Do Baseball Statistics Measure Fairness?

Over on PrawfsBlawg, Matt Bodie has a thoughtful post on the oddity of Major League Baseball teams and many of their fans being so openly obsessed with nuanced, sometimes esoteric, statistical measurements of players while being tolerant or at least less vocal towards glaring inequities between teams (thanks to Octagon associate general counsel Ryan Rodenberg for the link)....

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MLB Still Fighting Slingbox

Last June, I discussed a dispute between MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) and Sling Media Inc., manufacturer of the popular Slingbox device. Slingbox lets consumers rebroadcast the cable and satellite signals they receive on their home television to any computer, cell phone or second television located far away. Last year, MLBAM approached Sling Media about paying licensing fees for the distribution of televised baseball games and the company rebuffed. Apparently, that issue is not dead. Eriq Gardner of The Hollywood Reporter, Esq. addressed the...

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Covariance

I used to be a stockpicker. I gave it up after reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street. I am utterly convinced that there is no skill in stockpicking whatsoever.My investing advice is simple. Hold a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds at the lowest possible cost which means investing in index funds through Vanguard or TIAA-CREF. The solution is simple, but the ideas behind...

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Proposed UFL and Antitrust

From my FIU colleague and occasional guest blogger Andre Smith (who is the real sports law guru on our faculty):Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is involved in creating another challenger to the NFL, dubbed for now the UFL. I’m not sure what the “U” stands for, but I am guessing United, with Universal being a slighter possibility.According to NBCsports.com, “Each owner will put up $30 million, giving him an initial half-interest in the team; the league will own the other half. Eventually each team is going to sell shares to the public... Then...

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NFLPA Sends Stern Message to NFL Commish

In yesterday's edition of The Tennessean, Jim Wyatt reported that the NFLPA sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell requesting the season-long suspension of Pacman Jones be reduced. ["Players union rallies to Pacman"]. According to Wyatt, the four-page letter raised questions about punishing a player retroactively and the severity of the suspension, but did not list concerns with the NFL's new personal conduct policy. As part of Jones' appeal to the NFL, his attorneys listed more than 280 other NFL players arrested or charged since January...

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Hancock v. Mike Shannon's Steaks and Seafood

The title is the caption to a lawsuit filed last week in Missouri state court by Dean Hancock, the father of St. Louis Cardinals reliever Josh Hancock and the executor of Josh's estate. Josh was killed in a car accident April 29 when the rented SUV he was driving slammed into the back of a stopped tow truck in the left lane of a multi-lane highway in St. Louis. Hancock had left one bar (Mike Shannon's) and was on his way to a second bar to meet his girlfriend. Reports indicate Hancock had a blood-alcohol level of 0.157, was traveling above the...

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Charlie's Political Platform

I have a lot of opinions on various political issues, and I thought it would be a good idea to concentrate these positions into a single statement. My outlook is basically libertarian with a belief that people should be allowed to enjoy the maximum amount of freedom possible as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others which are the rights to life, liberty, and...

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New Sports Law Scholarship

Recently published scholarship includes:Suzanne E. Eckes, Title IX and high school opportunities: issues of equity on and in the Court, 21 WISCONSIN WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL 175 (2006)Greg Egan, Student article, Sustained yield: how the dynamics of subsistence and sport hunting have affected enforcement and disposition of game violations and wounded Alaskan culture, 28 HAMLINE JOURNAL OF PUBLIC LAW & POLICY 609 (2007)Haley K. Olsen-Acre, Student article, The use of drug testing to police sex and gender in the Olympic Games, 13 MICHIGAN JOURNAL...

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A Good Lacrosse Weekend

A good weekend in our household for, of all sports, lacrosse--a sport that looks fun and interesting but that I do not quite understand (beyond the obvious objective).On Sunday, Northwestern, my beloved alma mater, won its third straight NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championship. I now am on the hunt for a purple "Hat Trick" t-shirt to fit my 17-month-old daughter (whose first legal phrase will be "Title IX").On Monday, Johns Hopkins, which was kind enough to pay for my wife's alma mater (my father-in-law is a faculty member at Hopkins), won the Men's...

