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The Moving Target

I said I was going to read this book after catching up on Grafton’s alphabet series. This book is credited by Sue Grafton as being highly influential to her work. She even uses Macdonald’s fictional California town of Santa Theresa as the setting for her books (it’s really Santa Barbara). That’s a serious tribute.

Macdonald’s main character is a private detective name Lew Archer. Much like Kinsey Millhone, he roams southern California solving mysteries. I’ve already read a set of his short stories so I knew what I was getting into.

This was a fine book by an interesting author. Macdonald is one of our greatest crime writers, too bad he’s a University of Michigan grad. That won’t stop me from reading his books. I’ll grab The Drowning Pool, his second Lew Archer book, the next time I’m at Open Books.

Archer was just as surly and prone to violence as he was in the group of short stories I read. He was a little funnier than I expected though; very quick with the quip, like this moment when he was tailing a suspect at night:

The truck highballed along as if it was safe on rails. I let it get out of sight, switched my lights again, and tried to feel like a new man driving a different car.

That was back when cars had fog lamps. It was published in 1949, although with cars and telephones, it doesn’t feel too dated.

The story is about a millionaire gone missing and Archer is hired by the wife to track him down. There was plenty of family carnage in the back story and no shortage of odd characters. I lost my place in the story a few times. It’s been a busy couple of weeks and my concentration often waned, so I’ll chock it up to that. I never lost interest though. The lineup of brutal gangsters, seedy lawyers, shady women, and friendly enemies kept me alert and tuned-in. Great stuff.

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U is for Undertow

I’m all caught up with the alphabet series. I’m going to celebrate somehow. I think I’ll read one of the books that influenced Grafton the most, The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald. That should hold me over until the November release of V is for Vengeance. Smart, very smart.

I was initially skeptical about the subject of U. The mystery is a crime that happened 20 years earlier so Grafton leaves the first person for large chunks of the book, narrating a second story from multiple perspectives two decades previous. It also revisits the back story of her childhood and unearths a few secrets that Kinsey finds disturbing and hopeful.

It all works well and I was sucked in again. Here’s why: Grafton just says interesting and cool stuff. She uses the thoughtful musings of the deeply-etched main character Kinsey Millhone; just one of many reasons to read these books.

For example, this is Kinsey explaining her process of review and reflection on the case at hand:

I had a lot of ground to cover, consigning everything I’d learned to note cards, one item per card, which reduced the facts to their simplest form. It’s our nature to condense and collate, bundling related elements for ease of storage in the back of our brains. Since we lack the capacity to capture every detail, we cull what we can, blocking the bits we don’t like and admitting those that match our notions of what’s going on. While efficient, the practice leaves us vulnerable to blind spots. Under stress, memory becomes even less reliable. Over time we sort and discard what seems irrelevant to make room for additional incoming data. In the end, it’s a wonder we remember anything at all. What we manage to preserve is subject to misinterpretation. An event might appear to be generated by the one before it, when the order is actually coincidental. Two occurrences may be linked even when widely separated by time and place. My strategy of committing facts to cards allowed me to arrange and rearrange them, looking for the overall shape of a case. I was convinced a pattern would emerge, but I reminded myself that just because I wished a story were true didn’t mean that it was. (page 225)

That’s a beautiful insight into classic 3×5 note taking techniques for any purpose. Oh, and we have cool. Here is Kinsey’s recipe for helping a cancer survivor pack on some weight:

I’d introduced Stacey to junk food, which he’d never eaten in his life. Thereafter, I tagged along with him as he went from McDonald’s to Wendy’s to Arby’s to Jack in the Box. My crowning achievement was introducing him to the In-N-Out burger. His appetite increased, he regained some of the weight he’d lost during his cancer treatment, and his enthusiasm for life returned. Doctors were still scratching their heads. (page 264)

Her “crowning achievement.” That’s funny. Californians, they’re nutty. Sit tight and I’ll have my thoughts on the aforementioned book by Ross Macdonald shortly.

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books

The Sportswriter

Up until this point, I haven’t read any so-called literature this year. When I say lit, I’m not necessarily talking about the classics or anything. I’m just talking about fiction that is a little more serious and thoughtful than my normal crime and thriller reading. Page through the stuff I’ve called lit and you’ll get an idea.

