The Finger Points Outwards - No. 87

ART/BOOKS: In one way or another, we’re all anchored to the book.

MUSIC: Determining the American Band Championship Belt for every year since the Beach Boys in 1964. This is a fun article, although the rankings are a bit retrospective. For example, I lived through 2001-2002, and at that time the Strokes were definitely a bigger band than the White Stripes (that probably changed after the latter released ‘Elephant’ in 2003). And similarly the White Stripes were bigger than LCD Soundsystem in 2004. By the same logic though, I guess the Doors should be rated above the Velvet Underground in the late ‘60s.

FOOTBALL: Solving football’s penalty shoot-out problem. This is an excellent idea, and I wish FIFA would implement it.

BOOKS: How not having read Harry Potter shapes your life, at least if you are in your early 20s.

SPORTS: Sports ‘hate maps’ for each of the four major US sports. Unsurprisingly everyone hates the Yankees.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 20 2014

RISING UP

Apart from Sydney and Hawthorn, there has been no hotter team than the Adelaide Crows over the past eight weeks. After this blog highlighted the Lions in the ‘RISING UP’ section and the Crows in the ‘FALLING DOWN’ section last week, the latter responded by flagellating the former by over 100 points this weekend. Only a couple of serious injuries marred the match for Adelaide. I am hoping the Crows lose their mojo by the time they take on my Tigers next week.

FALLING DOWN

Nick Maxwell’s recent retirement was a reminder that it is not 2010-2011 anymore, but Collingwood’s 10-goal loss in Perth was an even bigger reminder. That loss dropped the Magpies to twelfth, easily their worst position since these rankings started being compiled in 2011. Amazingly, given where the two teams were five weeks ago, Collingwood is now even ranked below arch-rivals Carlton, but the Blues’ recent improvement, combined with the Pies’ deterioration, has led to a four goal turnaround in their relative positions.

ALSO OF NOTE
Geelong has won 15 of their 19 games in 2014 – as many as Hawthorn and Sydney – and it sits third on the ladder, but only seventh in the rankings. One point to note here is Geelong is not that far off being fifth in the rankings. But another point is that Geelong has had less ‘very good’ or ‘good’ results – defined here as a net margin, adjusted for home ground advantage and strength and opposition, of better than +15 – in 2014 than other top teams. Hawthorn, Sydney, and Fremantle each have 13 of these results, Port Adelaide 11, North Melbourne 9, while Geelong and Adelaide only have 7 (but the Crows have great recent form). That is Geelong is getting over the line as much or more than the other top teams – and it is even on a six game winning streak – but nevertheless more of its performances have just been ‘fair’. Still apart from possibly Sydney, who beat them by over 100 points earlier this year, the Cats would probably not fear any team in the finals, and their end-of-season ladder position looks like it will be very strong indeed.

Catches Win Cricket Matches, But Probably Not Often

There is a cliché in cricket that ‘catches win matches’, as if catching was a major factor in determining who wins. I do not believe that - and you may not as well - but here are my personal reasons for thinking that quote is misleading.

I cannot find the exact numbers anywhere (assuming they exist) but I would guess that, at the highest levels of cricket, the difference between the best catching team and the worst catching team would be on average around one dropped catch per match. Or if you want to think of it the other way in terms of catching chances taken, the best catching team probably only snaps up one more catching chance per match than the worst catching team. Sure, we have seen teams that have dropped four or more catches in a match on occasion, but that is a relatively rare event.

How much does that one missed chance cost the fielding team on average? Well, in Test matches batsmen (including specialist bowlers) make about 30 runs on average before they are dismissed. How many Test matches are decided by 30 runs or less? Not many at all. Proponents of the ‘catches win matches’ idea might point out those occasions where teams have dropped batsmen, and those batsmen have gone on to make over 100 more runs, but what are not as easily remembered are those instances where batsmen have been dropped and it has not cost very many runs at all.

The effects of dropped catches might be a little different in one-day internationals and Twenty20 matches. Margins in these matches are generally much closer than Test matches. On the other hand batsmen make less runs on average in those matches, and there are less catching chances per match, hence limiting the effect of being the worst rather than the best catching team.

After going through that reasoning I had a look around the internet to see what others had found on this question. I found this 2013 article which argued that catching helps to win matches (which I don’t disagree with), but not as much as other aspects of the game.

The study analysed over 100 one-day international matches, and gave a value to each dismissal based on how many more runs would be expected to be scored given the wickets and number of balls remaining. It found that a batsman who is one standard deviation above the average batsman contributes 8 runs above par to his team’s total. However a fielder who is one standard deviation above average restricts the other team’s total by less than 2 runs compared with the average fielder. (Fielding is used synonymously with ability to catch here, ground fielding is ignored.)

That ‘2 runs’ seems quite a bit less than the figure I came up with through my rudimentary reasoning. But if you factor in the authors’ arguments that:

a)      most catches and run-outs in ODIs occur near the end of matches where they do not have much impact, and

b)      that they split the credit for a dismissal between the bowler and the fielder, and

c)      that their result is not the difference between the best and worst case scenario,

then their numbers are probably more comparable to my reasoning. (In any case I would go with their reasoning since they have thought through the effects a lot more.)

