05-24-2010, 05:41 PM
From an interview with Joe Posnanski on Slate.com:
<!--quoteo-->QUOTE <!--quotec-->Question: In the course of working on the book, I read about a couple of psychologists who studied the so-called "hot hand" in basketball—the idea that players who are hot keep hitting baskets and players who are cold keep missing them. No matter how they crunched the stats, it turned out that the phenomenon didn't exist, but they couldn't get anyone to believe them. As I recall, they took it to Red Auerbach and Bobby Knight and both of them were like, "Who the hell are you and what do you know about sports?"
Posnanski: <b>That's a big, big issue in sports, that attitude. There's an interesting fight going on in baseball about <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->whether clutch hitting exists<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->: whether a player can hit better in the ninth inning when there are two runs on, whether he can be a better player when the game is on the line. And once again, t<!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->here have been countless studies done on it, and not one of them can find any statistical evidence that any person is capable of lifting his game in such moments.<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->
Yet people continue to believe, and they continue to get angry that anyone would suggest that such a thing doesn't exist. It's like, <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->"I know it exists because I've seen it."<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc--> That's such a big part of sports. And that's one of the great things about Bill [James, the inventor of sabermetrics, a statistical method of analyzing baseball] who basically found out that just about everything anybody believes about baseball isn't true. And because of that a whole lot of people are very, very angry at him.</b>
Question: There's something pretty touching about people's desire to believe in clutch hitting. I think part of why people can't bear to imagine that it doesn't exist is because it says something to us about the human spirit: that we can be better than our everyday selves, we can rise to the occasion.
Posnanski: <b>Right. You know, there are certain things that just make life more fun. They might be totally wrong, they might be totally untrue, but they make baseball more interesting, they make football more interesting, they make everything more interesting. It's more fun to believe that the guy got the hit in the ninth inning not because statistically it was his turn but because there was something about him in that moment, some kind of sports courage, that helped him do it. That makes sports a whole lot more fun to watch.
<!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->So I really do understand where this kind of superstition and stubbornness comes from.<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc--> I also think that at a certain point when you're looking at plain facts and refusing to see them, that's not very good for you or for the world</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo-->QUOTE <!--quotec-->Question: In the course of working on the book, I read about a couple of psychologists who studied the so-called "hot hand" in basketball—the idea that players who are hot keep hitting baskets and players who are cold keep missing them. No matter how they crunched the stats, it turned out that the phenomenon didn't exist, but they couldn't get anyone to believe them. As I recall, they took it to Red Auerbach and Bobby Knight and both of them were like, "Who the hell are you and what do you know about sports?"
Posnanski: <b>That's a big, big issue in sports, that attitude. There's an interesting fight going on in baseball about <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->whether clutch hitting exists<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->: whether a player can hit better in the ninth inning when there are two runs on, whether he can be a better player when the game is on the line. And once again, t<!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->here have been countless studies done on it, and not one of them can find any statistical evidence that any person is capable of lifting his game in such moments.<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc-->
Yet people continue to believe, and they continue to get angry that anyone would suggest that such a thing doesn't exist. It's like, <!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->"I know it exists because I've seen it."<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc--> That's such a big part of sports. And that's one of the great things about Bill [James, the inventor of sabermetrics, a statistical method of analyzing baseball] who basically found out that just about everything anybody believes about baseball isn't true. And because of that a whole lot of people are very, very angry at him.</b>
Question: There's something pretty touching about people's desire to believe in clutch hitting. I think part of why people can't bear to imagine that it doesn't exist is because it says something to us about the human spirit: that we can be better than our everyday selves, we can rise to the occasion.
Posnanski: <b>Right. You know, there are certain things that just make life more fun. They might be totally wrong, they might be totally untrue, but they make baseball more interesting, they make football more interesting, they make everything more interesting. It's more fun to believe that the guy got the hit in the ninth inning not because statistically it was his turn but because there was something about him in that moment, some kind of sports courage, that helped him do it. That makes sports a whole lot more fun to watch.
<!--coloro:#2E8B57--><!--/coloro-->So I really do understand where this kind of superstition and stubbornness comes from.<!--colorc-->
<!--/colorc--> I also think that at a certain point when you're looking at plain facts and refusing to see them, that's not very good for you or for the world</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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