Maybe you've heard that some athletes (baseball players, sprinters, etc.) have taken performance-enhancing drugs in their pursuit of perfection. I dunno, it's not a big story or anything, but it was in the news a bit over the last few years. Anyways, after most revelations (Rafael Palmeiro, for instance), I've tended to raise an eyebrow but also shrug my shoulders. I mean, we all knew that this underground cheating occurred...who cares if a semi-famous ex-Cub best known for his killer mustache got an edge? Yeah, it's disappointing and deplorable, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over it.
That said, there are some players who could just break my heart if it were ever revealed that they were users. You know what I'm talking about: as cynical as we spectators may be--especially with the recent revelations about Tim Donaghy and Spygate--there will always be athletes whom you idolize, not just for their accomplishments but also for their respect for the game. To that end, I came up with a roster of ten players who would devastate me if it were ever shown or proven that they had doped. When formulating this list, I did my best to consider a wide range of sports, even though steroid allegations dominate only a few games. I also limited this to athletes of my generation.
Also Receiving Votes: Roger Federer, Josh Hamilton, Michael Phelps, Andre Agassi, Tony Gwynn
10. Lance Armstrong: An easy pick whom most persons would have higher (or should I say, "lower"?) on their lists. If I cared at all about cycling, I'd probably feel the same way. You know his story by now, so let's move on.
9. Barry Sanders: He's pure talent...it'd be a shame if it were ever shown otherwise.
8. Cal Ripken, Jr: Okay, you caught me, I kinda had him at #8 by default. Still, he definitely deserves the Top 10; although the significance of his record remains debated, he played in over 2,000 consecutive games. What's more, he played well (400+ HR's, 3000+ hits). If he had illegal help in outlasting the Iron Horse, it would be a tragic blow for baseball purists.
7. Roger Clemens: Oh, wait.
6. Greg Maddux: Ahh, that's better. Mad Dog is easily the most cerebral pitcher I've ever seen play. (Don't believe me? Read this article. Actually, read it regardless.) He didn't need 100 mph fastballs to get out of a jam; he just out-thought you. It's virtually impossible that Maddux ever doped, if only because he had no need to, but he had so much respect for the history of baseball that it'd be tragic (and inconceivable) if he were to tarnish it.
5. Walter "Sweetness" Payton: Possibly the most beloved Chicago athlete ever (yes, that includes a certain #23), Sweetness had the workhorse mentality that led to ferocious off-season training. In fact, a hill in my hometown bears his name because Sweetness ran up the 92 foot elevation as often as 20 times per day (citation). Plus, he had more toughness than entire teams: for instance, he deliberately refused to run out-of-bounds, even in practice. Chicago takes so much pride in #34 that a steroid accusation would cause riots.
4. Tiger Woods: You want tough as nails? Give me Tiger Woods. Give me the 2008 U.S. Open, playing on a torn ACL AND a fractured leg. He's a hero to (professional and amateur) athletes everywhere. When you consider the fact that he has served as an unimpeachable role model for young golfers around the world, you realize how badly a steroid charge would damage his sport.
3. Michael Jeffrey Jordan: Self-explanatory.
2. Michael Johnson: 43.18. 19.32. Any questions?
1. Junior: No sport suffers from steroid allegations as much as baseball. In its fight to remain relevant with a new generation, baseball can't offer the pure athleticism showcased in the NBA or the ever-present drama of the NFL. Baseball relies on its place in history as a way to remain relevant. No other sport can compare the legends of your grandfather's era to today's superstars in quite the way that baseball can. We cared so much about McGwire and Sosa in 1998 because they were chasing records that had survived for decades (I pluralize "records" because we care as much about Ruth's 60 as Maris' 61). Each generation of baseball has its own quirks (a "dead ball", for instance, or a higher pitching mound), but fans can generally compare and contrast Babe Ruth with Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, and Albert Pujols. But, if the "Steroid Era" captures the brightest lights of our generation, those stars will be incomparable to their predecessors. Baseball will lose much of its history, and, by extension, will lose much of its allure.