I’m classifying The Sportswriter, the first book of this Richard Ford trilogy, as literature. It’s the story of a guy named Frank Bascombe, a 39 year old sportswriter and divorced father living in Haddam, New Jersey. It’s set during Easter Week (back in the 1980s I’m guessing), and follows Frank around for a few days as he interacts with his ex-wife, his girlfriend, his family, his girlfriend’s family, and his other divorced friends.

Some crazy, shocking stuff happens and some boring, plodding stuff happens. Kind of like real life. This book exhibits a feature I find in so-called literature: the capacity to either really bore me or really surprise me, both in the extreme. It also contained some family carnage, another feature of literature which I find comforting, for some warped reason.

It has a somewhat somber, melancholic tone. Frank just kind of bounces around and never gets too riled up about anything. Early on, he gives this pearl of wisdom to set the scene for the book.

… For now let me say only this: if sportswriting teaches you anything, and there is much truth to it as well as plenty of lies, it is that for your life to be worth anything you must sooner or later face the possibility of terrible, searing regret. Though you must also manage to avoid it or your life will be ruined.

He seems to be saying, I think, that it’s a delicate balance. You must go out on a limb far enough only to face the possibility of regret, yet manage to avoid it. I struggle to tell if Frank has achieved this in his life. He’s a difficult guy to figure out and it got frustrating at times. There are long sections of him just batting things around in his head so there’s plenty of material to sort through.

His recollections are strange and the situations he gets into are bizarre, but they lay the groundwork for a constant state of wonderment. As I read, I kept saying to myself, “Wow, where did that come from?” Then there are moments of clarity amongst the chaos. He certainly set himself up for the possibility for regret, and I think he has avoided it, despite some significant hardship.

He laments things, for sure, but not regret. For instance, he seems to have been an early lamenter of the trend towards stats-minded sports leadership (remember, this book was written in the 1980s):

… When sports stops being a matter for speculation, even idle, aimless, misinformed speculation, something’s gone haywire – no matter what Mutt Greene thinks – and it’ll be time to get out of the business and for the cliometricians and computer whizzes from Price Waterhouse to take over the show.

That’s just a random thought he had, as he was listening to sports talk radio in the car, slowing down to see if his palm reader was available, while on his way to identify his friend, a fellow divorced guy who tried to kiss him a few days ago, who had just committed suicide. I probably could have broken that down into a few sentences, but it wouldn’t have sounded any less weird, so I’m not even going to try. And that only scratched the surface of the oddness.

After sorting through the deluge of thoughts in Frank’s mind, it does make you question the point of sports. I’ve come to terms with my sports obsession recently. For me, it’s not that unhealthy of a hobby and mostly manifests itself in participation (golf and running). Sure, I get deluded at times that some of my self-worth is tied to the success of ND football or my handicap index, but that passes quickly. And I often stare blankly at the TV when golf or the White Sox are on, but that’s healthier than watching reality TV or sitcoms, right? Say yes.

I dug a little deeper and found this essay called Sport and the literary imagination, by this guy named Jeff Hill, which references Frank Bascombe. It speaks to the “illusion” of sports in the minds of men. Here is how Hill puts it:

… He [Bascombe] is a victim of his own illusions, one of a group of flawed men in a novel whose force comes from sensible, purposeful, steely-minded women who set clear goals and then determinedly pursue them, on the whole successfully. Sports provides for Bascombe a romanticized view of the world which he refuses to abandon even when the ideals of sport are undermined by it’s realities (page 105).

That does sound a little like myself. I overly romanticize the hard work and determination put in by athletes in the pursuit of greatness, when in reality these athletes view it as a job – a path to riches and fame (even college athletes). I know this, yet I still get engrossed, which really makes me an idiot, I guess.

Deep stuff. Cool book. There’s a certain familiarity that makes it approachable and interesting. Frank gets into these situations that we’ve all been in (meeting your girlfriend’s parents, struggling with your job, dealing with family on holidays) and just analyzes them to death. It was fascinating to read and fun to reflect on, but I don’t know if I got the point the whole time.

I do feel like this book may have helped me understand some of the great mysteries of life a little better. I also feel like the feeling of wonderment I experienced occasionally during the reading is a satisfying feeling which adds value to my life, much like excitement, anxiety, and surprise do in the popular fiction I read. But some of the subtler points may have been lost on me. I’m certain there was plenty of symbolism that I missed. It doesn’t matter. I liked it.