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States of Fear

One day, there was this guy going to work. He felt good because he was early. He was in no rush. He rode the elevator to the floor where his desk was. He prepared himself for the day ahead. Then, he heard a sudden boom and the building shake. Flames shot out everywhere, and he was facing the choice of burning alive in jet fuel or jumping out the window to smack into the concrete...

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The Attendance Value of The First Overall Pick in the NBA Draft

Over on his CNBC blog, Sports Biz, Darren Rovell has very good news for the Portland Trailblazers: over the last 11 years, the team that obtained the first overall pick in the NBA Draft enjoyed, on average, an 11.5% increase in attendance the following season. If that percentage holds true for the Trailblazers next season, the team should receive an additional $6.3 million...

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The Downward Spiral

I only have one great enemy in my life, and that is nihilism. For those not in the know, nihilism is a worldview that basically life is not worth living, that human beings are essentially evil, that truth cannot be known, and that happiness is impossible. If you want to get a flavor of this, listen to any Nine Inch Nails album or watch Fight Club.It was Ayn Rand who pointed...

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A new Liath video and a cute pic of Amy and Maxi

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Pumpkin

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Immigration

The immigration issue has gotten a lot of attention recently as a compromise bill is being debated and tweaked in the Senate. As with any compromise, there are things to love and hate about the bill.My position on immigration is clear. I am in favor of it. I would support an amnesty bill for the 12 million illegals already here except that I would scrap the $5000 fine and back taxes obligations. I oppose building a fence on the southern border or an increased military presence there.The opponents of my unpopular position marshall two arguments...

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Vindication or Unfairness in Last Night's NBA Draft Lottery?

Last night's NBA lottery was an abject disaster for the Memphis Grizzlies and Boston Celtics. The two teams with the worst NBA records last season had the best odds of landing one of the top two picks, which will be used on Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. But the "best odds" aren't the same thing as certainty, as the Grizzlies and Celtics only had a 48% chance and 37% chance,...

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Adversity

It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes, but anyone who has seen Touching the Void knows this isn't true.Void is the true story of Joe Simpson and the hell he endured on Siula Grande which is a 20,813 foot peak in the Peruvian Andes. An accident left Simpson with a broken leg. His climbing partner Simon Yates attempted to bring Simpson down but a slip left Simpson...

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SORAYAMA, unkn...

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Tonight's NBA Draft Lottery: Will The Tanking Matter?

At 8:30 p.m. tonight, (Eastern Standard Time, ESPN), the NBA will conduct its draft lottery. It will determine the draft order of the 14 NBA teams that did not make this season's playoffs, as those teams will be assigned a pick between 1 and 14 in the 2007 NBA Draft, which will be held on June 28. We have examined this topic in great detail over the last couple of months,...

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SORAYAMA, unkn...

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Charlie's Philosophy of Business

There is a right way and a wrong way to run a business, and this is not a matter of opinion or debate. That is because if you run a business the wrong way it ceases to exist. There are certain fundamentals to running a sound business whether large or small, and these fundamentals comprise my philosophy of business.1. The purpose of a business is to make money.This may seem elemental, but in an era of corporate mission statements, corporate social responsibility, "giving back," and other such leftist horseshit, the profit motive has been forgotten.Businesses...

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Random Thoughts on Various Subjects

1. SARKOZYThe French wise up and vote in someone with a capitalist bent. This can only be good for them, but you can bet on some big time frog whining over the next five years. I can't wait for the abolition of the 35-hour work week.2. JUNIORI feel 75% certain Dale will be racing for Richard Childress next season. But there is consolidation going on in the sport with teams...

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Yankee Stadium, God Bless America, and the First Amendment

Now that I am done grading 150 exams, I can get back to writing about important things: Answering the question of whether the New York Yankees can compel fans to remain in the seating area during God Bless America during the Seventh Inning Stretch. I first discussed this issue here and there are some good comments to that post; the original story from The New York Times (Times Select registration now required) is here; and Michael Dorf (who was quoted in The Times article) has thoughts (and some reader comments) here and here.In the interest of...

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