Reflections on an Unexplainable Game

As pure and natural as kids on a sandlot

As the calendar moves to the latter stages of February, and the early days of March, the people's attention once again will turn to back to the Diamond. Yes, it’s that time of the year, where hope springs eternal, anything seems possible, and everything feels right with the world. Baseball is back.

For a game that very recently has been predicated on the technical through analysis of statistics, finding meaning in numbers, and identifying trends through various metrics, the reality is a simple one: sometimes there’s just no scientific explanation for the game we love.

Now don’t get me wrong, I, myself, am one of these individuals, searching for answers, predictions, and ways to advance the game. I love thorough knowledge. When you take a step back, though, like many other things in life, there may just be no scientific answer.

How do you quantify the crisp crack of the bat, as players practice in the warm sun, under the clear, blue sky? How do you analyze the camaraderie, the chatter brandied about by grown men? Can you really analyze what that new glove feels like when the ball meets it or that sweet “pop”?

What I'm trying to say is, there’s something magical about this game, something that deep down draws us all in. It’s that feeling of youthfulness, of seeing the green, fresh-cut grass, of listening to the sounds of the players, of seeing the white ball go from pitcher to bat to glove. It’s this thing that can’t be quantified, the human element of Baseball, and it's the thing that keeps us coming back, hungry for more, as a rite of passage every Spring.

While our society continues to speed up, and our game continues to become more methodologically-based, the unidentifiable variable will continue to exist. Players will be analyzed by the brightest minds who utilize the likes of all-encompassing statistics such as WAR, UZR, and PECOTA, but in the end, it's the game, a game for young men, that will remain. The human element, memories that our national pastime invoke, emotions that it conjures up, and feelings that it draws out of us, while un-quantifiable, is what will draw us all back again and again.

It's like an old friend calling up after a long, cold Winter, just to say, "Remember me?" You answer the phone, and pick up right where you both left off, nothing has changed. Welcome back, Baseball. We can't even begin to tell you how much we've missed you.

Prospective Point: From Superstitious to Super Bowl

All made possible by a jersey, a dream, and a fan

By: David Abada

There is a difference between being superstitious and being sports superstitious. I do not believe in any of those wacky superstitions that you can while reading Huckleberry Finn. But I do believe that, in sports, I directly influence the success of my team.

For most crazed sports fans like myself, it’s hard not to be superstitious at all times. However, I save the superstitions for important games. We're not talking about a Red-Sox Yankees game in the middle of July or a Giants-Cowboys game in mid-November, but games that directly correspond to whether or not my team makes the playoffs or stays in the playoffs. If the Giants have three games left in the season, and they need to win all three, that’s when I begin my journey.

I have an insanely large list of factors that I believe influence the flow of the game. To be (somewhat) exact, I have at least 30 I can think of such as: what I wear, where and how I sit, whether I should move at all during the game, what I eat, how my hair is, what songs I have listened to that day, what friends I have texted or emailed, and the list goes on and on.

My superstitions start in small doses, and as the tasks get greater, more factors, in my opinion, have a larger affect on the game. During the NFL's Divisional Round, I will move around in my bed during the game. But when it comes to the NFC Championship, I won’t move an inch. The Giants need my attentiveness at all times.

You may think I’m crazy, but hey, I love sports. Now I know I’ve been talking a lot about what my superstitions are, but I actually have some life applications where, I think, my superstitions, or dedication, have paid off.

Back in 2007, when my Giants made their first run, I wore my Plaxico (Burress) jersey and black Adidas pants with white stripes (and red Haynes boxers, but I won't go into detail about that). With that jersey on, sitting on the couch next to my dad, the Giants won their game against the Buccaneers and their game against the Cowboys. I was feeling great. I had my spot, I had my outfit, and I had two wins to go before I was a Super Bowl champ (I like to refer to myself as a member of the team, so what?). But then I heard the news: I had a bar mitzvah on the night of the NFC Championship game, and I could not get out of it. Now if the circumstances require it, I do make amends to my superstitions. So I wore my suit and tie, but I also had that jersey and pants in my pants pockets bundled up. The Giants won, and the Super Bowl was coming up. I decided to wear just my Plaxico outfit for the Super Bowl, and when that didn’t work out well I put my suit on over the outfit during halftime. The Giants made a key stop in the 3rd quarter while I sat in a reclining position rubbing my stomach, so I proceeded to remain in place for the duration of the game, and sure enough, WE WON.

I thought that was the end of my superstition troubles, but I learned the following year that these superstitions change yearly, and that they only apply to one team.

Towards the end of the season, when the Giants needed wins to make the playoffs, that superstitious feeling ran through the air of my household.

The scene:

It’s late in the season, and sure enough, my Giants are playing poorly. I’m sitting with my dad and my little brother, and my mom is doing whatever she does in her room. The game is so painful to watch, so I decide we need a little change in the house. I go upstairs and watch in my room, and to my surprise, the G-men prevailed. That’s when I knew where everyone would be stationed the rest of the run. I even began to accumulate more and more of my customs and by the first week of playoffs, I knew the outfit I would wear for the run: an Old Navy Giants long sleeve tee shirt and gray Nike sweatpants. My dad even busts out his retro number 56 LT jersey (the one and only LT) back from when he was a kid for the NFC Championship. He said the Giants never lost big games when he wore the jersey, so he had to use it at certain times.

