sports

  • Jordan Ellenberg on the mathematics of Olympic scoring, particularly the new gymnastics scoring system that has replaced the "perfect 10."
    Gymnastics... isn't constrained by simple applications of Newtonian mechanics. Gymnasts can perform moves that no one's carried out before—that no one ever thought of carrying out before. Now, the sport has a scoring system that's built to reward that. In theory, yes, there's still an upper limit. There are only so many different possible elements in a routine and only so many possible connections between them, and each one, at least for now, is worth at most 0.7 points. But this new upper boundary is less like a perfect SAT score than a 1.000 batting average: a limit so far out of reach it might as well be no limit at all.
    (2) #
    8/12/2008
  • A leaked list of the names that will be in today's Mitchell Report on steroid use in Major League Baseball. If this is true, Red Sox fans won't be happy to see Jason Varitek there. Johnny Damon, Trot Nixon, Nomar Garciaparra, and Roger Clemens, less so. (via kottke)

    Update: The post is down. I'll put up the official one when it comes out.
    Update 2: It appears the above list had some inaccuracies. Still waiting for an official one...
    Update 3: Here's the report itself. Since I don't want to go through all 400 pages, I'm still waiting for a list, because hey, I love lists.
    Update 4: Forget it, I'm not going to post a list -- the report is subtler than that. I searched the PDF, though, and Varitek, Nixon, Damon, and Garciaparra aren't in it. Clemens and Mo Vaughn are. Here are the report's conclusions.
    (9) #
    12/13/2007
  • Tacoby Bellsbury
     (thx, jbg) (16) #
    10/26/2007
  • jbg from Boston has, through various channels, procured a copy of the agreement made when the Red Sox handed Babe Ruth over to the Yankees for a tidy sum in 1919 (for selfish reasons). The curse is still reversed! (0) #
    5/9/2006
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