TV Review--Crisis on Infinite Earths, Parts 1, 2, 3

First, a disclaimer; I am unfamiliar with the comic book (excuse me, graphic novel) that is the basis for the CW crossover event, Crisis on Infinite Earths.  I have read the works of several commentators who do know the origin material, and it seems to be a mixed blessing—they praise what was adapted well, but grouse about small changes that probably arose because an actor was unavailable or the schedule didn’t allow for it.  So, I am coming to this fresh.

The CW has a mixed history with these crossover events.  The first (Invasion!) was frankly only so-so.  Each episode clearly showed the differences in writing staffs and production design of the participating shows, so it felt like a game of Telephone where one show produced an hour and then handed it off to the next show, which took the narrative in a slightly different direction.  It lacked a cohesive structure.  The second, Crisis on Earth X, is just about the best thing I’ve seen on TV in the decade of the 2010’s.  It was not four individual episodes but a 4-hour miniseries that wove the elements of the participating shows together wonderfully.  Last year’s Elseworlds was hit and miss, mostly miss.  It started with an inexplicable body swap between Oliver Queen and Barry Allen (really, a guy is given a book that allows him to change reality and he decided to do a Freaky Friday on Green Arrow and The Flash?), but then seemed to morph into an excuse for running up a trial balloon for Batwoman.  That said, it was very funny when Supergirl looked her up and down and said, “Boy, you do have a lot of tattoos.  Sorry; x-ray vision.” 

Crisis on Infinite Earths starts of more or less in media res, with an antimatter wave wiping out the Earth where Alexander Knox (Robert Wuhl) helped (sort of) Batman defeat the Joker, and another Earth where Robin (Burt Ward, looking like someone who ATE Burt Ward) was another Batman’s loyal sidekick.  But nothing to worry about, as there are Infinite Earths and infinity minus two is still, well, infinity.  But we eventually get the exposition that the antimatter wave will wipe out all matter in all of the multiverses unless it can be stopped by various characters who are in TV shows on the CW network.

The production values are great, and the inside jokes are uniformly amusing.  Just trying to keep track of all the DC cameos is a chore; not only do they actually play a scene from the 1990 version of The Flash, but they even work in a cameo from Ashley Scott from the little remembered WB series Birds of Prey.  I was also surprised to see an appearance by Tom Ellis from the Fox/Netflix series Lucifer, even though they apparently filmed the scene in front of a fire door somewhere on the studio lot.

While the cameos are fun, they do lead to questions better left unasked.  Why do all the Supermans (Supermen?) look different?  Why does one look like Ray Palmer?  And where is the Superman from Lois and Clark, played by Dean Cain (the producers must have his contact info as he plays Supergirl’s adopted father)?

I do get the feeling that I am missing out not knowing the source material.  A big deal is made about (SPOILER!!!) the death of Oliver Queen, but I’m thinking that since there are infinite Oliver Queens on infinite Earths, it’s no big deal as there must be lots more Oliver Queens out there.  But it is a big deal for reasons possibly explained in the graphic novel but somewhat vague here.

The exposition, frankly, consists of a LOT of hand waving to justify the action sequences.  Black Lighting shows up so he can shoot lightning bolts at the big machine generating the antimatter wave, but why that needed to be done isn’t quite explained.  There are SO many Earths, and SO many universes, that it is impossible to keep track of them all.  And when the Monitor locates the seven “Paragons” needed to stop the Crisis, six of them just happen to be (once again) characters on DC programs.

The most surprising thing about the acting is Ruby Rose, who rarely gets to emote on Batwoman.  Here she is given some emotional heavy lifting and pulls it off flawlessly, and at the same time establishes some on screen chemistry with Melissa Benoist of Supergirl (I am going to assume that this will remain platonic, because I don’t think even DC wants to go there). 

I don’t know if the decision to broadcast the last two episodes in January is based on having to do more filming in the intervening weeks, or just a tactic for pumping up the January ratings.  Given the magnitude of a cliffhanger the third episode left on, with all of the universes wiped out and everyone in every universe dead except for six Paragons and Lex Luthor (don’t ask), the four-week hiatus will either create a huge buzz for the remaining two episodes or cause a huge yawn when the show returns.

