I’m not much of a baseball fan, but as a New York resident and Williams alumn, it seems I’m contractually obligated to say something about the death of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. He was a fixture in New York sports for as long as I’ve been aware of them, and his impact on baseball and… Continue reading George Steinbrenner 1930-2010
Category: Sports
World Cup Wrap-Up
I missed the first 15 minutes of yesterday’s World Cup final because it was inordinately difficult to find a tv showing the game at BWI airport. There are tvs all over the place, but they’re all locked into playing a pre-recorded loop of CNN programs, without even a news ticker that could give score updates.… Continue reading World Cup Wrap-Up
World Cup Update and Poll
The dogphysics karma joke is pretty much dead, as countries with current or future editions of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog have gone a dismal 1-3-0 in the first round of elimination play. I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did, honestly. The big story of the World Cup at the moment… Continue reading World Cup Update and Poll
World Cup Update
The last two days of group play were kind of disappointing, with two games (Brazil-Portugal and Spain-Chile) barely being contested in the second half, as the teams involved were sure to advance, and just sort of kicked the ball around idly in the middle of the field until the clock ran out. In a just… Continue reading World Cup Update
Important World Cup Updates
The US managed to survive yet another appalling lapse of officiating and beat Algeria 1-0 on a goal in stoppage time. Simultaneously (in some frame of reference), England beat Slovenia 1-0. With South Korea advancing yesterday, countries with current or forthcoming editions of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog are 3-0 when it comes… Continue reading Important World Cup Updates
Last Chance for World Cup Success
Three European countries, France, Germany, and Spain have suffered embarrassing World Cup losses. The French team in particular has appeared to be in complete disarray. Their combined record to this point is just 2-3-1 (W-L-T). What do these three countries have in common? None of them have purchased translation rights for How to Teach Physics… Continue reading Last Chance for World Cup Success
Science Is More Like Sumo Than Soccer
There’s a blog post making the rounds of the science blogosphere titled If Sports Got Reported Like Science, which imagines the effect of applying the perceived restriction on scientific terminology to sports reporting: HOST: In sports news, Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti today heavily criticised a controversial offside decision which denied Didier Drogba a late equaliser,… Continue reading Science Is More Like Sumo Than Soccer
World Cup Weekend
Friday’s games showcased everything that makes international soccer maddening for Americans to watch: dreadful officiating, lack of scoring, and annoyingly conservative strategy. The referee in the Germany-Serbia game handed out cards like it was a poker tournament, with the result that, in the second half, every time two players got within about a meter of… Continue reading World Cup Weekend
World Cup: First-Round Statistics
So, how do things stand with the Uncertain Principles World Cup Contest at the end of the first round? We have completed the first set of 16 group play games, and to this point, we have 6 ties. Extrapolating from that to the final result (because, of course, you always start with a linear extrapolation)… Continue reading World Cup: First-Round Statistics
World Cup Open Thread and Poll
We’re several days into the World Cup now, and I have just about settled on my rooting strategy for countries I have no personal connection to: I’m going to root for countries where we’ve sold the rights for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog over countries where the rights haven’t been sold yet. This… Continue reading World Cup Open Thread and Poll