Okay, so that's why I put a baseball player at the top of the list. Why The Kid? Gosh, he's just so pure. That sweet swing, that backwards hat, that speed and defense. Kids in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston all had Mariners jerseys, back before they even knew where to find Seattle on a map. He's the player you'd pretend to be when you were at-bat in Little League. Anyone else remember seeing the highlights of that up-the-wall catch in Yankee Stadium? What about the back-to-back home runs with his dad? Griffey's got 600 home runs and 10 gold gloves, and he played the game with the respect and honor it deserves. We all grew up idolizing Griffey; in some ways, he's our last player left. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa--they've all been tainted forever. If we lost The Kid, too...
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Good or Better?
"Deep inside every human being is the yearning to be self-motivated rather than controlled by rewards, authority, or some other aspect of the external environment." (From Supermotivation by Dean R. Spitzer)
Growing up, we spent a lot of time trying to get good. Why'd you practice the piano? Why'd you spend those hours juggling a soccer ball? To get good, of course. Maybe you wanted to get as good as Beethoven or Ronaldinho (though, from what I hear, Beethoven couldn't play soccer to save his life), but you likely weren't motivated by a desire to best anyone. You wanted to improve, to make it to a point where you could impress your friends, and that required attaining a certain level of skill. These days, though, it seems to make little difference whether you're good or bad at various skills and challenges: it only matters whether you're better or worse.
Law school exemplifies this new development. With every major course on a mandatory curve, you could conceivably earn the highest grades without much absolute knowledge of the topic...so long as your ignorance paled in comparison to your peers'. This sentiment manifest itself in the oft-repeated joke--if you can call it that--heard reverberating through the venerable halls of UT Law: "Think of the law school as a bear, and think of your classmates as fellow campers. To survive, you don't need to outrun the bear; you just need to outrun enough of your classmates."
The relative merits of the curve system have been debated at length, and I have no interest in reinvigorating this discussion. (Nor should you take my example as either an endorsement or a criticism of the sytem.) Rather, what aggravates me, to a point, is the universality of this theme of "betterment." Want a job? Be better than the other candidates. Want a date? Be better than the other suitors. Want to win in sports, poker, or backgammon? Be better than your opponent. Whatever happened to the pursuit of an absolute, rather than a relative, mastery of a skill or subject? Did this pursuit ever genuinely exist in the first place?
A few acknowledgements before I proceed:
Yes, I realize that you can avoid getting caught up in the various competitions simply by becoming perfect (Francisco D'Anconia, anyone?). If you achieve total mastery, you will succeed or win without ever needing glance at your competitiors. That is so unrealistic a scenario that I feel comfortable dismissing it.
Yes, I realize that you can reframe my piano and soccer examples so that the player is not attempting to achieve a certain level of skill but rather is trying to become better than his former self. At the risk of dismissing this quibble too flippantly, you're rarely competing with only yourself for that summer job.
Yes, I referenced Ronaldinho just so I could put a link to that Joga Bonito commercial. Speaking of which, who's that old man with the unintelligible accent? Well, before he did TV ads, he did this (oh, and this).
Back when I spent more time playing poker, I had virtually no competitive streak. I derived little to no joy from winning a game of Horse or racquetball. For better or worse, poker had stripped me of this type of satisfaction. It makes sense, obviously: the correct plays in a game of poker are rewarded so infrequently and sporadically (due to the luck involved) that a player with the immediate goal of "winning" will almost certainly go broke. Of course, it's not as though I could no longer get anything out of a sport or game. Rather, I took delight in performing as perfectly as possible. In poker, this just means making the mathematically correct move at every opportunity. In a game like racquetball, it might mean making proper decisions regarding where and when to hit the ball. For example, if in a normal game of racquetball I made the proper decision 80% of the time, I'd be happy if I made the proper decision >80% of the time. My contentment varied directly and proportionally to the percentage of correct decisions.** What had no influence on my happiness, of course, was the outcome of the game. This makes sense: if you were to play Michael Jordan in basketball, you'd lose every game. You simply would have no way of beating him. If you derive happiness only from victories, you have no control whatsoever over your happiness. Your efforts, your decision-making, etc, are wholly squandered as a result.