The Giants win and we are off to the Super Bowl to face Tom Brady again. A bittersweet, but in retrospect, totally shocking thing happened the Thursday of Super Bowl weekend. My dad told me that I was going to the Super Bowl in Indy with my cousins and two siblings. You might think I am a crazy, and that’s all fair game because who would not want to go to a Super Bowl right?

Wrong.

I was so nervous that I would taint the Giants fortune by going to the Super Bowl that I nearly backed out had it not been for the Bar Mitzvah reminder: certain circumstances require amendments. My family forced me to wear a Giants jersey to the game, and it was the Super Bowl so I agreed (of course I wore my Old Navy/Nike combo underneath). Nonetheless, it was hard for me to cope with the fact that I would not be in the safety of my home in my room watching by myself. (The Giants always won under these circumstances, by the way.) The jersey was a big dilemma, too. Would it ruin the luck of my other outfit even if I switched back to it? Should I not wear the jersey and look like an embarrassment of a Giants fan who refuses to wear a jersey to THE SUPER BOWL?

You all know how the story ends, but I think I played my part in helping the Giants get there. I wore my jersey, and going into the second half, I thought it was going to be easy. But Brady’s quick score to start the second half changed things pretty quickly. I began to wonder if I should take the jersey off. Late in the third quarter, I DID take it off because the Giants had gotten nowhere, and almost unbelievably, they knocked home a field goal. In terms of my outfit, the rest is history. I wore my original playoff run outfit and they won big, hooray!

The seating arrangement was a different story. I did not get up once during the game, not even during the half time show. I sat with my legs crossed and my arms folded, not moving an inch until the clock struck zero and the confetti was flying (I have some confetti in my room now).

A tough decision for sure, but the Giants won, and I really feel accomplished. This may sound cliche, but I truly believe I put the team on my back. A luxury box, a Super Bowl ticket, all of that means nothing to me if my team does not win. Call my crazy, call me superstitious, call me whatever you want, I love my Giants, and I love all of my sports teams, so I am willing to put behind selfish desires to see them win. You can say I’m crazy, but I contend that I am a dedicated, true, die-hard fan.

Would you go the distance for your team?

I sure as heck know that I would.

David Abada is a prospective Class of 2016 Cornellian. His sister, Dani Abada, is an Assistant Sports Editor for the Cornell Daily Sun.

Prospective Point will run periodically through the semester. Any prospective Cornellian who is interested in writing, please email Geoff at gjr52@cornell.edu

The New CBA: What it Means for Free Agent Compensation

Berkman: A Type B Free Agent in 2010

No strikes, no lockouts, and no antitrust lawsuits. Yes, labor relations in baseball appear to be at their zenith with respect to recent memory. Now, with the ratification of the new CBA, it appears we will have at least five more years of union-owner peace. But MLB’s new deal did more than just extend this period of tranquility. The new CBA addresses major issues in the free agent compensation system, offering a fierce overhaul whose more nuanced effects will greatly facilitate competitive balance.

I have written previously on the absurdly arbitrary nature of the old compensation system. Under this framework, players could be designated Type A, B, or neither. A team losing a Type A free agent received two compensatory draft picks, one from the signing team and one “sandwich pick;” a team losing a Type B free agent was granted one sandwich pick; and a team losing an undesignated player was awarded nothing. These compensatory picks were only awarded provided the team first offer salary arbitration to its free agent player. Sounds fair enough, right? Well, according to the ranking gurus at Elias, Yuniesky Beatencourt > Carlos Beltran. Enough said.

Instead of these enigmatic Type A and Type B designations, MLB will institute something similar to the NFL’s franchise player system, whereby teams can offer their to-be free agents a contract worth the average value of that of the top 125 players in the league. If rejected, then the team will earn compensation. This is a brilliant idea for multiple reasons:

For one, we can expect a decline in the game of chicken that MLB dubs the salary arbitration system. Presumably, the intention of including an arbitration offer as requisite for compensation was that this action would indicate the team highly valued this player. However, the process has simply become an exercise in game theory, with teams offering arbitration to players they do not wish to retain, praying they decline, and shamelessly walking away with an extra draft pick.

What is most problematic in this regard is that teams win a statistically significantly larger portion of arbitration cases than do players, rendering arbitration acceptance (instead of free agency) generally unappealing and rare. Thus, teams are really taking little risk when offering arbitration to their subpar Type B players, and frequently earning unjustified compensation. Now, teams will be required to offer a one-year contract of roughly $12 million (in 2012), an amount of money that will not be taken so lightly. Teams will only be compensated if they lose a player they value at least $12 million dollars.

Moreover, we should observe a fall in another one of general managers’ favorite schemes: the bizarre midseason trade. Why, on the eve of thee 2010 trade deadline, did the heavy hitting Yankees, with Mark Teixiera manning first base, trade for the rapidly declining (or so it seemed) Lance Berkman? Simple: Berkman was a Type B free agent. The Yankees, able to eat a large portion of his contract, acquired Berkman for the stretch run not because they needed his bat, but rather because offering him arbitration at the end of the season would invariably yield a draft pick for the team. Again, this activity was never the purpose of draft pick compensation, and, accordingly, we should expect a decline in deadline deals that feature rich teams racking up veteran players with the sole intention of letting them go.

In short, changes to the free agent compensation system were both necessary and shrewd. MLB is cracking down on loopholes that serve to undermine and threaten competitive balance, and, accordingly, should be commended.