Theo Epstein, Juris Doctorate, Best GM in Baseball

Thirty years ago, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein probably wouldn't have had the chance of becoming a big league GM. That may even have been true 20 years ago.

He never played or coached professional baseball, college baseball, or even high school baseball, was never an agent, and he got his break while an undergraduate student at Yale University (where he served as sports editor of the Yale Daily News) when he snagged a press internship with the Baltimore Orioles.

That doesn't seem like a likely path to becoming a big league GM, especially by the age of 29, but Epstein -- who also completed his law degree at the University of San Diego School of Law while simultaneously serving as Director of Baseball Operations for the San Diego Padres -- managed to pull it off.

In fact, not only did he become a GM, but two World Series championships later, he's emerged as one of the best. According to an anonymous poll of 12 GMs conducted by Buster Olney, Epstein is the best GM in baseball. Here's the excerpt:

IF YOU NEEDED A GM, WHOM WOULD YOU HIRE? - Epstein (8 out of 12 votes) "Theo's career has been helped by being in Boston, but I think that if you had put him in Kansas City five years ago, they'd be pretty good right now. If you were an owner, it would be hard to find someone better."

If its true that earning the respect of one's peers is the best measure of one's success, then Epstein's done extremely well. While it's hard to know if Epstein's legal training has helped him as a GM, I would venture a guess that it has. As anyone who attends or has attended law school knows, law school is extremely challenging and it forces people to be specific, use logic, and avoid reaching conclusions without explaining one's reasoning. I imagine when thinking about trades and player contracts, and drafting players, those are helpful attributes, even if they might make people occasionally seem less decisive.

Hopefully we'll see other law school grads who lack personal athletic achievement enter and excel in the professional sports world in management positions. Epstein of course isn't the only law school grad who's achieved success in team management -- Celtics Assistant GM Mike Zarren, a 2005 graduate of Harvard Law School, is one that immediately comes to mind, as does Sacramento Kings Assistant GM Jason Levien -- but he's probably had the most success, at least so far.

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Orange

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“ME” or “WE”?

I know you have heard the old cliché that football emulates life, but it really is true and I think this gets to the heart of why many of us coaches value the sport so highly.  Just like life, football is about death and resurrection. Football is about death to self and life to the team.  It’s about our player’s transformation from the lower physical, temporal, selfish, ego driven “self”, into a higher spiritual, self sacrificing “team” self. In order to have a great “team”, individual players must die unto them-selves and sacrifice their wills, their bodies and their lives for the team.  There is a great poem from an Unknown Author that brings this point home. It’s called: 

THE COLD WITHIN

Six men were trapped by circumstances in bleak and bitter cold

Each one possessed a stick of wood, or so the story's told.

The dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his back,

because of the faces round the fire, he noticed one was black.

The second man saw not one of the own local church,

And couldn't bring himself to give the first his stick of birch.

The poor man sat in tattered clothes and gave his coat a hitch.

Why should he give up his log to warm the idle rich?

The rich man sat and thought of all the wealth he had in store,

and how to keep what he had earned from the lazy, shiftless poor.

The black man's face spoke revenge, and the fire passed from his sight.

Because he saw in his stick of wood a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group did not except for gain,

only to those who gave to him and how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death's still hands was proof of human sin.

They didn't die from the cold without,

they died from The Cold Within.

   

    Author Unknown

On every team, just like in life, the self must be denied because our carnal mind is driven by pride and an underlying belief and desire that we must get things for ourselves. This is the way of the world, the way of vanity, self-centeredness, coveting, greed, envy, and defeat.  To achieve “victory” our players and coaches must serve our team as a living sacrifice by loving each other and serving each other.  We must put to death our carnal, selfish “me” minds and replace them with a unified “we” mentality based on love and servitude. 

     

This latter is not the “way of the world”.   It’s hard to die unto ones self, to deny that carnal ego.  It’s a lot easier to go along with the way of the world.  That why I believe  the rosters of teams that are categorically labeled as “losers” are probably full of a bunch of players who are more concerned about “me” than “we”. 

Where does your team stand?

By Randy Traeger

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Did Kagan bury the umpire analogy? Maybe

As Mike notes, Elena Kagan took on the judge-as-umpire/ball-and-strike meme yesterday in response to a question from Sen. Klobuchar and knocked it out almost as successfully as she could. No transcripts to be found, but here is the video and some thoughts after the jump.

1) Kagan said it was apt in saying that judges, like umpires, should not have a "team in the game," should not come onto the field rooting for one team over another.

OK answer, although she lost points for not using the Twins in her hypo in response to a question from a Senator from Minnesota.

As I have argued before, to the extent this is what the metaphor means, it does no work. No one believes a judge should be "rooting" for one party over another and we don't need an analogy to baseball to drive the point home. Besides, no one seriously believes an umpire "roots" for one team or that a judge "roots" for one party.