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The Ringer

The author of this book is an ND grad, which often motivates me to purchase, although not as often as I expected. I love the page in ND Magazine where they list the new published works by ND authors. I went through my book list and noted that I’ve only read three books by ND grads.

Damn. Feels like more than that. Oh well.

This is a drama of sorts and the first book by Jenny Shank. It’s a story told from the perspective of two people, one a single mother who’s estranged husband was shot dead in a botched drug raid, and the other the cop who killed him. They come together in the city of Denver through the sport of baseball, in which both of their sons are actively involved. Shank pretty much alternates chapters between the two perspectives and edges closer to the inevitable meeting between the two.

I liked the story and it kept me interested. The Denver angle was cool because it’s a town I love and one that I’m somewhat familiar with (relatives live there). The sports (baseball) angle was cool because I’m a sports junkie. This book had a lot of stuff going for it.

I want to read more and I’d like to see a follow-up to this. The perspectives of the two main characters were running parallel throughout the book so I thought they would be treated equally at the end, but it was weighted towards one. Makes me think she’s keeping these characters around for another book. Good ending though, it was surprising and creative.

I will keep her name in mind and when her next book comes out I’ll certainly grab it.

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The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac

My interest in the NBA was rekindled this year and a cynic would say I was just jumping on the Bulls bandwagon. Hey, I’m not disagreeing that the success of DRose and the Bulls were major factors. There were, however, significant other contributing factors.

One of the other factors was the richness of the NBA blogosphere and Twittersphere. During games, Twitter is absolutely jumping with commentary from everyone from indie bloggers to the heavy hitters of big media. It’s regarded by some pundits as the best blogosphere of any major American sport. It adds a lot to the in-game experience for me and has certainly helped rekindle the love for the game I had as a kid.

One heavy blogger and Tweeter is FreeDarko. Well, it’s actually inaccurate to refer to FreeDarko in the singular. It’s actually a handful of guys who have put a new spin on basketball journalism. They call themselves The FreeDarko Collective and this is their first book.

It was published in 2008, so it’s kind of dated. They take 18 players from that time period and break down their game and their personality. They look at things from every angle and throw a dramatic, appreciative, and sometimes twisted point of view into the mix. It’s difficult to describe. Here’s an example of their take on Kobe:

To his detractors, Kobe Bryant is Dracula: a spooky, inhuman being that gets shit done. Starstruck fans regard him as the epitome of glitz, glam, and accomplishment. In truth, he’s that most stormy, and mortal, kind of great man. If Shaquille O’Neal always represented Superman, then Kobe’s the Dark Knight: vulnerable, but all the stronger for it.

But it’s not all literary, pop-culture fluff like that. They put some thoughtful analysis into it, backed up with a ton of hard numbers. The Kobe section has a detailed comparison of Wilt’s 100 points and Kobe’s 81 points, with a color coded analysis of points scored relative to their respective team’s deficit. Kobe’s scoring binge came from a much more competitive game and it’s clear that Kobe’s feat is equal to, if not more impressive, than Wilt’s.

Besides super heroes, they pull references from world religions, like this take on Lamar Odom:

… He exists as a sideshow, a role player, a conundrum, an “almost,” a tempting flash of brilliance, a martyr, a fall guy so that other players can make All-Star Teams and receive MVP awards. A being of this epic un-belonging appears biblical. Yet while so many players try to perform the role of Christ, feigning death for the sins of others, Odom is better seen as some perpetual Job figure, facing hardships in the name of divine power.

And they give each player a spirit animal:

… Odom’s departure from positional convention is so bold it’s unsettling. He is indeed the mantid-fly, a living, breathing study in disjunctive beauty.

As with Kobe, they follow with hard facts. For Odom they did an intense, graphical, color-coded comparison of Odom’s big man stats and small man stats versus other players (two groups, those shorter than 6’4″ and those taller than 6’10”) using a random sample of his stats from 50 games during the 2003-2007 seasons. You have to see it to really appreciate it. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

They dig deep into depths most fans would not expect. To use the term passionate to describe the collective’s love for the NBA would be an understatement. Who else would dig up obscure player quotes like this one to highlight Yao Ming’s wry sense of humor?

