World Cup Patriotism

Call me crazy, but I love the World Cup. Not in the Hollywood "the underdog back up QB throws the game winning touchdown" love. Its not what I would call a "poor, inner-city kid strikes it big in basketball story" love. Those are subplots. Subplots are a crutch that sports writers depend on far too much. If I turn on ESPN, I can find Bob Ley talking about some Outside The Lines, see a running ticker on the bottom about a distraction/obstacle/memory that a player has dealt/dealing with and has/had to overcome to get where he/she is. Subplots suck. Subplots are an escort mission* in video games. They're always thrown in, and honestly, always when no one wants them to be.

*Seriously. Escort missions suck. I played Goldeneye** the other night and I had to escort Natalya on 007. She has a penchant for running into a hail of bullets I swear. Its the single hardest level of the damn game! Fortunately, one of my best friends little brothers and my good friend Steve, thought of a brilliant circumnavigation of Natalya being an idiot: leaving her locked in her cell til I shoot all the Soviets in the head...Shut up. We were like 12 and he was 6. It was big at the time.

**If you don't love and have fond memories of Goldeneye, then your childhood sucked and I feel bad for you.

Anyways, I love the World Cup Its not even about the wins and losses, despite the fact that that is exactly how success is defined. To me, the WC has a galvanizing force, a force that creates something that makes the whole larger than the sum of the parts. Yesterday the WC started. It is hands down the largest sporting event in the world. I woke up early on my day off of work to see a game that had zero personal ramifications whatsoever. I got up that early to see not only the sporting event, but to see the fan-dom. The patriotism if you will. The moment that the first National Anthem began playing, even through the TV, it felt like there really were 2 nations, not just 2 teams going into the match.

Now I've been to enough college basketball and football games to appreciate fans going crazy: I'm looking at you Breslin Center Izzone and Illinois Orange Crush...The Big house can suck it however. I can't believe the depth that scope of the WC. Its simply astonishing. People who probably couldn't name 10 out of 23 USA rostered players are getting in on the act. Call them bandwagon fans, call them fair weather soccer fans, call them whatever. Anything that brings a nation together at this high of a level is either A: Really, really good, or B: Really, really bad.

The last time I saw this many American Flags, USA shirts or heard this many people talking Team USA this, The United States that was the 2010 Winter Olympics, when the US Hockey team almost took the gold. Before that? The 2008 Summer Olympics, with the "Redeem Team." Think about it. Political elections have their own bi-partisan affiliates. Politics splinter nations, but thats an entirely different rant. National Champions always have the "strength of schedule/they got lucky/etc" arguments. Professional titles too. The World Cup is truly unique. Before the 08 Olympics, I would have to go all the way back to what happened September 11th, 2001 to really find this much patriotism.

Like I said, really good, or really bad.

But again, it isn't the mean of the act, as long as the end is being proud of your nation. I don't even mean just the United States. I was asked by good friend David today, if given the choice, which team would I play for, The United States - where I've called home almost my entire life and where I retain my citizenship, or South Korea, my nation of birth. With no hesitation I said South Korea. He just kind of looked at me and said "Really?" Now, keep in mind that I can't speak Korean, I've never been to South Korea, kimchi is really the only food I know of and I lived in South Korea for a grand total of almost 3 and a half months...but I would play for them long before I would for the US. I guess the home country just has a soft spot in my heart.

The (longwinded, I know) point here is that the World Cup brings out the best in people's hopes and thoughts. At work, there were 2 apparent strangers. One had a Ghana shirt on, the other was wearing a Donovan jersey. They struck up a casual conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of running a 4-4-2 vs a 3-5-2. Unreal. When else does that happen? I promise you that if those 2 guys had been in regular "street" clothes, there a considerably smaller chance of 0% that they would of even looked twice at each other. They didn't argue, they didn't debate how one was wrong, they just made their points, actually shook hands, wished each others teams good luck, and went on their merry way. Cheesy moment? Absolutely. I was waiting for the soft music to be slowly pumped in, as the the screen fades to black and the credits roll. Instead Ke$hsa came blasin over the speakers, and a little kid asked to go to the bathroom. Oh well, not quite Hollywood.

But not to take away from the grandeur of the moment, I really was touched. The conversation couldn't of lasted more than 5 minutes, but I'll remember it forever. Two different men, from different countries, brought together by a soccer game. Incredible. I love the World Cup.

Congrats to South Korea on the win and best of luck to Greece. I have a South Korean flag, and I plan on getting 2 South Korea shirts and a scarf. Rather than my emotion, my patriotism will (literally) be worn on my sleeve. Where's yours?

A closer look at the real numbers

10 games started. 9 wins against just 1 loss. 71 innings pitched, and 61 strikeouts to go with that. Pretty tidy numbers, no? While it appears that Mr. Ubaldo Jimenez is tearing up the league, allow me the following comparisons.

Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched:
2010 - 0.93
Career - 1.27

Batting Average On Balls In Play:
2010 - .226
Career - .284

Left on Base %:
2010 - 91.7%
Career - 73.3%

Line Drive %:
2010 - 14.4%
Career - 17.8%

Home Runs per 9 Innings Pitched:
2010 - 0.13
Career - 0.54

Fielding Independent Pitching (scaled to ERA):
2010 - 2.71
Career - 3.66

True Earned Run Average(tERA, scaled on total runs allowed, not just earned runs):
2010 - 2.64
Career - 4.08

What do all these numbers mean? Its means he is going to regress. Is Jimenez an ace? Absolutely. But do not get confused, his LOB%, LD% and HR/9 will normalize. No one starter can sustain those rates. Few 'closers' can for that matter. He isn't getting as lucky as Livan Hernandez or even Mike Pelfrey, but make no mistake, Jimenez is good...but not this good.

Now the entire point of this was not to rip on Jimenez, but to really take a step back and look at the absurdity of most of the worlds popular baseball "statistics." Every time someone cites Wins, ERA or even Saves, my blood boils. To judge a pitcher based on ERA and Wins alone is about as naive as judging a hitter on Batting Average and RBI's. ERA, Wins, Batting Average and RBI's are about the worst stats in the history of the known world. They were invented along with the game. To say the game of baseball hasn't become mainstream and evolved since its conception would be absurd. Why haven't the statistics to judge the players evolved into mainstream society as well?

If you don't believe me? Then Sabremetrics ain't dead yet.