This mindset kept me pretty loose and carefree throughout college, but it did have some weird side effects. I'd find myself watching a Bears game and they'd miss a last-second FG to win and I'd just think, "eh, Gould hits that 80% of the time, so in the long run they won this game." It wasn't a rationalization, either; I just had no concern for the outcome. In poker terms, I was the opposite of "results-oriented." While it occasionally led to bizarre scenarios, I relished this mindset because it had the effect of making an emotion (happiness) slightly more rational. Happiness could almost be quantified. Moreover, I alone controlled my success/failure (and, consequently, my happiness). Admittedly, the basketball court is only a small portion of my life, and thus a small portion of my happiness, but it was a start.
Law school changed this in me, unfortunately. With so much emphasis on grades and internships, I regressed to my competitive state of mind. This change manifest itself in sports, as well: in September, I just wanted to play well in racquetball. By November, I wanted to win.
These days, I find it more and more difficult to enjoy my successes (and not just because they occur less and less frequently, haha). I don't feel as though I've earned them. For example, let's pretend that I got a 4.0 this semester. (Those of you who've heard my story about my Contracts grade know that this counterfactual is, indeed, counterfactual and not a veiled brag.) From where should my satsfaction come? The 'A' I receive only reflects that I did better than the majority.* It says nothing about my absolute understanding of the material. It certainly can't measure how hard I worked, or how inherently intelligent I am with respect to Criminal or Contract Law. Plus, in certain classes, the difference between an A and a B+ will only be a few points. This makes sense, because if you put a group of similarly-equipped students in a room and instruct them identically, they will absorb approximately the same amount of material. Receiving a 4.0 across the board makes it less likely that any one grade is a fluke, but even if I'm undeniably the "best" in my section, what does that mean? I still may have no grasp of much of the major concepts; hell, our Contracts professor made it very clear that were there no curve, most of us would not pass her class. Maybe I just write the best under pressure. Maybe I can comprehend the introductory ideas but will struggle in upper-level courses. Grades, those omniscient, objective evaluators, don't do much of a job of evaluating me.
I certainly don't condemn the law school for its curve. Furthermore, I realize that competition deserves a prominent spot in our society. When we apply for jobs, for instance, we all have that baseline required acumen. Without ranking each candidate against the others, it'd be impossible to determine who should be hired. Better to compete than to leave such an important decision in the hands of an arbitrary decision-maker. Maybe that's a peaceful compromise: make absolute mastery a priority, and resort to relative mastery only as a tiebreaker. (I don't purport to have any answers...I'm just thinking aloud.)
*I want to make it unequivocally clear that I have tons of respect for the intelligence and academic discipline that most of my classmates possess. While I personally don't get much satisfaction out of "bettering" anyone, it'd be a tremendous compliment to succeed relative to the extremely capable men and women who take my classes.
**At first blush, it may seem easy to make a correct decision nearly 100% of the time. In a game of spades, for instance, unless you've lost your self-discipline you play the card that you think has the best chance of achieving your objective. So, you've made a bona fide attempt to make the correct decision nearly 100% of the time. Good faith, however, isn't good enough. Ex: I lead a diamond because I feel that it's my best chance to win. My opponent trumps and wins the trick. I made a good faith attempt, so what's the problem? Well, if I reasonably should've known that my opponent had no diamonds left (if we had previously played 3 diamond tricks in which the diamonds held, and if I had 1 diamond in my hand), I'm at fault for that error. The analogy holds, albeit tentatively, when applied to sports.
Growing up, we spent a lot of time trying to get good. Why'd you practice the piano? Why'd you spend those hours juggling a soccer ball? To get good, of course. Maybe you wanted to get as good as Beethoven or Ronaldinho (though, from what I hear, Beethoven couldn't play soccer to save his life), but you likely weren't motivated by a desire to best anyone. You wanted to improve, to make it to a point where you could impress your friends, and that required attaining a certain level of skill. These days, though, it seems to make little difference whether you're good or bad at various skills and challenges: it only matters whether you're better or worse.
Law school exemplifies this new development. With every major course on a mandatory curve, you could conceivably earn the highest grades without much absolute knowledge of the topic...so long as your ignorance paled in comparison to your peers'. This sentiment manifest itself in the oft-repeated joke--if you can call it that--heard reverberating through the venerable halls of UT Law: "Think of the law school as a bear, and think of your classmates as fellow campers. To survive, you don't need to outrun the bear; you just need to outrun enough of your classmates."
