#1

Or maybe it’s not irritating so much as stupid?

Like Twitter’s awash with talk of the “world” series which I guess gets called ‘world’ because everyone else plays rounders or something.

Anyway, this is from Wikipedia:

It was also the first time since the 1931 World Series that a Game 7 occured in a Series with both teams having won at least 100 games during the season.

That’s not a cool stat. You had to caveat it with an arbitrary number there. Dunno, I see this a lot with sports stats. Never fails to make me do a snort of derisive laughter.

#2

That is a cool stat though, because it tells a pretty good story about how good this World Series has been. 2 teams with 100-win record went pretty toe-to-toe right to the end, which is cool.

A 100-win season is a way of indicating the best teams in that particular season. I suppose it’s arbitrary in the sense that it could be 101 or 105 or whatever, but it wouldn’t make sense as a hallmark of the strongest teams if it were, say, 90 or 75. In the same way that 30 goals in a season for a striker is a hallmark of a really good season for that player. It isn’t arbitrary, because 20 goals would not show the same performance level.

The ‘World’ Series thing is a bit dumb but I’m always surprised that people pretend to care much about it.

#3

There are 162 games in a season (and in fact in 1931 there were 154 games). On that basis 90 isn’t a bad number really.

But you’re only answering my question if you’re stating if you consider yourself a sports fan or not.

#4

Always loved the caveating of cricket stats. Highest third wicket stand on a friday by England against Sri Lanka at the Oval where the younger player has more than three vowels in their middle name.

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#5

I’ll give cricket a bye here, obviously, because it’s an insane game so it deserves to have these sorts of stats.

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#6

Really hope this was a deliberate pun

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#7

Of course (although I had to Google to check which spelling of bye is in use by cricket).

As in I’ve only ever heard people say the phrase.

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#8

Theo, thanks for the clarification.
Over.

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#9

i find the ‘team x hasn’t beaten team y away in 73 years’ ones in football a bit shit because usually it ends up working out that they’ve only played each other 3 times in that period or whatever

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#10

Speaking as a huge sports fan: no.

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#11

You are messing up my research because you hate sports.

#12

Mate I watched TWO full games of DOTA2 at The International this year. TWO.

I like the dragon with two heads.

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#13

Yes, I do. English football is terrible for it ‘in the Premier League era’.

Yeah also arbitrary numbers being used like they’ve won 10 of their last 11 games, because the one before that is always one that goes against the stat so you can always add one on to it so works out 10 of their last 12.

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#14

Like “Most terrible thread posted by someone other than Theo”

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#15

The lowest cumulative possession percentage by a top flight team in the last nine years after the first 7 matches of a season.

That type of thing really boils my piss.

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#16

Totally this.

Get so annoyed by the ‘Year Zero’ Premier League statistics and records.

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#17

Can’t work out if this is a burn or a personal love in. You probably can’t now either

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#18

Oh you know Theo. Look into your heart. You know.

#19

snort of derisive laughter

#20

Wigan struggling to hold onto the ball, huh?