It looks like the CW is pulling out all the stops as this will likely be the final crossover event of the Arrowverse, given that Arrow is coming to an end.  But the Super-producer Greg Berlanti is running about 18 shows by now, and as long as the same man is pulling the strings, anything is possible.  With two episodes left to go it is too early to make a final judgement, but at this point it appears that they have tried to go too big and have relied on the spectacle alone to make the project worth doing. 

But, frankly, that is exactly the attitude that rescued Legends of Tomorrow from a mundane first season and propelled them into a third season that ended with the universe being saved by a giant Furby.  Going too big is infinitely more interesting than staying to small.

It's About Time: Marvin Miller is in the Hall of Fame

Pop quiz—who are the most significant, ground-breaking, important people in the history of baseball?  A good place to start at number one would be Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier and opened up America’s Game to all of Americans (and Puerto Rican shortstops).  Next might be Babe Ruth, who more or less singlehandedly brought baseball’s popularity back after the Black Sox scandal threatened to undermine the popularity of baseball as a professional sport.

Who would you name next?  Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who brought integrity (and racism) back to the sport?  Mark McGwire, who became the poster boy for the steroid’s era?  Bill James, who revolutionized statistical analysis and made sports heroes out of stat nerds?

The answer is Marvin Miller, who was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame this week.  When Miller took over as the head of the Players’ Association in 1962, the game was in the hands of the Lords of the Realm, the old guard owners who thought they not only owned the teams, but they owned the players.  Players were, collectively, undereducated good old boys who were happy to be paid a pittance for playing a game they loved.  Most baseball players had bought the company line that the owners were wise men who had the best interest of the players at heart and would look out for the players’ best interests.  At a congressional hearing in the 1950’s the president of the Players’ Association said that players had it so good they couldn’t think of anything to ask for in negotiations.

Marvin Miller was a professional labor organizer who knew an exploited work force when he saw one.  Ballplayers generated millions of dollars of revenue but were lucky to be paid a few hundred dollars a year (most players, even stars, had to have jobs during the off-season to make ends meet).  Most egregiously (and this will come as a shock to those of you under 40), players were bound to play for one team for their entire careers; the only option Willie Mays had to playing for the Giants was to not be a ballplayer.  If Mays didn’t like what the Giants wanted to pay him, he couldn’t offer his services to the Dodgers, but he could try his hand at selling cars.  Owners had all the power.

This power was encapsulated in a clause in the standard union contract called the Reserve Clause, which “reserved” the talent of a ballplayer to the team that owned his contract and forbade the player from working for any other professional baseball team.  The player could play without a contract for one year under the terms of his last contract, but at the end of the year he was still bound by the Reserve Clause.  Miller saw an opening when the owner of the Oakland A’s, Charlie O. Finley, breached his contract with pitcher Jim “Catfish” Hunter by failing to buy him an annuity insurance contract (ironically, Finley had made his fortune selling insurance).  Miller took Finley to arbitration, and the arbitrator ruled that because the contract was breached Hunter was free to sign with any team who wanted to pay him.  The Yankees signed him for $3.5 million over 5 years, with a $1 million signing bonus.  Suddenly the owners’ claims that players were worth only a few thousand dollars a year seemed implausible.

Miller persuaded two pitchers, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, to play without a contract for one year, then challenge the Reserve Clause in arbitration.  The players won, and suddenly players could potentially offer their services to any team that wanted to pay them.

Miller realized that all the players becoming free agents at the same time would flood the market, so he offered the owners a magnanimous “deal”—teams could keep players for 3-4 years before the players became free agents, but players in those first few years could arbitrate any pay dispute.  What Miller knew, but the owners didn’t, was that arbitrators would determine what was fair pay by looking at the pay rate of free agents, essentially paying them as much as free agents.  Players who had been making tens of thousands of dollars were making millions of dollars within a few years.

