103 thoughts on “January 10th, 2013: Banked”

  1. Pro laptop tip: The keyboard is not to be used as a plate. If you are out of plates and must eat while on the computer, use a frisbee instead.

    1. They also make great launching pads for the dog when the cat must be chased. You don't need all of those keys anyway.

    1. His response will be more penalties for hits and rule changes. My question will be, what about the talking heads that promote the game on television? What will they say? Will they complain about these penalties and cry about it not being football anymore?

      1. We need more braaaaiiins from baseball players to compare. Maybe there is more brain damage than previously known in baseball players. Running into outfield walls and knocking your head against the ground, especially with all the artificial fields around at one point, isn't good either.

        1. also, that piece is hilarious.

          1. The threshold condition of 5 years of NFL/MLB experience is a REALLY HIGH threshold. IIRC, the average career length in the NFL is on the order of 1-2 seasons. I doubt that it is much longer in MLB. Point being, that's a pretty serious selection bias, with unknown consequences.

          2. Like the NFL is the only place where football players get their brains scrambled or they abuse substances? Of course, including college football and baseball players would be much more difficult.

          3. What Greg Mathews said about controlling for age. Duh.

          finally, however, logistic regression isn't quite right. the observations here should be year-mortality status. That is, one obs per person per year up to the year of death. Perfect for a hazard model, where the individual drops out of the data set upon death (a "failure"). Hazard models are basically just stacked logit models, so it's not that big a deal for his purposes, but it would be cool to see one estimated with this data.

          1. I'd like to see the study performed with games as the minimum instead of years. Adding in college and the minor leagues would be good to increase the sample size and hopefully even out the age bias between MLB and NFL.

          2. I would think that, with what we've been learning about concussions, football practices would add significantly higher risk to the health of a player than baseball practices. Those things baseball players can do to hurt their heads that sean mentioned above probably aren't happening during practices while those smaller collisions (and bigger ones) are happening to football players on non-gamedays.

            Also, my stock response: "Oh yeah, Grantland."

            1. I would think that, with what we've been learning about concussions, non-Gagliardi football practices would add significantly higher risk to the health of a player than baseball practices.

            2. yea.

              I think that there was a very large demographic surge in participation in tackle football starting in the 1970s or thereabouts, and (probably) a corresponding decline (or decline as percent of population?) in baseball somewhat later. Football wasn't all that popular prior to the Super Bowl era, and there weren't youth tackle leagues in many places prior to the 1970s.

              According to National Sporting Goods Association survey data, there were about 8.3 million Americans participating in tackle football in 1995 (out of a population of 235.5 million), compared to 7.5 million in 1998 (vs. pop. of 242.8 million) and 9 million in 2011. High school football participation continues to be in the range of 1 million players, I think.

              1. ...there weren't youth tackle leagues in many places prior to the 1970s.

                And man, we should really get back to that, only instead make it in all places.

                1. Hmm. Perhaps leaded gasoline caused tackle football?

                  of course, lead additives arrived in the 1920s. I think television and the baby boom may have had some greater impact on the spread of youth football.


        2. "grantlands" and "study" in the same sentence???

          That is why I linked to the Deadspin analysis instead of Grantland.

      2. The baseball player that committed suicide had a history of concussions, which is pretty rare for baseball players relatively to football. Plus, the real concern about football players are the ones that don't have a history of concussions but still show brain injury, in other words the constant jarring of the head without any acute trauma still causes problems. You just don't have that in baseball. Hockey is the other sport that should be studied. In fact, I would think basketball would have more of this than baseball and most concerns could be overcome by teaching players to slide properly into bases feet first (or not at all into first base). If anyone does do a study for baseball players, what sports they played in high school should be taken into account. For example, both Morneau and Corey Koskie played hockey.

          1. Nice friends. If I was suffering from severe headaches and equilibrium problems, I sure would like my friends to tell me to go see a doctor. Even worse would be if he did see a doctor.

        1. I've always thought that youth hockey probably had something to do with Koskie and Morneau's issues.

          That or just the fact they are Canadian.

