How To Prevent It From Happening Again...

Eight fresh ideas from a Wall Street veteran, Al Wojnilower, published last month in a CSFI (London-based Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation) book entitled, "Grumpy Old Bankers: Wisdom from Crises Past."

1. Limit rewards for short-term gains;

2. Financial firms should be partnerships (the same prescription, by the way, as Michael Lewis);

3. FDIC-insured banks should be public utilities;

4. Prohibit short-selling; and

5. Restrict Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae to traditional activities.

If such advice is taken, the result may be as follows:

6. US will be the global leader in confidence-boosting regulations, and not participate in a race-to-the-bottom;

7. Make it more difficult to game commodities markets;

8. Real estate bubbles less likely to occur.

(Wojnilower refused to 'bullet-point' his brief article, saying "No point in summarizing the main points; read it all. It is well worth the effort.)

The last point is true, but the summary is here anyways.

"It's a free ride when you've already paid..."

Back to the world of irony on Sunday night: less than a month after being featured in a Michael Lewis piece in the NYTimes Magazine on the vagaries of making a career as an NFL kicker, Adam Vinatieri missed two field goals -- including a 29-yarder with less than two minutes remaining in regulation -- that might have given the Colts the win, despite an atrocious effort by Peyton Manning (6 INTs).

As Lewis points out, Vinatieri is not statistically more accurate than other kickers in clutch situations:

The actual number [Vinatieri has made] is 20 out of 25 with the game on the line and a minute or less on the clock (or in overtime). Adam Vinatieri, in other words, is about as likely to make a clutch kick as he is to make an ordinary kick. And he is not all that more likely to make the clutch kick than the ordinarily good N.F.L. kicker. There are virtual unknowns who have a better clutch record: former Bears kicker Paul Edinger went 9 for 9, for instance. There are kickers famous for choking who were roughly as accurate in clutch situations as Vinatieri. (See Mike Vanderjagt.) As Aaron Schatz at Football Outsiders, who calculated the figures for me, says: "The sample sizes are too small to make a lot out of them. It's not really an analysis of clutch ability as it is an analysis of clutch history. And what separates Vinatieri is that he has almost half again as many attempts as any other kicker. That, and his clutch kicks are so memorable."

But for any fan of the New England Patriots, Vinatieri will always be identified with the greatest years in Pats history -- the Snow Kick, the 48-yarder to end the Rams' dynastic dreams, and the FGs to win the Carolina and Eagles Super Bowls.

On Sunday night, Vinatieri had no answers, although he took the heat by attempting to answer the reporters' questions. Life for an NFL kicker is painful, as Lewis pointed out. Even for Adam Vinatieri.

The Politics of Glory

Phil Rizzuto, who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on February 27, 1994, by the Veterans' Committee, died today at the age of 89. Rizzuto was the oldest living HoFer, and his candidacy to the Hall was advanced (according to rumor) by Ted Williams, who declared that "the Red Sox would have won all those pennants if [Rizzuto] had played in front of me[i.e., left fielder Williams]"

By coincidence, over the past few days I have re-read Bill James' "The Politics of Glory: How Baseball's Hall of Fame Really Works" (which was apparently re-published in 1995 as "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?: Baseball, Cooperstown, and the Politics of Glory"); both titles are a mouthful, but improve on James' 1989 work, "This Time Let's Not Eat the Bones."

James' work was clearly inspired by the controversy in the early 1990s about whether Rizzuto should, in fact, be a Hall-of-Famer. Rizzuto's candidacy was clearly aided by the election (also by the Veterans' Committee, of Bobby Doerr (James gives Ted Williams some credit towards getting his teammate Doerr into the HoF on page 142), and, more importantly, Pee Wee Reese. (To be fair, Rizzuto lost the better part of three years to WWII, which would have helped his career numbers be closer to the HoF 'median' for shortstops.)

James' book intersperses a history of the institution -- and its status apart from MLB -- with the voting constituencies, and more important, an analysis of the HoFers who clearly are at the margin -- Rizzuto (who was on the outs at the time James initially wrote; Don Drysdale; Bill Mazeroski (out at the time; subsequently elected); Ron Santo (still on the outside, looking in); Joe Torre (out then and now, although probably in now thanks to his managerial career; much closer to being in as a player than currently appreciated); George Davis (now in); Jim Kaat (out -- then and now); and Minnie Minoso (not considered a 'true' Negro Leaguer, but lost a significant amount of his career thanks to the color line).