The owners tried to defeat Miller in negotiations and lawsuits over and over, but Miller outfoxed them every time.  By the time he left as executive Director of the Players’ Association, he had cemented his status as the most successful labor organizer in history; during his time average player salary rose 1,610%, from $19,000 to $326,000.  Needless to say, salaries have continued to rise; On December 9, 2019, Stephen Strasburg signed a seven-year, $245 million contract (Strasburg will make more per inning than the average player made in 1962 for the season, adjusted for inflation).  Giving a player nearly a quarter of a billion dollars almost makes the player richer than the owners.

The only way the owners could get back at Miller was to deny him entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame, something he always took in stride by saying the Hall belonged to the owners anyway, so he didn’t mind not being in.  He was denied entry seven times from 2003 through 2018 (missing by one vote in 2011), but in 2019 he was voted in.

Unfortunately, Miller passed away in 2012, but I imagine he is somewhere chortling with joy at having beaten the baseball owners one final time.   Certainly no one in the past 50 years has had a greater impact on the sport of baseball than the man who freed the slaves from bondage so they could collect their million-dollar contracts and endorsement deals.

There are those who would argue that what Miller did was not necessarily a good thing, but no one can deny he has reformed baseball more than Barry Bonds.

Sue the refs!

Here in America, we are entitled to a lot of things.  Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms (no matter how many school children get blown away), and the ability to complain there’s nothing to watch on TV no matter how many cable channels and streaming services we pay for.

But you know what we are not entitled to?  Error-free officiating in any sport.  I mention this only because there have been threats of lawsuits over the latest example of officiating malfeasance, namely the waiving off a basket by James Harden despite visual proof that the ball, in fact, did go through the basket after Mr. Harden dunked the ball.

The mistake is somewhat understandable due to some weird physics where the basketball, after going through the basket, somehow got pushed back up through the basket by the net, making it appear to the naked eye to be a miss.  However, if you watch on instant replay it is immediately obvious that the ball went far enough through the hoop to be called a basket.  Under NBA rules, the net cannot act as a sixth man on defense.

Compounding the error is the fact that, even though Rocket’s coach Mike D’Antoni immediately complained about the call, the referees determined that he did not say the exact words, “I am challenging this on replay,” within 30 seconds and therefore no replay was available, even though challenging calls with replay has been a thing for some time and clearly D’Antoni had expressed dissatisfaction with the call.

The Rockets' position, now that the world has seen the replay and conceded that an error was made, is that either a) they should be given the win even though they lost the game in double overtime, or b) at the least they should replay the game since the point of the error, with a little over seven and a half minutes left in the fourth period.  Naturally, fans have threatened lawsuits.

New Orleans fans sued after NFL refs blew an obvious pass interference call in last year’s playoffs, a call so egregiously wrong the league instituted a challenge system for non-calls (a system, it should be said, that has resulted in almost no reversed calls because the referee’s union apparently refuses to allow their brethren look bad by actually reversing a call). The United States being a litigious society, there are lawsuits after every serious example of referee or umpire incompetence.

The problem is this—no major (or minor) sports league in America has ever made a legally binding promise that all officiating shall be 100% error free.  It never happened.  Naturally leagues have an incentive to make officiating as accurate as possible, but no one has ever GUARANTEED such a result.  The leagues owe you, the fans, nothing.  They owe the teams in the league nothing.  Maybe they owe a duty of due process, that they will scrutinize officiating for instances of cheating, favoritism, or blatant incompetence (like a referee who thinks it is perfectly legal for Lebron James to stop dribbling and then start again).  But no one guarantees 100% accuracy.

Which is reasonable, first of all because it is an impossible standard to meet.  Even with replay the result of some plays are inherently inscrutable.  Who at the bottom of a dogpile actually recovered a fumble?  Did a player leaping over a fence catch the ball or pick it up off the ground?  Photographic evidence will never be conclusive in all instances.

Secondly, there are policy reasons to make 100% accuracy a secondary consideration.  Maybe it would be nice to know who recovered a fumble, but you can’t stop the game and have lawyers for each team depose all the players on a dogpile.  You can require the pivot man on a double play to touch second base, but doing so puts the fielder and the base runner at risk, hence the existence of “the neighborhood play” where his foot merely has to be in the vicinity of the base.  Accuracy is an important factor, but it isn’t the only thing to consider.

So, Saints fans, you got hosed; sorry.  Rockets fans, oops but refs are only human, and as the saying goes, to err is human. 

