03-28-2009, 03:45 AM
Fella, please don't sweat it. I'm an overly sensitive puss.
Back to Alf: I'm not gonna rag on you because you say "We win a lot when Alf leads off," because Clapp and many others have said the same thing.
But, to me, it's a primo example of "Post hoc," kind of a logical fallacy. Ie, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been <i>caused</i> by this one." (coincidental correlation or "correlation not causation.") The fallacy lies in coming to a conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors that might rule out the connection. (I'm getting some of these definition off the internet.) [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img]
Unless you guys are implying that the Cubs are "luckier'' when Alf leads off, there would seem to be some debate as to whether there's any real correlation.
The oh-so-brilliant Ozzie Guillen made this mistake recently. After the Sox won it in 2005, they slumped in 2006. So he said, "We're gonna get back to doing the things we did in our championship year: bunting, moving the man along, small-ball, etc."
The fallacy was this; the Sox title in '05 had nothing to do with playing small-ball; it had to do with their entire pitching staff having a career year at the exact same time. Indeed, they actually scored MORE runs in '06 then they did in '05. But their pitching wasn't as good, so they faltered.
Anyway, Ozzie's "small-ball" bullshit led to a profoundly shitty 72-90 season in 2007. So that was good.
What the hell was I saying? Oh yeah; the Cubs won 97 games last year because Dempster had an incredibly surprising season, Soto, a rookie was one of the best players in the league, our pen was excellent, Edmonds came out of nowhere to play great, Lee and Aramis continued their usual excellent play, Harden came out of nowhere (thanks to Jim) to pitch brilliantly, the LSU guys both had career years, and on and on. It wasn't like we went undeafeted with alf at leadoff, and winless when he batted anywhere else in the order.
There were quite a few other factors.
Back to Alf: I'm not gonna rag on you because you say "We win a lot when Alf leads off," because Clapp and many others have said the same thing.
But, to me, it's a primo example of "Post hoc," kind of a logical fallacy. Ie, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been <i>caused</i> by this one." (coincidental correlation or "correlation not causation.") The fallacy lies in coming to a conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors that might rule out the connection. (I'm getting some of these definition off the internet.) [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img]
Unless you guys are implying that the Cubs are "luckier'' when Alf leads off, there would seem to be some debate as to whether there's any real correlation.
The oh-so-brilliant Ozzie Guillen made this mistake recently. After the Sox won it in 2005, they slumped in 2006. So he said, "We're gonna get back to doing the things we did in our championship year: bunting, moving the man along, small-ball, etc."
The fallacy was this; the Sox title in '05 had nothing to do with playing small-ball; it had to do with their entire pitching staff having a career year at the exact same time. Indeed, they actually scored MORE runs in '06 then they did in '05. But their pitching wasn't as good, so they faltered.
Anyway, Ozzie's "small-ball" bullshit led to a profoundly shitty 72-90 season in 2007. So that was good.
What the hell was I saying? Oh yeah; the Cubs won 97 games last year because Dempster had an incredibly surprising season, Soto, a rookie was one of the best players in the league, our pen was excellent, Edmonds came out of nowhere to play great, Lee and Aramis continued their usual excellent play, Harden came out of nowhere (thanks to Jim) to pitch brilliantly, the LSU guys both had career years, and on and on. It wasn't like we went undeafeted with alf at leadoff, and winless when he batted anywhere else in the order.
There were quite a few other factors.
There's nothing better than to realize that the good things about youth don't end with youth itself. It's a matter of realizing that life can be renewed every day you get out of bed without baggage. It's tough to get there, but it's better than the dark thoughts. -Lance