NOTABLE REMARK: On having a shot rejected by the five-foot-nine New York Knicks guard Nate Robinson: “I’ve been blocked by a five-foot-three guy before, so that’s not a record.”

Or who else would diagram every one of Amare Stoudamire’s tattoos and try and weave together their meaning in light of Stoudamire’s persona? The collective would!

This is a beautiful book. It’s a coffee table book; square and built like a textbook, each chapter introduced and summarized, a detailed glossary, and full of beautiful diagrams and images. I loved it and it really wet my whistle for the NBA next year.

However, it’s becoming apparent that I may need to slake my thirst for the NBA elsewhere. The FreeDarko Collective is closing shop and the chances of seeing any NBA hoops before 2012 is looking grim given the current lockout. Oh well, that’s fine, I have basketball books to read, including The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History. And hopefully they keep the FreeDarko blog up forever. But if they don’t, their spirit for this style of sports writing will live on. Who knows, sites like Grantland or American McCarver may not have been feasible had FreeDarko not burned the path.

The ringleader of FreeDarko seemed to be this guy Bethlehem Shoals and he remains active in the blogosphere and still writes under the FreeDarko handle on Twitter. The book was written by Shoals, Big Baby Belafonte, Brown Recluse, ESQ., Dr. Lawyer Indianchief, and Silverbird5000 (don’t ask). The authorship of the blog is bit more extensive and you can get the names of the writers here. I follow a few of them on Twitter and they’ve opened me up to new method of appreciating sports and sports writing.

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Athabasca

This is turning out to be the year of the re-reads, mostly because of that fateful trip to The Brown Elephant a few months ago. This is another book I recall finishing years ago and saying, “meh.” Actually, I didn’t say that exact word because it hadn’t been invented yet. But I’m sure you get the picture. You probably also think I’m cool because of my occasional exploration of The Urban Dictionary. Thanks.

I spent my youth wanting to like Alistair MacLean novels. Many of his books were made into movies my brother and I loved, like Bear Island and Force 10 from Navarone, so I figured the books would be just as great. But as a youngster, I struggled through Athabasca, Goodbye California, and Seawitch before eventually giving up. After awhile, I settled into Robert Ludlum as my favorite thriller writer and compared every book to Ludlum’s, jarring, macho, fast-paced stories.

Upon the second reading, I’m mildly surprised at how much I liked Athabasca. It started out rather slow but picked up markedly in the second half, and the last few chapters flew at a breakneck pace. The characters were not very deep, but the good people were likable and the bad guys were cruel.

It’s as much a mystery/crime novel as a thriller I think. It nicely builds in aspects of both for a fine reading experience. It has a classic investigation by a group of outsiders and builds up to a big unveiling of the guilty parties. But it also has some tight action scenes, including a near death experience and a tower assault.

I like the idea of Alistair MacLean. His writing spans a long period of time and there seems to be a lot of variability in his subject matter. I think I’ll grab one of his war novels next, like Where Eagles Dare or Guns of Navarone.

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Little Heathens

A long time ago (a few years), I used to listen to the NYT Book Review podcast. That’s where I first heard about this book, they mentioned it and gave it some critical acclaim. In fact, it was getting critical acclaim from a lot of book types. It’s one woman’s story of growing up on an Iowa farm. It’s a very simple topic, but I need me a little simple, so I grabbed the used paperback during my most recent buying binge at the Brown Elephant (Oak Park).

I think about my book reading life sometimes. It’s not so simple anymore.

I spend a lot of time figuring out what books I’m going to read. I take notes and highlight stuff while I read. And finally, I write up one of these takes. It’s a detailed three step process of discovery, execution, and review. What am I doing?

The old reading process, the one I followed in my childhood, was much simpler, but still three steps.

  • Pick up book
  • Read book
  • Put book down

Right or wrong, that ain’t how it works anymore. And I’m not sure if I’m better off or not. That’s one feeling I got from reading this book. Are we better off in this modern age?

Mildred Armstrong Kalish tells stories about her early childhood during the Great Depression. She didn’t have running water, had to hang her clothes out to dry, and couldn’t afford to buy books, but she had a wonderful time full of unconditional love, character building moments, humorous escapades, and learning experiences. Here’s how she sums it up in her own words:

Retrospection can be illuminating, it can be numbing, it can be sobering; it can be fruitful, it can gladden my heart, and it can drown me in despair. But looking back on my early days on our farm in Iowa, I find that I take enormous satisfaction in my memories of the past, and my reflections on how that time, so rich, so satisfying, so fulfilling, yet so undeniably challenging, affected me (pg 269).