And for those of you advocating for robot umps, even they can make mistakes; after all, they are programmed by humans.

Load management is a load of something

A few weeks ago, someone on one of the ESPN talking head shows asked whether the Golden State Warriors should consider tanking after receiving the news that their main star, Stephen Curry, would be out of commission for nearly three months.  One wag replied that there was no need for them to tank, they were going to be awful and would lose a lot of games without trying to tank.

This is why I am not THAT concerned with the idea of teams tanking in order to gain a higher draft position; teams that engage in tanking are just accelerating that natural order of things.  The truth is that tanking usually takes place in the front offices of teams, trading away assets in exchange for future draft picks or other bags of magic beans.  The players that are playing the games are not tanking but trying as hard as possible to win; they have just had one hand tied behind their back by management.

What I think is a bigger problem than tanking is what in the NBA is called “load management.”  Several other talking heads on ESPN have opined, in predicting the eventual identity of the Western Conference representative in the NBA Finals next year, that either the LA Lakers or the LA Clippers are the most likely candidates, but that neither would end up as the top seed in the playoffs.  That is, the best teams in the conference would deliberately lose games and end up with a lower seed in the playoffs, all in the name of assuring that their star players were healthy for the playoff run.

Load management is not a bad team trying to be worse; it is a good (or great) team trying to be mediocre for the sake of an advantage.  Speculating that the Nuggets or the Jazz will capture the top seed in the NBA West only to subsequently lose to the Clippers or the Lakers in the Conference Finals because the team from Los Angeles will do a better job of keeping either Lebron James or Kawhi Leonard injury-free over the course of an 82-game season is fundamentally an affront to the playoff structure.

Tanking means that teams that would normally lose 50 games in a season will lose 55 or 60 and then get a top 5 pick in the draft.  The marginal impact on the team’s fans is relatively small and ultimately rewarded (possibly) with the foundation of future success.  Load management means that players paid many tens of millions of dollars will not be displaying their skills to fans who have paid large amounts of money to see just that.  It is gaming a system that in which gaining home-court advantage in a seven-game series is inadequate compensation for achieving a higher seed.

As I have said before, the only way to stop tanking is to remove the incentive by making the draft order dependent on a lottery and not the number of games lost.  Of course, that also makes it more difficult for poor teams to get better because they don’t have access to better draft picks.

Similarly, the way to reduce (suppress) load management would be to give higher seeds a nearly insurmountable advantage in the playoffs, which would then require every team to work as hard as possible to win as many games as possible.  Having four home games instead of three in a round of the playoffs is hardly enough incentive to have Lebron James play in 70 games instead of 60 during the regular season.

But if the higher seeds had insurmountable advantages, what would be the point of having playoffs?  Baseball achieved a neat trick of letting wild cards into their playoffs but giving them a slight disadvantage in them having to use their best pitcher in the play-in game rather than the first game of the first series.  The only thumb on the scale basketball has is home court advantage and giving the higher seed more than 4 home games in a seven-game series is so excessive lower seeds would probably decide to tank rather than be an 8 seed.

I see tanking as a self-correcting problem, at least if the team that tanks is reasonably competent and drafts well.  If they aren’t competent, then they aren’t really tanking they are just perpetual losers. 

Load management is not a self-correcting problem and resting heathy players during the season just because you don’t mind getting a lower seed robs fans of the ability to see great players and skews the competitive balance.  Teams should work as hard as possible to be the one seed because being a three seed would significantly lower their chances of making the Finals. 

My favorite Damon Runyon quote is, “Remember, the race is not always to the swiftest, nor the battle to the strongest, but that’s the way to bet.”  But when it comes to the NBA, it may be better to bet on a team that loses more games in the regular season.

Is Dave Roberts the worst manager in post season history?

Is Dave Roberts the worst manager in post-season history?

The answer to the headline is yes, Dave Roberts is the worst manager in baseball post-season history.  I’m not even sure who is in second place.  He over-managed the Dodgers in the 2017 World Series and lost a winnable series.  In 2018 he pulled starter Rich Hill even though he was throwing a one-hitter after 6 innings.  And now in 2019 he blows Game 5 of the NLDS by leaving in Clayton Kershaw despite having a rested bullpen who had been effective all year.