I am still not sure I agree though with their suggestion that the role of catching might be greater in Test cricket than in ODIs. I would agree that a fielder that is one standard deviation above average would probably restrict the other team’s total by more than the 2 runs compared with the average fielder that they restrict it in ODIs. But as noted above, given the larger margins in Test cricket, this may not necessarily translate into a higher effect on the probability of winning.

So catches don’t usually win matches. All of the above though will never take away from the magic of this moment.

On ‘Lost For Words’ and Taking Aim At Awards

Edward St Aubyn’s ‘Lost For Words’ is a satiric novel about the judging process for the Elysian Prize, a fictitious literature award that is not that dissimilar to the Booker. In it, publishers, authors, and even judges all look to push particular books into consideration for the prize, with their reasons only sometimes having to do with literary merit. One contender is ‘wot u starin at’, an Irvine Welsh-like piece of ‘gritty social realism’. Another is ‘The Palace Cookbook’, a book of recipes that was entered by mistake, and which is seen by some as a new form of postmodern multimedia, and by others as, well … a cookbook. Shifting alliances between the prize’s judges affect the Long List, the Short List, and ultimately the winner, essentially portraying the whole of the literary award process as a bit of a farce. (And yes, the novel has ending up winning an award itself: the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction.)

For the most part I am sympathetic to this message. Arts and entertainment awards often are little more than an excuse for back-slapping, and in some cases they are in large part just a reflection of what has sold well. Prime example: the Grammys, which as the Simpsons told us, is possibly the most irrelevant of them all. For the most part though the Grammys can be written off as relatively ineffectual; this is less true for literary awards, which are very important for getting books on audiences’ radars. Winning a major award can translate into a large boost in sales (even if apparently, as a study shows, it also leads to more negative reviews).

My theory, largely unproven I guess, is that people face greater constrains when choosing books than they do when choosing, say, albums or movies. One can get through plenty of albums or movies in a year and can afford to waste their time on a few duds, whereas they have to be more confident with books that they are choosing something of quality. Plus books are less hyped and advertised, and so the short lists of awards may very well be people’s best source of information on what ‘new and notable’ books have been released that year.

The temptation is to just dismiss the results of awards, and see ‘general judgment’ as being more pure – for example, the Stooges, the Smiths, or the Pixies never had to win awards for their music to be perceived as ‘classic’. But that conclusion may be a little too comfortable; maybe –  and maybe this could in part be the message of St Aubyn’s book – even ‘general judgment’ involves some type of politicking. Regardless of whether there are black ties and a big, shiny pyramid on offer at the end, careers can have their ebbs and flows depending on the tedious office politics of the time, without the person really doing anything different. Ultimately, we are all pushing our preferences, whether it is through our book recommendations, our conversations about movies, or our Wooden Finger Fives. Which does not mean that those stupid, back-slapping awards do not deserve a good bullocking now and then …

AFL Power Rankings: Round 19 2014

RISING UP

The Brisbane Lions have taken a hammering so far in 2014, which followed a tough off-season, but they have turned things around a bit over the past five weeks. A four goal away win this weekend - even against Melbourne - got them a ranking point, which came off the back of getting a few ranking points against Gold Coast last weekend. This marks the first time in over a year that the Lions have had back-to-back ‘plus’ results. It may only have moved them up to fifteenth on the rankings, but after falling below GWS five weeks back it is a definite improvement.

FALLING DOWN

Adelaide has followed up having its virtues extolled here last week by losing at home by five goals to the West Coast Eagles. This puts them back in sixth on the rankings, although more crucial for their actual premiership aspirations is that it knocks them out of the eight on the premiership ladder as well.

ALSO OF NOTE

After the top two teams no-one seems to be able to be more than just ‘good’. Just a goal and a half per game separates third placed Fremantle from eighth placed Essendon. The Dockers, who just got over the line against Carlton on the weekend, are the ‘weakest’ third placed team since Hawthorn in the early stages of 2011.

The Finger Points Outwards - No. 86

FILM: What percentage of a crew for a major film is female? Hint: it is not high.

BASEBALL: An argument for a mid-season title game in baseball. I am not sure American fans will take to a title game that is not the main event. On the other hand (association) football fans get somewhat excited about minor trophies.

FOOTBALL: How unlikely an event was Germany’s 7-1 World Cup semi-final win against Brazil? This article also tries to translate the result to comparable results for other sports.

ART/ECONOMICS/MUSIC: Why Taylor Swift is wrong about the value of music albums in the internet age. And a follow-up article applying the arguments to other forms of art and media.

WOMEN: The 19 hottest redheads of all time. Just ‘cause.