But there's more something going on here, tied to the complexity of law and the fact that different judges can reach different conclusions (which Kagan talks about later). An umpire may not be rooting for a particular team, but an umpire who interprets and enforces certain rules a certain way may benefit one team over another. An ump with a wider strike zone will make calls more to the benefit of a team with control pitchers who work the outside corner; an ump with a narrower zone benefits teams with patient hitters who work counts. Similarly, I would not say that Justice Scalia "roots" for the government in a challenge to abortion laws. But given that his reading of the relevant (far-less-determinate) rule is that Due Process does not provide a liberty to obtain an abortion, he is likely to find for the government in any challenge to a restriction on abortion. That does not mean Scalia is biased towards the government any more than it means Umpire X is biased towards the team with patient hitters. And it does not make their approach to law illegitimate. But the nature of the legal rules is such that one party always will benefit from that person's legal views. This is why you cannot evaluate anything solely based on outcomes.

2) Kagan also said the metaphor is right (and she believes this is what Roberts meant) in saying that judges must understand that they, like umpires, are not the most important people in the game. Policymakers (Congress and the Executive) are the more important players in the game, with judges playing the limited role of policing the constitutional boundaries of congressional and executive action and conduct.

I did not like this part of the answer, in part because it could give the metaphor new, different life. Neither courts nor umpires play a limited role. Umpires necessarily are involved in every single play--not one pitch is thrown in a baseball game that does not result in at least one pro forma call on the play. Moreover, I never read Roberts as using the analogy to say that judges should not vigorously exercise the power to police the constitutional boundaries; certainly his behavior on the Court does not indicate a belief in according great deference to the elected branches. So I hope the metaphor does not become a catchphrase for more constrained judicial review.

Plus, it's just wrong. Umpires don't "decide" the game--who wins and loses. That is done by the players who throw the ball, catch the ball, and hit the ball. So, sure, umpires are secondary to the players on the field. But judges (at least in non-jury cases) do decide the case; it is their job to determine who wins and who loses in litigation that has been brought before the court. So judges, of necessity, are a major player in litigation. As I argued in my LSA panel on the metaphor: We could have a baseball game without umpires and we would understand it to be baseball, but we could not have litigation or adjudication without judges.

3) The metaphor fails at the task for which many Senators and others (not clear if Roberts falls in this group) have put it: Making judging appear simplistic and law clearly determinate such that any judgment is unnecessary and, in fact, bad. Quoting in full:

 [T]he metaphor might suggest to some people that law is a kind of robotic enterprise. That there's a kind of automatic quality to it. That it's easy. That we just sort of stand there, and we go "ball" and "strike" and everything is clear cut, and . . . there's no judgment in the process. And I do think that that's not right, and it's especially not right at the Supreme Court level, where the hardest cases go, and the cases that have been the subject of the most dispute go. . . . Judges do in many of these cases have to exercise judgment. They're not easy calls. . . . But we do know that not every case is decided 9-0 and that's not because anyone is acting in bad faith. It's because those legal judgments are ones in which reasonable people can reasonably disagree sometimes. . . . [L]aw does require a kind of judgment, a kind of wisdom.

It would have been nice if she also acknowledged that even umpires do not just go "'ball' and 'strike'" and that they exercise interpretation and judgment as well. Thus the broader point is that no decisionmaking is robotic or automatic and we should stop acting as if it ever is. Part of what always has bothered me about the metaphor is that it is based in the first instance on a misunderstanding of what umpires do.

Otherwise, this answer was spot-on in explaining why the metaphor does not work--rules always must be interpreted and judgment exercised. Stop pretending the rules are easy, mindless, or clear, obvious, and determinate. And stop acting as if a decision with which you disagree was illegitimate or based on person preferences (that accusation was a recurring theme towards any justice or decision with which a questioning Senator disagreed).

Is the metaphor gone forever? I doubt it. I expect to hear it repeated in the committee and floor debates on Kagan, as well as in the hearings on Obama's next nominee. But Kagan started to lay out a pretty good map of how to attack the analogy--certainly as much as is possible in the current (unfortunate) political context.

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Bucharest and Bicycling: First Impressions

I am spending a few days in Bucharest for work and I am amazed by it. Even to someone familiar with many Eastern European cities, the capital of Romania stands out. It's not just the culture and the language (Romanian is a Romance language in a predominantly Slavonic region, and it sounds approximately like Italian with a Russian accent), but the very look of the city.

Never before have I seen such a head-spinning mix of old and new, big and small, restored and dilapidating - and yes, I've been to East Berlin and many formerly Soviet areas. Here is a gorgeous pre-War villa with wrap-around wrought iron balconies (notice the bicycle path, too).

And here is the view directly across the street.

Construction and renovation projects are everywhere, and it is clear that the city cares about preserving its unique historical buildings.

More variety.

Unusually shaped gables and towers; intricate art nouveau details.

Imposing facades stand "shoulder to shoulder" with tiny houses more characteristic of the countryside.

Wrought iron latticework is everywhere.

And grapevines.

But what about bicycles? Well, a few of the streets in the center do have bike paths. And I was pleased to see that the bicycle symbol in Bucharest comes with a full chaincase. But I do not see many actual bicycles on the streets, let alone any with a chaincase or other classic features.