I think there are two reasons for the decision to leave Kershaw in the game.  The first is the idea that he burnishes his reputation as a manager by making unconventional moves.  Anyone can go to the 8^th inning specialist in the 8^th inning of a baseball game, but only an innovative manager would leave in a starter, even if he has declining skills and has been used as a starter recently. 

Secondly, I think he was hoping to create a narrative that would burnish Kershaw’s Hall of Fame credentials.  Kershaw gets called “The greatest pitcher of his generation” a lot, but his post-season record is 9-11 with a 4.43 ERA.  Roberts wanted to give Kershaw the same chance that the San Francisco Giants gave Madison Bumgardner in 2014 when he came in to relieve on short rest to clinch the Giants’ victory.

But there are a couple of differences.  One, MadBum was 24 at the time, not 31.  Kershaw has been seen as in decline, and while still effective he isn’t usually mentioned in the Cy Young debate.  Maybe at one time he was “lights out” but not anymore.  Also, as a starter, in 2019 Kershaw’s ERA in his first inning was 5.97, so he was used to getting off to a slow start.  As a starter that’s forgivable if you subsequently get on track; as a reliever, having a bad first inning is disastrous.  Relievers have to come into a game and hit the ground running; this is another reason why Kershaw is not a reliever.

Second, the Dodgers had better options.  The 2014 Giants didn’t have a strong bullpen, but the 2019 Dodgers did.  It wasn’t great, but it was good.  But instead of going to Kenley Jansen or Pedro Baez or Joe Kelly in the 8^th, they went with Kershaw.   I call that a vote of no confidence in the bullpen.

I think the experience with Bumgardner in 2014 started an unfortunate trend.  The next year Matt Harvey of the Mets insisted on pitching in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series even though he had never thrown a complete game in his life, and he promptly blew the game and the Royals won the title.  Then you have the Dodgers not using their bullpen properly in 2017 and 2018.  I suspect something happened in 2016 but I am too lazy to look it up.

Bottom line—World series managers, please stop looking for excuses to use starters as relievers on short rest.  Once in a while it works, but that’s not the way to bet.  Before the series began, the Dodgers had a 62% of winning; after using Clayton Kershaw in relief, the chances were zero.

In Defense of the Wild Card Play-In Game

One of the things I find frustrating about baseball in the modern era (I am not sure what I mean by that; post-steroid, pre-robot umpire?) is the unmooring of a concept that I understood intuitively even before I took a single course in statistics—that over a 162 game season, crap evens out.  A bad bounce on a ground ball, an unfortunate gust of wind propelling a fly ball into the stands, an ump having a bad day behind the plate, could all influence the outcome of a single game, but over the course of a season the breaks will even out and the better team will win more games.

One aspect of this unmooring is the replay rule, which demands that EVERY play be examined in super-slo-mo to assure that the ball was caught by the first baseman a full one-thousandths of a second before the batter’s foot hit first base.  Yes, egregious calls need to be corrected, if possible (assuming there can be a consensus on the definition of “egregious”) but unlike football, a missed play here or there won’t necessarily determine whether a team’s season is considered a success or a failure.

There are policy reasons for imprecision.  The “neighborhood” play at second was conceded for decades, because not caring that the pivot man in a double play touched second base while he had the ball was more important that fielders’ risking knee damage from a hard slide, or runners being beaned by thrown balls that travel exactly down the baseline to first base instead of from an angle outside the basepath.  But now if a shortstop is a fraction of an inch off the base when making the pivot, the other team will challenge the call and demand that someone ion New York City review it.

More recently, I have become annoyed with well-meaning commentators grousing about the one-game playoff between wild card teams in each league.  For example, on this FiveThirtyEight podcast the moderator says a one-game play-in game wasn’t fair and they should play a seven game series.

The World Series already threatens to extend into the first days of November; a seven game wild card series would guarantee a World Series starting in November and ending after the Ides of November.  That sounds iffy for a sport where, unlike the Super Bowl, the location of the finals can’t be determined in advance; given that the Twins play in an outdoor stadium IN MINNESOTA this seems insane.