AFL Power Rankings: Round 18 2014

RISING UP

Adelaide continues its late-season surge up the rankings (and the premiership ladder), even edging out its hated co-tenants the Power by .005 ranking points to take fourth spot. That’s right – the Crows may have only just edged into the eight on the ladder, but they are considered one of the top four teams here (just). This is their highest spot on the rankings since the end of 2012, when they made the preliminary final. In 2013 they had less ‘very good’ results, and more ‘fair’ results and so became average again. This year? On current ratings, they have had three ‘very good’ results, including two in the past four weeks. This is not yet back to 2012 standards, and in fact they would not even be in the top eight of that year on their current ranking points. However in a year where there is now a steep drop in quality after the top two it is enough to get them back above the average mark.

FALLING DOWN

Remember a couple of years ago when the Gold Coast Suns, amidst all their thrashings, had a couple of close losses when Gary Ablett was missing, and some media commentators asked whether they played better without him? Of course those people should have been laughed off the screen, but Ablett’s absence really looks to be hurting now, with the Suns slumping to 0-7 without the G.O.A.T. on the weekend. Worse, the team they got thumped by were their lowly cross-state rivals the Brisbane Lions, meaning the Suns have now fallen from ninth to thirteenth in the rankings in the space of a couple of weeks. Mention should also be made here of the Fremantle Dockers, who were Belo Horizonted by the worst team in the competition, namely St. Kilda, and who were only saved from an ignominious drop in the rankings because the teams directly below them struggled as well.

ALSO OF NOTE

In the face-off between the two best teams Hawthorn beat Sydney at the MCG, but just missed out on taking back top spot on the AFL ladder, and they miss out on taking back the top spot on the rankings as well. A ten-point win in Melbourne to the Hawks, once home ground advantage is adjusted for, means that both teams get about the same number of ranking points from the match. Also not helping the Hawks make up ground were the downward adjustments in ratings of some of their recent opponents, in particular the aforementioned Suns.

‘Velvet’, And More Words About The Portrayal of Women in Comic Books

Image Comics’ ‘Velvet’, by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Steve Epting – the team that originally concocted Captain America’s ‘Winter Soldier’ stories – is a story about a secretary at a 1970s spy agency who turns out to herself be a former top agent. It is unusual not so much in that the lead character is a woman, but that she is in her mid-40s. That would be a rarity in most popular entertainment mediums, let alone comics, where the ‘major’ female characters – Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Ms. Marvel, Batgirl, etc. – are all perpetually in their 20s or 30s. Even alternative comics (not that ‘Velvet’ is really an alternative title) struggle for middle-aged female protagonists, with Luba in ‘Love and Rockets’ being perhaps the most notable exception.

The choice of age for Velvet Templeton does help the title stand out, visually and narratively. Writer Ed Brubaker has said in an interview for ‘Wired’ that some of the advantages of choosing ‘a mature, middle-aged woman’ was that she could have ‘a secret history’, and she is ‘someone who’s lived a real life’. This does indeed give the character a depth that might be lacking in a young or rookie agent; dangers lie not only in Velvet’s present, but may emerge from her past as well. Steve Epting’s workmanlike art – in a good sense – also helps to diffuse the focus away from Velvet’s sexuality and place it upon the plot. In that way, it is almost the antithesis of something like former Image spy series J. Scott Campbell’s ‘Danger Girl’, and even TV series like ‘La Femme Nikita’ to some extent.

However, there are still some things that might make people longing for empowered female characters bristle a bit. In one scene in issue #3, Velvet’s only way of gaining some important information is to have sex with one of the men who have access to it. Now she is hardly alone in using this tactic, and compared to the number of times that, say, Sydney Bristow seduced men in ‘Alias’ it is relatively minor. Other potential mitigating factors are that Velvet is able to exercise some measure of control in picking her target – spurning a fat, bald ministry officer for his more attractive assistant – and that perhaps it is part of the point that, unfortunately, this was the primary way for a female secret agent in the 1970s to be effective.  Nevertheless, some might wish that the story had not resorted to this fairly ‘simple’ method for moving the story forward.

In addition, in terms of the Bechdel test, the series almost fails completely. Most of Velvet’s friends and acquaintances are men, and she seems to have gone through a few male companions in her time. The only other even semi-substantial female character that shows up in the ‘present-day’ story is the wife of a general Velvet is targeting, whose main fixation turns out to be her husband and who is quickly swept aside. This absence of women is partly forgivable – realistically, a lot of the people in Velvet’s world would be men – particularly in the era the story is set in. The series also redeems itself on this aspect to some extent through its flashbacks in issue #5 to Velvet’s tutelage from Lady Pauline, a war hero that provides both an inspiration and a cautionary tale to the young agent.

Still, I think it would be an overly curmudgeonly reader that would hold these potential shortcomings against the series. All in all ‘Velvet’ is for the most part an intelligent and intriguing read, and a refreshing change from portrayals of women in comics like this. Alas, in the same ‘Wired’ interview, Brubaker recounted how when he pitched the series as a TV pilot, notes came back insisting that the main character be 25 years old. Kudos to Brubaker then for sticking to his (metaphorical) guns on that count, and for having brought a little more balance to the types of characters and genres available to comic book audiences.

Velvet #6, which begins the second storyline, is out this week.