The lack of cyclists is rather a mystery, because there are clearly some attempts at infrastructure and bike-friendliness going on - like these adorable bicycle racks at a local park.

And this bikeshare station, which appears to be sponsored by a mobile phone provider.

And this advert for a concert. Yet, hardly any any actual cyclists.

One reason for the lack of cycling could be the traffic patterns and the layout. Many streets in the center are wide, multiple-lane boulevards that go on forever and are gridlocked with cars. They do not look very inviting for cyclists. But I have no idea to what extent this is really the cause.

Another thing I am wondering about here, is the abundance of the telephone(?) wires. There are literally wads of wiring hanging off the poles. My colleagues who are traveling with me are all wondering about that.

Here is another view of the wires. Any ideas?

It is too bad that the cycling situation in Bucharest is so dire, because otherwise I like it here very much. It seems that a great deal of resources are being allocated towards keeping the city clean, improving urban infrastructure and transportation, renovating historical buildings, and supporting the arts. There are several sprawling parks here - all beautiful and meticulously well-kept. I have not used the subway yet, but the buses are shiny and new. Little convinience stores and kiosks sell water and ice cream on every corner. People are friendly and polite - no pushing on the streets, pleasant facial expressions, holding doors for each other. If you don't speak Romanian it should not be a problem, as a surprising number of people speaks very fluent English.

Being in Bucharest makes me wish I knew some locals and could get to know the place better; maybe even figure out the cycling mystery. I hope to have another occasion to come here in future.

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Decelerating Decarbonization of the Global Economy

Today, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency released new data on estimated 2009 carbon dioxide emissions. Here is how the NEAA characterizes the findings in a press release:

Despite the continued economic crisis, global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, have remained constant in 2009, as strong increases in CO2 emissions from fast-growing developing countries, such as China and India, have completely nullified CO2 emission reductions in the industrialised world.

As readers here know (and as readers of The Climate Fix will learn), a focus on emissions is only part of what matters, as economic growth is an important driver of emissions growth. The variable that matters most for efforts to achieve targets for the stabilization of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic activity. A reduction in this ratio means that the economy has become more energy efficient and/or is transitioning toward carbon neutral energy generation. In other words, decarbonization is a measure of technological progress in energy use and supply.

So with the 2009 data in hand, how are we doing? Not good.

The graph at the top of this post shows the decarbonization of the global economy 1990 to 2009, with 1990 set to 1.0, using emission data from the NEAA and economic data from Angus Maddison (Note: 2009 GDP is estimated based on growth rate found in the IMF data). I also did the same analysis with economic data from the IMF, reaching the same conclusions. I prefer the Maddison data because it allows cross-country comparisons, and it is also the basis of the analyses in The Climate Fix. The data shows a pronounced slowdown in the rate of decarbonization of the global economy, exactly the opposite effect that climate policies are supposed to be having. This can be seen even more dramatically in the following chart, which shows the annual rate of decarbonization, with a trend line super-imposed in green.

This graph shows that the pace of decarbonization has slowed dramatically in recent decades, with important consequences for climate policies. Tom Wigley, Chris Green and I discussed this emerging trend in Nature in 2008 (PDF). To get a sense of what is needed to achieve low stabilization targets (the exact number does not matter, but say 450 ppm), the world would need to achieve annual rates of decarbonization of more than 5-6% for many decades.

The fact that emissions did not increase from 2008 to 2009 is not good news, nor is it a reflection of the positive effects of climate policies. The one-year stabilization occurred because of the dismal state of the economy in North America and Europe, a condition that policy makers are quickly trying to remedy. When economic growth resumes, so too will growth in emissions in these regions. Meanwhile, the world as a whole took a step backwards in terms of decarbonizing the global economy. The world is falling short in terms of energy technology innovation, with consequences that will reach much further than climate policies alone.

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Praise Report

As players "graduate" from SportsLeader High School programs they are moving on to be leaders in College. Ed Berry is a tremendous example of this. We are very proud to have him blogging with us. I had the privilege of seeing Ed practice one day at UK. He goes all out every play.

God bless, Lou

I am Ed Berry, a Sophomore Wide Receiver at the University of Kentucky. 

Here was my situation when our football team traveled to our bowl game in Nashville for the Music City Bowl.

I contracted a mono like virus called Cytomegalovirus (CMV). I was sick the entire trip, and when I finally made it home CMV led to another more serious condition called Autonomic Dysfunction. 

This had me down and out for almost two months. I missed almost a month of football and a couple weeks of school. I still tried to go to class through my sickness because that is what the doctor's suggested. Usually I am a very good student, but obviously at the beginning of this semester my grades were slacking. 

I worked very hard to bring each and every grade up, mostly from D's to B's. The absolute only reason any of this was possible was through Jesus Christ. He has helped me overcome several adversities this year, and I was able to finish the semester with 2 A's and 3 B's. Praise the Lord!

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