The thing is this—the purpose of the wild card play-in game is NOT to decide which team is the better one.  They just finished playing 162 games and the team hosting the play-in game had some advantage over the other one that justified giving them home field advantage.  Playing one game is unlikely to better make this determination.  The A’s had a one-game lead over the Rays after 162 games, so they host; even if they lose the play-in game, they would have the same record but the A’s won the season series over the Rays, so they still could be considered the better team.

No, the purpose of the wild card play in game is to disadvantage wild card teams in the next round of the playoffs.  Presumably the teams in the wild card play-in game will start their ace, making him unavailable for the first two or three games of the Division Series.  The wild card winner will send their #2 starter against the division winner’s #1 starters, and their #3 starter against the other team’s #2. 

When the wild card was implemented it seemed like a good idea (and it was), until wild card teams started winning the World Series.   In the NFL, wild card teams have the disadvantage of no home field advantage, but in baseball if you split the first two games suddenly the home field advantage shifts, and now three of the remaining five games are played at the wild card team’s park.  Something was needed to subtly give the division winner a slight edge over a team that merely came in second (or even possibly third).

So don’t gripe about the Nationals getting lucky because a rookie outfielder botched a routine ground ball to right field.  Maybe the Brewers could have won a seven-game series, but they should have gotten the opportunity to play in one by winning their division. 

A Modest Proposal: Eliminate Offensive Holding

   

A new NFL season is upon us, and already football fans are up in arms.  Of course, fans are always up in arms over something.  At the end of last season, everyone was mad that referees did NOT call pass interference on a play between the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angeles Rams that resulted in the Rams going to the Super Bowl.  This season fans are upset that the referees ARE calling holding penalties.

Of course, the old axiom has been that “holding could be called on every play.”  Apparently, this season the referees are taking it literally.  Over the first two weeks, holding calls were up 66% over the same period last season.  How serious is the problem?  Tom Brady tweeted he was going to stop watching the Jaguars/Panthers game n Thursday night because of all the holding calls (and not because the teams were lousy).

I have a modest proposal that the National Football League should consider implementing immediately: legalize holding.  Okay, maybe have some rules for extreme cases where the offensive lineman holds on to the defensive player’s windpipe, but otherwise wipe the penalty for offensive holding off the books.

First of all, if indeed holding takes place on every play, then it is the established norm.  If everybody does it, then why is it wrong?  Also, as many minorities could attest to, when something is on the books as illegal but done anyway, it gives law enforcement (referees) the ability to selectively enforce the rule.  Everyone on the highway may be going 70, but the African American going 57 gets a ticket.  Everyone commits holding, but if the Saints are driving for a winning score against the Rams, blow the whistle and move them back 10 yards.

Secondly, the biggest emphasis in refereeing has been the importance of protecting the quarterback.  Plays are blown dead once the QB is “in the grasp.”  Roughing the passer is called when a defensive player looks fiercely at Tom Brady.  If protecting the passer is Job One, then why handicap the offensive line by saying they can’t use their hands like bloody soccer players?

Thirdly, the rule is asymmetrical.  Why can defensive players use their hands but not offensive players?  Maybe this made sense at the dawn of football, but things have changed.  Defensive linemen are bigger, faster, and stronger than ever.  Apparently, things have swung so far in the defense’s favor that, as I said, the offense has to commit holding on every play.  So let’s level the playing field and let the O-Line grab a little jersey.

Lastly, everyone is now concerned with player safety.  Isn’t letting the offensive linemen garb the pass rushers with their hands safer than having desperate linemen try to stop pass rushers about to get by them with low blocks or blocks in the back?  I don’t think allowing offensive linemen to hold defensive players would increase the risk of injury, and it might decrease it.

Frankly, this move is so obvious I can’t believe the NFL hasn’t considered it.  If everyone complains about the rule being enforced, then don’t jut stop enforcing it but eliminate it from the rule book.  Let the Patriots’ front five protect Tom Brady by holding the linemen who might injure him if they got past the line!  I’m sure Tom Brady (the man who was suspended four games for cheating) wouldn’t want his linemen to break the rules.