by grade: it's to make sure kids are playing against competitors roughly equal in size, musculature, and coordination. Of course there will be occasional and random natural variations, even within age groups. But there is almost guaranteed variation when older kids are playing against younger kids, and it's all in one direction. If every parent held his student back a year then the cheating parents would have to hold their young scholar back two. One day, middle schoolers will be able to drive themselves to practice.

2. I've personally witnessed a school team where the entire starting lineup consisted of boys who should have been in the next grade. I knew this because the team roster listed their birth dates. Even a year's difference can produce obvious physical differences, especially in pre-pubescent males. How is this any different from Danny Almonte, the boy who lied about his age, throwing no-hitters against younger boys in Little League competition?

3. Yes, I know, unlike Little League, the schools allow parents to hold back their child. All the parent has to say is that his child needs the extra year for "social development" or what have you and it's done. Yes, of course some kids might legitimately need delay. But let's not kid ourselves: in many cases, these parents are not looking at the little apple of their eye and saying that the little guy seems somewhat slow or unusually shy or something. No, these parents are looking at their little precocious darling and marvelling at his coordination and saying, hey, let's hold our little LeBron back a year so there will be no question he'll dominate play!

4. I know of parents (more than one set) who told me just months after their child was born that they planned to hold their child back. Quick diagnosis of developmental deficits? No. Quickly formed desire to raise a high-school sports star.

5. In some sports children are allowed to "play up," which means join a league consisting of higher-grade children. Some of these kids whose parents tell me (and everybody) that their child is playing up are the same parents who held this same kid back a grade. The story is all about how well this under-grade child is doing playing up, against the older kids (you know, the ones his age). Of course, the higher-grade league is full of other kids playing up. And the older kids who are actually in that higher grade? The best ones are in an even higher league, playing way up. So kids who play up aren't, really.

6. Are these parents proud when their older, bigger kids outplay younger children? Or slightly embarrassed?

7. Schools need to set birthday regulations for grades (they have) and then enforce them (they don't, not any more). Or at least organize the sporting contests according to age, not grade. If that were done, and fourteen-year-olds couldn't compete against children still in their twelfth year, then I bet suddenly little junior wouldn't appear so developmentally delayed to mom and dad. He'd get to school on time.

Poker People, Why Not Sue?

Think you want to be a lawyer? Think again. Here's a copy of a new piece of legislation, the new statute affecting on-line sports and poker gambling, also known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Lots of fun trying to figure this one out. I will, and will report my conclusions in the near future, as soon as I'm done writing my exams. Basically the new act prohibits financial institutions and the like from settling transactions that fund illegal gambling sites. Big problem for internet betting sites.

So while the world awaits my analysis, here's what I can't figure out. There is and has been a long-standing and significant controversy over whether or not the federal wire act prohibits on-line gambling. It's pretty clear (to me) that it prohibits sports books and the like. The big question is whether or not the act prohibits games that mix chance and skill, namely poker. The new federal statute, by causing problems for illegal gambling sites, clearly raises the question over whether or not poker constitutes illegal gambling, at least under federal law.

Does it? One would think the million-dollar businesses offering internet poker might be a little curious about the answer. Instead, in the wake of the new act, most of the major poker sites have ceased accepting all bets from U.S. residents; other sites have stubbornly or foolishly pledged to continue on (look out: big risk of abetting liability). Why face this Hobson's choice (the choice classically illustrated in Ex Parte Young)? Why shut down and forego millions of dollars of business, if it turns out poker is not illegal gambling? On the other hand, why continue business, only to run the risk of criminal liability?

Poker people, you have another option: sue the attorney general or some other federal bigshot in federal court for a declaratory judgment. There is a federal statute that permits precisely this cause of action. Certainly, with web sites shutting down left and right, you can demonstrate a sufficient case or controversy to merit federal declaratory jurisdiction. Just get a lawyer (TSLP is too expensive), find a federal courthouse (plan on Washington, D.C.) , and sue. Hire a good lawyer; you have the money. A judge will tell you whether or not the act refers to your operation. If it does, then shutting down is an option. If it doesn't, then plug your servers back in and recommence raking.