  2. Someone recorded this at the concert last night (despite the repeated admonitions to not take any photos, videos, or audio recordings)

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlaSVNJcXFo

    "Aeroplane over the Sea" was his 1 song encore, and people actually left before he played it. Either they were very concerned about traffic or idiots.

    1. WTF, no Minneapolis stop on his "last tour?" If he's willing to go to Buffalo on January 9th, he can't be afraid of the cold. Jeez it sometimes sucks to be in cold flyover country.

  3. Um... someone want to help me remove the whole post from the sidebar for the fitness one I just put up?

  4. Gophers basketball team now No. 4 in the RPI, which is best in the B1G. They trail only Duke, Kansas and Arizona.

  5. So, last night I thought I'd check out Corbis to see if I could find some high-dpi photographs for decorating our mid-Sixies vintage basement bar. I wanted to use a service like Corbis because I wanted high-quality images (some iconic, some not), but I also wanted a license to reproduce the images for personal use within my home. Turns out there is no licensing option for people seeking to use images this way, but of course if I try to find the same photos on the web and print them, I'm technically a thief.

    For example: This photo of Rod Carew stealing home. The price for licensing a single high-quality 8x10 version of the photo below for indoor display for six months: $351.

    1. When paying the exorbitant fee for the licensing, do you have access to the digital file to create the 8x10 or do you receive a physical 8x10 for display? If the former, then it seems reasonable to have/add a service where people can buy physical versions of photos for a set price.

      1. I haven't found a photo I can afford to license yet, so I can't answer the question. I'd assume that you get a digital file, as there are a number of size options (all at 300 dpi or higher). An 8x10 is actually the smallest image you can license from Corbis for wall display.

        Thing is, though, even if I got a copy of the digital image, I legally could only hang a print of it in my house for six months at that price. Any longer and I'd have to pay more or break the law, and if I printed more than one I'd have to pay more or break the law.

        1. Right. I was curious because limiting the time only makes sense if you received the digital version. Hence the idea for a print service. There is so much confusion and overreach regarding the rights of digital things, so mailing a physical photo is better understood and hopefully have reasonable pricing.

          1. Agreed. I'm sure that lack of consumer demand keeps Corbis and other licensing groups from even dabbling in that area, but it's really aggravating that the system is set up in a way that penalizes consumers trying to do the right thing.

              1. We have a similar setup here with the Wisconsin State Historical Society; I've got a few topical photos for my office that I'm going to order from them.

            1. I disabled it because some people were seeing errors due to it not working with the latest WordPress. There's now an update available that I will apply eventually (soon I hope, but might not be until the weekend) and then can re-enable the plugin.

            1. I won a $100 gift card to AMC theaters at my firm Christmas party* and I don't know when we'll use it. Only movie I saw in a theater last year was Prometheus because I felt it had to be a big screen experience. Took a long lunch and went by myself 'cause on the off chance we get a sitter, sitting in the theater watching that isn't my wife's idea of a good time.

              *I was really excited until the lucky SOB behind me won an iPad...a freaking iPad!

              1. on the off chance we get a sitter, sitting in the theater watching that isn't my wife's idea of a good time.

                Oh man, I hear you. We haven't seen a movie in theaters (together) since Aquinas was born 3+ years ago.

  6. I've seen one this year (Django Unchained), I'm sort of surprised The Master was nominated as well. I have interest in seeing like 4 or 5 of the other films, but I'm not in any rush to see them. Well, except Silver Linings Playbook I guess.

    1. I've seen Django. (I saw Life of Pi and Argo, as well, but that was last year)

      The wife and I wanted to see Silver Linings Playbook, but it never came to our theater.

    1. It was hailing here a little while ago and we're supposed to drop below freezing either tonight or tomorrow night. I'm just praying my automatic sprinkler lines don't freeze. They're much shallower here than you would have in Minnesota.

  7. Steve Kerr giveth, talking about small sample sizes on lineup plus-minus, and he taketh away, then talking about how some things just can't be measured or assessed statistically.

  8. Sir Charles way off the reservation tonight, saying that franchises have been "screwing" fans for 30 years, with rich owners blakmailing cities into building expensive arenas and stadiums, and that David stern needs to make the Maloofs sell the Kings. I loved it.

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