nerds Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Gifts For Gamers
Shopping for video game aficionados should be easy. There's seemingly an endless supply of games, systems, and gadgets to suit their every need. The thing is, though, gamers have are used to checking out the reviews for every perspective purchase on the market. They know the field so well that they'...
Cracking The BCS Code Before This Weekend's Big Games
Our favorite dorks at the Harvard Sports Analytics Collective have developed a model that predicts what happens in the ostensibly wonky BCS. If you're curious about what happens should LSU lose to Arkansas—and you should be—their post is worth a read. Big East football even makes a token appearance!...
Why NFL Players Love A Coach Who Goes For It On Fourth Down, And Why They Hate Eric Mangini
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries....
NFL Pundits Hate It, But The Falcons Made The Right Call On Fourth-And-Inches
We're doing a season-long NFL roundtable with our friends at Slate. Check back here each week as a rotating cast of football watchers discusses the weekend's key plays, coaching decisions, and traumatic brain injuries. ...
How Many Times Have We Farted In Human History? A Very Rough Calculation
I was sitting next to my friend on a bus the other day. He farted. It got us thinking: How many farts have there been in human history?...
Here's Another Cool Scorecard From Game 6
Perhaps World Series Game 6 has faded from your mind, as the series ended Friday night with not a bang but a whimper. But you should recall, in any case, that Game Six was pretty fucking cool. We posted New Yorker writer Roger Angell's scorecard and asked Deadspin readers for theirs. This one comes ...
Statistics Are Ruining Baseball
Back when I was a kid, you didn't need to bring a calculator to the game. You went, you cheered, and if you were lucky, the third base coach would share a pack of Chesterfields with you. But now everyone has computers, and stat guys, and the game has become unrecognizable....
Joe Posnanski's Profile Of Bill James Will Get You Pumped For <em>Moneyball</em>
It's like Sabermetric Christmas: "Yes, he was driven nuts early and often, and he raged back with a sort of funny, blunt and often searing writing that appealed to an audience nobody had realized existed. Bill James was not the first person to search for knowledge in baseball, not even close, but un...
Deadspin Classic: The Forgotten Man Of <em>Moneyball</em>
Moneyball the movie is in theaters on Friday. Eric Walker doesn't appear in the film, and he's mentioned only briefly in Michael Lewis's book, but he was central to the statistical revolution that Moneyball chronicles—the "pebble that started the avalanche," in his words. Two years ago, he told us h...
Today In Hilarious Baseball Stat Acronym Humor
Ladies and germs, I give you Richard Griffin: "As for my view on the new generation of baseball statistics, I will just quote from the legendary R&B and soul icon Edwin Starr and his hit song for the Temptations: 'War, huh, good God. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. Listen to me.'" [Toronto ...
Hookers: A Deadspin Econometric Investigation
Reader "Steve Dildo" has alerted us to the client list of the "Desert Divas," an Arizona prostitution ring that was busted three years back. Mr. Dildo was most interested in the presence of a "Kevin Pitsoogle" on the list, but we've determined that this name is fake, unconnected to the similarly nam...
32 Paragraphs About 32 NFL Teams From The 2011 Football Outsiders Almanac
The following is excerpted from the team chapters of the always-excellent Football Outsiders almanac. Buy the PDF for $12 or order the book for $21.95....
Mexico Rides Strong Pitching To The Top Of Our Unnecessarily Abstruse Little League World Series Power Rankings
Welcome to the second installment of DRURY, our exclusive Little League World Series power ranking and prediction engine. Yesterday's edition was postponed due to the earthquake and lack of interest. The ranking is a composite of the teams' box score statistics and schedule strength—see the original...
Sabermetrix Are For Kids: Introducing Our Little League World Series Power Ranking And Prediction Engine
We're a few days into the Little League World Series, which means it's time to unveil our system for evaluating the teams: DRURY, or Determination of Robustness of Undoubtedly Rambunctious Youths. It takes box score statistics from every game, converts them into a composite runs scored and allowed p...
Louis C.K. Versus Dane Cook, By The Numbers
E.B. White once likened analyzing humor to dissecting a frog, in that the frog dies and that most observers are grossed out by the process. But who will object if we dissect Dane Cook? Here's a statistical look at how two very different comedians elicit reactions from their audience....
Total QB Rating: Everything Great About ESPN Multiplied By Everything Insufferable
It's been fascinating to watch ESPN roll out its new, proprietary Total Quarterback Rating over the past few days, and not just because we got to see Tirico, Gruden, and Jaws huffing and grunting and puzzling over the thing as if it were the first stone tool. ("This new measure of stats," Tirico cal...
Matt Stairs: Spectacularly Just Good Enough
Matt Stairs, who on Wednesday announced his retirement, was the character actor who had a few decent roles in the 1970s and played solid bit parts ever after. He was a Ned Beatty of a player. He had a fine career. Always on the roster for his offense, he delivered above-average results with the bat ...
If Albert DeSalvo Wasn't The Boston Strangler, Who Was? Bill James Investigates
During the years 1962-64, 13 women in the Boston area were molested and then strangled by an assailant who came to be known as the Boston Strangler. In 1965, Albert DeSalvo, a convicted sex offender and patient at a local mental institute, began telling people he committed the murders. With the help...
The Heat Has Driven Michael Kay And Paul O'Neill Mad
Your morning roundup for July 24, the day our tears dried on their own. See anything worthwhile? Tip your editors. Image via @godzillatimmy2....
Harry Potter Versus Star Wars: The Final Judgment
The final Harry Potter movie opens up this week, and all week long people have been saying "goodbye" to the franchise. Lots of crying in your butterbeer and all that....