Why rely on a lawyer's opinion, which after all is just a prediction of how a court would likely rule? Get your legal advice from the horse's mouth. You'll know the winner of the contest ahead of time, every gambler's dream. Just ask a judge.

No One Left to Take the Money

Sean McAdam is not well-known, but in my book he's one of the most thoughtful baseball writers in the business. He has a knack for spotting trends. In this article McAdam notes that fewer star players find their way to free agency nowadays. He attributes this development to revenue sharing: that so-called "small market" teams (meaning those teams that have not marketed themselves well, in my view), funded basically by the Yankees and the Red Sox, can now afford to retain their home-grown stars. The comparatively wealthy clubs, with the usual cash to spend, have few players available on whom to spend it. Interesting:

1. Revenue sharing diminishes the financial advantage of the wealthy teams. Assume that finances translate to wins (debatable). The big-market teams will therefore win less. (It's a zero-sum game of course.) Does MLB really want to hinder the success of teams residing in its biggest markets? Baseball was not pretty during the "down years" of the Yankees, when about all they had was Don Mattingly. Of course I hate the Yankees as much as the next guy. But baseball's probably best off keeping a strong team in the Bronx.

2. An economist might argue that the Yankees, simply because they can profit so mightily from a strong team, will always enjoy a solid collection of the best players, no matter if they can acquire them nearly costlessly (through free agency) or expensively (through trades of prized prospects). Free agency greased those skids, starting baseball on decades of Coasean exchanges that resulted in a virtual all-star team in pinstripes. But revenue sharing will damage free agency and thus thwart exchanges. Even the Yankees might be limited in trading assets.

3. As an aside, I do wonder why the Yankees or other wealthy teams don't more often simply purchase top prospects from needy clubs. (Sometimes they do, in effect, when they acquire a good young player at the price of taking on an expensive, underproducing veteran contract.) But why the complication? Couldn't the Yankees take ten million or so and purchase the half-dozen or so top prospects from any number of organizations and then have plenty of tradeable assets?

4. To say nothing about the perverse incentives of an MLB team being subsidized in proportion with its ineptitude in making money. Yikes.

5. So I suspect that revenue sharing may well be a league rule that MLB lives to regret. And so may the players. Currently the view of the union is that revenue sharing is beneficial because it creates more potential bidders for a player's services. True, but by marginally impoverishing the wealthiest teams the player loses out on the potentially highest bid. It's an auction, highest bidder wins (or loses, if you consider regret).

Salary Structure the Problem in NBA

I read this interesting post on Red Auerbach over at the Sports Economist, always a good site with lots of provocative ideas. The post, written by one of the authors of The Wages of Wins (a book I plan to review soon) mentions one of the book's points, to wit, that wages in the NBA are largely a function of a player's scoring average. The other good things a player can do, such as high shooting percentage, assists, rebounds, steals and the like, appear not to matter at payday. The point of the post is to contrast the modern player, presumably driven to maximize salary by scoring attempts, with the ideal selflessness of the player favored by Red Auerbach.

All of which brings me back to wonder once again why the professional leagues prohibit players from betting on their games. Were players allowed to draw part of their compensation from winning games then the overstimulation of shooting to pad scoring averages would commensurately diminish. (Or just award huge team prizes for wins, if one wants to keep it simple.) I give this idea the full treatment in the article you can link from here. Basically any change to extant salary practices that would induce Allen Iverson to share the ball willingly would be an improvement.

Legislating Fairness on the Playing Field

Tuesday Morning Quarterback (Gregg Easterbrook of Brookings) from the ESPN website is probably the best sports columnist on the web. My favorite for sure, and I've followed TMQ through his journey around the web. (I should note that I scrupulously avert my eyes from the cheerleader photos.) He's always fun, and usually right. But TMQ is way wrong about his recurring criticisms of football teams that run up the score. His latest column proposes that teams with large leads run the football up the middle, put in the scrubs, and kneel on all "extra point" attempts. All in an effort to prevent lopsided final scores.

TMQ's perspective reflects the growing consensus that lopsided football games are a problem, and that something needs to be done about it. Some people have, actually legislating fairness on the playing field. The State of Connecticut's high school football association will suspend for one game any coach whose team wins by more than 50 points. Other states are sure to follow.