Like all of James' writing, the book is witty and thought-provoking; however, in a re-reading some 14 years after publication, what is truly amazing is the changes in the how we view the game -- James still refers to 'Triple Crown' statistics even though they have been replaced (subsequently, and as a result, in part, of James' work) with stats such as OBP, OPS, and the like.

There will be more on the Hall of Fame here shortly, but the original is a good read, albeit dated (written before Michael Lewis' Moneyball, and shortly after Ken Burns' Baseball; the paperback undoubtedly resolves some of the typos and other editing errors that distract from a compelling narrative.

Blind Sided (with Science)

The January 8, 2007 issue of The New Yorker contains a series of book comparisons by Adam Gopnik on recent books about football (including John Feinstein's "Next Man Up", Charles P. Pierce's "Moving the Chains", and Michael Lewis' "The Blind Side") with some earlier football books (including George Plimpton's "Paper Lion", Dan Jenkin's "Semi-Tough", and Roy Blount Jr.'s "About Three Bricks Shy of a Load.")

Gopnik does an credible job of comparing across eras (the earlier books describe a younger, more naive NFL that is, in Gopnik's view "funner.") He also compares the state of football literature to the state of baseball writing, with Bill James and the statistical analysis of hardball being taken as a given.

Gopnik starts his piece with a nice vignette of Joe Namath dodging controversy in the New York Jet press box at a recent game:

Someone asks Namath is he believes that [Jet QB] Chad Pennington is in a slump...Namath is suddenly intent. "No, he's a good quarterback," he says seriously. "I've only watched him this year as a fan, on television. I haven't had a chance to break down the passing game to see if Chad's going to the right spots or going to the wrong receiver." You sense that the distinction the old quarterback is making -- between watching as a fan and actually watching -- is, for him, larger than he can quite explain. It isn't just that he hasn't watched as attentively as he might have; watching "as a fan, on television," means that he hasn't really watched at all...

...[W]hat is really astonishing is to be reminded again of how different this game looks depending on where you see it from, on where you're standing (or sitting) while you watch it. When you watch a pro football game from the Crimean War general's viewpoint of the press box, you can see what's going to happen. On television, the quarterback peers out into the distance within the narrowed frame of the midfield camera and for a moment everything seems possible; the view can't know if there's a wide-open man fifty yards deep or if there is nothing ahead of Pennington but despair - four men crowding two receivers, who aren't even bothering to wave their arms...If you're watching live, Namath's point comes home; on television you see free will instead of a series of forced choices, mostly bad. The quarterback, the gallant general, peering out, in command, becomes, in reality, a stitch in the pattern already woven, his fate nearly sealed before he gets to fiddle with it.

But while Gopnik references Lewis' book, what's interesting is the parallels between Gopnik's analysis of Namath's view of play, and how Lewis analyzes the protection provided by the Left Tackle (playing on the blind side to the right-handed quarterback), in describing a playoff game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Minnesota Vikings in 1988. And what's even more interesting is that Gopnik didn't make (or perhaps acknowledge) the connection:

What happens on this first serious encounter between these two huge men happens so fast it's nearly impossible to comprehend with the naked eye in real time. [Viking Chris] Doleman sprints upfield, probably expecting to collide with [49er Steve] Wallace on his first or second step - but he doesn't. Wallace has taken a new angle. 'I had to make sure that his body was completely by me...wait...wait...Then I hit him.'

He'd met Doleman as deep in the backfield as he possibly could without missing him altogether. They collided, briefly, at the spot Doleman wanted to be making a sharp left to get at [49er Joe] Montana. The hit kept Doleman from turning, and drove him further upfield. Steve Wallace had trade the pleasure of violence for the comfort of real estate.

Nobody notices, of course. His contribution was the opposite of drama. He'd removed the antagonist from the play entirely. What the fans and the television cameras see if 49er wide receiver John Taylor come wide open in the middle of the field. Joe Montana hits with a pass, and Taylor races for a gain of twenty yards.

(Gopnik's piece is not available on line.)

Nick Saban to Alabama

Nick Saban's decision to return to the SEC at Alabama reminded me of a great quote from Michael Lewis' recent book, "The Blind Side."

In comparing Saban to Tennessee Head Coach Phil Fulmer (both of whom are recruiting the main character of Lewis' book), the recruit's adoptive mother says:

'The difference between Phil Fulmer and Nick Saban was the difference between dealing with the town mayor and dealing with the White House.'

Watch out Auburn. (And Tennessee)