She recaps many moments, some highly personal, and at times completely baring her soul. It’s all very innocent and honest. I admit, I got emotional a few times. Here’s one of my favorites:

I think it is a universal trait to wallow in memories of the the tastes, fragrances, and textures of foods from one’s childhood. Proust probably wasn’t the first to celebrate this phenomenon on paper, but he is certainly the one who became famous for launching an entire novel with a description of a well-remembered fragrance – that of the madeleine. The smell of bacon is what brings back a flood of memories to me, and the closest I come to Proust’s experience is the joy that comes over me when I conjure up the taste of a sandwich made of homemade bread spread with smoked bacon drippings, toped with the thinnest slices of crisp red radishes freshly harvested from the garden, and sprinkled over with coarse salt. Bacon fat was as important in our kitchen as chicken fat is in a Jewish kitchen. In those days we saved all of the grease left over after frying bacon to use for frying bread, eggs, and potatoes, and often to flavor vegetables. Of course, that was long before we had any knowledge of cholesterol (page 120-1).

That Proust reference relates to his book In Search of Lost Time, which you can read about here in the Wikipedia article.

She also talks about her bond with nature. She really appreciates the feel of a day, a special sunset, and the ferocity of mother nature. For me, a hot, humid early morning at the golf course brings back a flood of memories of early morning forays as a kid. Just the smell and feel of the air are comforting. Kalish has similar experiences. She recounts rainstorms at the farm:

Mama taught us to love rainstorms so much that even the weather was an entertainment. When the thunderheads began to build up in the west, she would gather the four of us to admire the way they boiled and climbed higher and higher; we watched mesmerized as the black clouds advanced swiftly, turning darker and more threatening as they got closer, while thunder and lightning flashed from the topmost clouds to the very ground. Transfixed, we would watch the great wall of rain advance slowly across the oat field, eagerly awaiting the brief moment when raindrops the size of plums pelted us. And then came the deluge, engulfing us in a gigantic drapery of rain. We all reveled in such an event. Some years later when I read Mark Twain’s description of a Midwest thunderstorm, I had what E.B. White called a “spirit laid against spirit” reaction. I knew exactly what Twain was writing about. … (pg 221)

Kalish describes a reading nirvana, a certain “knowing exactly” what the author was writing about. You’ll certainly get that feeling a couple of times during this book even if you’re only remotely in touch with your childhood. It does grab you and make you think about how the world has changed, or if it has really changed at all. And if it has changed, is it better? Or does it really matter?

There are no easy answers to these questions. I’ve lived in a large urban area for 21 years but I’m writing this as I spend a few days in my mid-sized hometown, far removed from the big city. I know the world has changed, but I have trouble discerning if the change in the world around me is a function of the time or the setting. The American experience varies so widely by region and we are so mobile as a country, that I doubt the naked eye or a gut feeling can discern an overall change in the most basic sentiments of 300 million people.

Are kids lazier and meaner? Is greed more prevalent? Have we lost core values like thrift and hard work? Is our national attention span getting shorter because of the internet?

I don’t know. I’m not smart enough to sort through that before I die. And it’s really not the point of this book to answer those questions. Kalish is just giving us the facts of her youth and explaining to how they shaped her life. I think she feels it’s worth reflecting on the same for ourselves. I’ve been doing some reflecting a lot lately and I agree with Kalish, it can be “sobering and fruitful.”

She makes no proclamations about the state of the world and doesn’t preach to the reader. This book is simple, but my mind conjured up some complicated questions as I read it. Well done by Kalish, she seems like a cool woman.

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Maximum Bob

I said the other day while watching Killshot that I was inspired to read some Elmore Leonard, so here we are. Actually, it could be the other way around, or not. It doesn’t matter which inspired which, they were both good.

I’m starting to get a feel for the Elmore Leonard formula after only a few short instances. One thing that he often seems to have is a strong yet vulnerable heroine. In this book, Kathy Diaz Baker is a tough parole officer with two really rough parolees, both of whom were sent away by a crooked judge nicknamed Maximum Bob. It turns into a twisted circle because the judge wants to sleep with non-receptive Kathy, and one of Kathy’s parolees wants to kill the judge. All sorts of shenanigans ensue.