Here's why TMQ (and everybody in Connecticut) is wrong:

1. Are we really sure there's an epidemic of lopsided football contests? It is a classic (and recurring) legislative mistake: a few salient and recent catastrophes occur, and suddenly everyone thinks we have a problem that requires a legal solution. The internet age and the resulting lowering of information costs have made all kinds of bad behavior appear to be more prevalent; I can learn of a lopsided football score from Mississippi almost as easily as one from the local high school. Indeed, TMQ's habit of publicizing such games may help create the perception that he argues is fact.

2. I seriously doubt that we do have an epidemic of lopsided football contests. There is a strong corrective to running up the score: revenge. Coaches move around some; teams wax and wane in strength. Payback can happen. Indeed, the occasional lopsided scores we do see may be paybacks for previous slights. Prohibiting purposeful lopsided scoring may strangely lessen deterrence of the same by letting previous wrongdoing go unpunished. And please, don't write me about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the slippery slope of revenge: we're talking high school football here.

3. Lopsided scoring can also be avenged more immediately. Losing players who feel they are being treated unfairly don't usually like it. In football, revenge is possible on every play. I played schoolboy hockey, another contact sport. In the closing minutes of a heavily one-sided contest, well, let's just say this: if one were on the losing side, one wanted to be on the ice, to get some immediate opportunities to feel better. If one were ahead, tell the coach you're tired and stay on the bench, to stay out of harm's way. Coaches knew. Those last minutes of blowout games could be brutal. I'm not recommending this, of course, but boys will be boys. Trust me, you never wanted your coach to try to run up a score.

4. Let's pretend I'm wrong and that lopsided scores are indeed more common today than they were in some past golden age of competitive football games (maybe around the time TMQ was a child). In other words, let's assume that the deterrents to rubbing it in to a beaten opponent I've mentioned above have failed. Do we need to solve this problem with some sort of rule or legislative act? My take is this: the object of all games is to score. Every play run in football, even a running play, if perfectly blocked and run with skill, can result in a touchdown. What else can you tell the offensive players? Miss their blocks (and get the running back nailed)? Run out of bounds (and stop the clock)? Take a knee? If any of these seems attractive, why not just send the kids home?

5. The defense has some complicity here. I was watching the Patriots dismantle the Vikings on MNF the other night, and the Pats continued throwing even with a very large lead. Is Belichick a bad sport? No. The Vikings were still stacking their defense at the line to stop the (expected) runs up the middle. (In fact a Vikings defender expressed his suprise at this tactic and said the Vikes were gearing to stop the expected run.) Why pound a running back into such a vortex, where he's sure to be tagged by one of Minnesota's huge linemen? If the Pats have some sort of ethical obligation (as TMQ would argue) and should, when ahead by 30, just run up the middle, then don't the Vikings have an equivalent duty not to tackle the runner too hard? Shouldn't the Vikes clear out some of their linebackers so that the running back can advance a few yards (TMQ doesn't say how many yards is the ethical amount) and then fall safely to the ground? Or do TMQ and the rulers of Connecticut football believe (and require) running backs to lower their heads and run into the teeth of a defense that knows exactly where they'll be going? After all, the defense will know of the ethical restrictions on offenses too. Would you like to be that running back, heading straight into an overloaded run defense that features large, powerful young men who are angry as can be about getting beat? Would TMQ take that ball?

6. The solution is to keep playing football. If at any point the score is so lopsided that the game is essentially over, then just turn off the scoreboard and stop keeping score. In Connecticut, where folks don't want anyone beat by more than 50 points, just turn off the scoreboard when the margin is 50, that way no one will ever lose by even one point more. It's silly to try to engineer the final score while pretending to continue regular competitive play.

7. Trust me, the players won't mind turning off the scoreboard. When I was a kid, I played lots of pickup games in all sports and we competed as hard as we could. Yet often, very often, we'd lose track of the score, and had to make one up as the time for play to end drew near. Or we simply ended the game without every knowing the final score. No one cared. We played to play. Sometimes I suspect that the exact final scores of games are more interesting and important to parents, schoool administrators, and sportswriters like TMQ than they are to the players. But we do it all for the kids, right?