During the shenanigans, Kathy falls for a local detective and it evolves into a tasteful little affair (this is the vulnerable part of Kathy). Kathy character reminds me a little of Jennifer Lopez’s character in Out of Sight, another great Elmore Leonard book and movie. Man I loved that movie. I’m going to watch that again soon.

It all takes place in Palm Beach county Florida. In certain ways, even besides the South Florida angle, it’s a little like a Carl Hiaasen novel, but a little darker and not as much hilarity. I like both.

** PLOT KILLERS FOLLOW **

The relationship that Kathy has with the cop comes to an abrupt halt when one of her parolees kills him. It was an emotional part of the book and the way Leonard drew out the drama by interspersing two scenes during the killing was masterful. I was engrossed, mad, sad, you name it.

Superb story. I’ll be reading more Leonard in the coming years, and maybe grabbing a few of the movies on Netflix.

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Scorecasting

I’m a sports junkie – always have been. It’s a problem, I know. I’m a different kind of junkie though compared to my childhood. As a kid, I loved stats and analysis, but never made much sense of them. Sure, I could give up-to-date recitations of baseball’s hitting leaders and name the high school attended by most of the top college hoopsters, but I couldn’t explain how that affected any game results. Nor did I care to, the game just wasn’t of great import.

Now, sports are all about the game for me. It’s about consuming that live sporting experience in some form, be it TV, web, radio, or attending it live. I don’t record things for later viewing, I don’t watch much pre or post-game analysis, I’m not well-versed in player stats, and I rarely read the recap the next day in the paper. The problem is, I can’t do much ’splaining, which is why I grabbed this book.

I consume these live sporting events often in massive quantities, and sometimes to the detriment of loved ones, my job, and my health. My interest is twofold, I love the rush of excitement I get as the drama unfolds, and I embrace the intellectual experience of trying to figure out why things happen on the field of play. This book is very helpful in the latter.

The authors, Jon Wertheim and Tobias Moskowitz, are friends and sports junkies. One is a University of Chicago finance professor (Moskowitz) and the other a writer for Sports Illustrated (Wertheim). Here, in their words, is a telling statement of why they wrote this book:

Even though sports are treated as a diversion and ignored by highbrow types, they are imbued with tremendous power to explain human behavior more generally.

I can picture these guys wandering through the hallowed halls of academia or media (ie…highbrow types) wishing they could find someone to talk sports with. Well, they’ve found an outlet and I’m gobbling it up. In fact, I’ve heard mention of a sequel and I’m ready for it (they mentioned this in the credits if I recall correctly, their blog does not have anything on it).

To really understand what’s happening on the field of play, there are some key concepts they explore, and the book goes through them in detail. Here are the five main ones.

Key Concept 1: Omission Bias

… It conforms to a sort of default mode of human behavior. People view acts of omission—the absence of an act—as far less intrusive or harmful than acts of commission—the committing of an act—even if the outcomes are the same or worse. Psychologists call this omission bias, and it expresses itself in a broad range of contexts.

This explains why the refs “let them play” at the end of big games or why umpires blow more calls on a two-strike count.

Key Concept 2: Loss Aversion

There’s not just an aversion to risk and confrontation; coaches often make the wrong choice. In other words, they’re just like … the rest of us. Time and again, we let the fear of loss overpower rational decision-making and often make ourselves worse off just to avoid a potential loss.

This explains why golfers will miss more putts for birdie than they will for par or why football coaches will punt on fourth down even though it would make more sense to go for it.

Key Concept 3: Quantity Bias

We see this all the time in many facets of life and business. People count quantities (easy) rather than measure importance (hard) and as a result sometimes make faulty decisions.

This explains why people erroneously assume Dwight Howard is a better shot blocker than Tim Duncan simply because Howard blocked a whole lot more shots than Duncan or why a .299 hitter in baseball is usually a much better bargain than a .300 hitter.

Key Concept 4: Influence Conformity

Despite fans’ claims to the contrary, referees are, finally, human. Psychology finds that social influence is a powerful force that can affect human behavior and decisions without the subjects even being aware of it. Psychologists call this influence conformity because it causes the subject’s opinion to conform to a group’s opinion.

This is the big one. It is almost wholly responsible for the home field advantage. The writers beat the tar out of home field advantage. They tested the theory that home teams do better because they are more rested, and debunked it. They tested the theory that familiar surroundings help the home team win more often, and debunked it.

The home team advantage happens mostly because the home team gets favorable calls by the refs. Period. The refs, without knowing it, are influenced by the home crowd and because they are human, fall prey to influence conformity. Fascinating stuff.

In the end, I have new appreciation for judgment calls by umpires/referees. There was a period recently where I shunned the major sports and focused almost exclusively on golf and running because those two competitive endeavors are devoid of judgment calls. But judgment calls are part of the game and part of life. Bad calls are just as real as great plays and great chokes. It’s an unfair and biased world that we live in and sports prove this every day.

Key Concept 5: Pattern Attribution Tendency

Why do we attribute so much importance to “sports momentum” when it’s mostly fiction? Psychology offers an explanation. People tend to ascribe patterns to events. We don’t like mystery.

They explain in detail why momentum is bull. So many of those “nine out of last ten” stats or “five game winning streaks” are completely irrelevant to the outcome of the next at-bat, the next free throw, or the next game. Those stats are lazy fall-backs for uninformed sportscasters who should dig a little deeper to explain what’s going on.

Oh, there’s a lot more folks. About half the chapters are lengthy and filled with lots of data. The other half are shorter, which helps break up the intensity a little bit. Smart, very smart. It finishes strong with a detailed study of why the Cubs usually suck. It’s a chapter worth waiting for, especially if you’re a Sox fan. They dig deeply into the correlation between the annual change in attendance and the annual change in number of wins, comparing the Cubs to the Sox and the Yankees. It slaps you in the face.

I’ve only scratched the surface, this is an enlightening book. And I’ve heard Moskovitz and Wertheim have a lot more material for the sequel. I can’t wait.

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A Game of Thrones

Historically, around one out of every twenty books I read are sci-fi/fantasy/horror books. Last year was kind of an anomaly because I read three (out if thirty). I read Dune, followed it up with some teen lit, and finished with a less than stellar vampire novel. I want more books like Dune. It’s such a great book, but then to finish the year with that disappointing horror/vampire thing left me empty.

I was ready to give up on the genre, actually. Then this Game of Thrones thing comes along. I mentioned a few weeks ago how I stumbled on the TV version. After seeing that, my first thought was, “I gotta read the book.” Eventually, I’ll watch the show, but that could be years down the road.

It’s a long, meandering epic set in a mystical, medieval-style world with kings and queens and wars and politics. It’s 800 pages long and this is only book one of five in the series. It’s kind of like Lord of the Rings meets Pillars of the Earth meets 48 Laws of Power. Yeah, that may be an apt description.

It’s about people, probably a dozen of them. Each chapter is titled with a person’s name and it bounces from one to the other in about equal proportions. They are all related in some way to protecting or pursuing the king of the land, who sits on an iron throne made from swords. The land is called Westeros and it’s a place where summers last decades and winters just as long. The novel is set at a time when the summer is ending and people are readying for a long, long, long winter.

Westeros is a piece of land bordered by a cross-able body of water on the east and a massive, 700 foot wall on the north. Besides internal strife among the seven families who run Westeros, there is a looming threat east of the water and north of the wall. East, across the water, there are fearsome warriors and deposed inheritors of the crown. North of the wall are mysterious, supernatural beasts. The people of Westeros acknowledge these threats, but they hate each other so much that they concentrate more on fighting each other rather than protecting themselves from outside threats.

I mention supernatural beasts, but this book is mostly devoid of much magic, mysticism, and fantasy. It, oddly enough, only speaks of these beasts in dreams and stories. It’s mostly humans fighting with words, wit, and swords. However, based on the ending, it’s clear that the next book will leave this familiar, medieval setting and incorporate supernatural creatures.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’ll have to sort through that before I buy the next book. I can’t go all-in with imaginary characters and the magic. Dune was really well done in terms of incorporating imaginary things. Can anyone suggest something comparable? Dune, for me, didn’t get bad until after the guy turned into a worm (that was maybe book four). I don’t know, it was just so out there that it didn’t work for me. But, in general, I haven’t completely bought into the fantasy genre.

Regardless, I thought it was well done. I’ll let it rest a few months before I decide if I press on.