The relative merits of the curve system have been debated at length, and I have no interest in reinvigorating this discussion. (Nor should you take my example as either an endorsement or a criticism of the sytem.) Rather, what aggravates me, to a point, is the universality of this theme of "betterment." Want a job? Be better than the other candidates. Want a date? Be better than the other suitors. Want to win in sports, poker, or backgammon? Be better than your opponent. Whatever happened to the pursuit of an absolute, rather than a relative, mastery of a skill or subject? Did this pursuit ever genuinely exist in the first place?
A few acknowledgements before I proceed:
Yes, I realize that you can avoid getting caught up in the various competitions simply by becoming perfect (Francisco D'Anconia, anyone?). If you achieve total mastery, you will succeed or win without ever needing glance at your competitiors. That is so unrealistic a scenario that I feel comfortable dismissing it.
Yes, I realize that you can reframe my piano and soccer examples so that the player is not attempting to achieve a certain level of skill but rather is trying to become better than his former self. At the risk of dismissing this quibble too flippantly, you're rarely competing with only yourself for that summer job.
Yes, I referenced Ronaldinho just so I could put a link to that Joga Bonito commercial. Speaking of which, who's that old man with the unintelligible accent? Well, before he did TV ads, he did this (oh, and this).
Back when I spent more time playing poker, I had virtually no competitive streak. I derived little to no joy from winning a game of Horse or racquetball. For better or worse, poker had stripped me of this type of satisfaction. It makes sense, obviously: the correct plays in a game of poker are rewarded so infrequently and sporadically (due to the luck involved) that a player with the immediate goal of "winning" will almost certainly go broke. Of course, it's not as though I could no longer get anything out of a sport or game. Rather, I took delight in performing as perfectly as possible. In poker, this just means making the mathematically correct move at every opportunity. In a game like racquetball, it might mean making proper decisions regarding where and when to hit the ball. For example, if in a normal game of racquetball I made the proper decision 80% of the time, I'd be happy if I made the proper decision >80% of the time. My contentment varied directly and proportionally to the percentage of correct decisions.** What had no influence on my happiness, of course, was the outcome of the game. This makes sense: if you were to play Michael Jordan in basketball, you'd lose every game. You simply would have no way of beating him. If you derive happiness only from victories, you have no control whatsoever over your happiness. Your efforts, your decision-making, etc, are wholly squandered as a result.
This mindset kept me pretty loose and carefree throughout college, but it did have some weird side effects. I'd find myself watching a Bears game and they'd miss a last-second FG to win and I'd just think, "eh, Gould hits that 80% of the time, so in the long run they won this game." It wasn't a rationalization, either; I just had no concern for the outcome. In poker terms, I was the opposite of "results-oriented." While it occasionally led to bizarre scenarios, I relished this mindset because it had the effect of making an emotion (happiness) slightly more rational. Happiness could almost be quantified. Moreover, I alone controlled my success/failure (and, consequently, my happiness). Admittedly, the basketball court is only a small portion of my life, and thus a small portion of my happiness, but it was a start.
Law school changed this in me, unfortunately. With so much emphasis on grades and internships, I regressed to my competitive state of mind. This change manifest itself in sports, as well: in September, I just wanted to play well in racquetball. By November, I wanted to win.
These days, I find it more and more difficult to enjoy my successes (and not just because they occur less and less frequently, haha). I don't feel as though I've earned them. For example, let's pretend that I got a 4.0 this semester. (Those of you who've heard my story about my Contracts grade know that this counterfactual is, indeed, counterfactual and not a veiled brag.) From where should my satsfaction come? The 'A' I receive only reflects that I did better than the majority.* It says nothing about my absolute understanding of the material. It certainly can't measure how hard I worked, or how inherently intelligent I am with respect to Criminal or Contract Law. Plus, in certain classes, the difference between an A and a B+ will only be a few points. This makes sense, because if you put a group of similarly-equipped students in a room and instruct them identically, they will absorb approximately the same amount of material. Receiving a 4.0 across the board makes it less likely that any one grade is a fluke, but even if I'm undeniably the "best" in my section, what does that mean? I still may have no grasp of much of the major concepts; hell, our Contracts professor made it very clear that were there no curve, most of us would not pass her class. Maybe I just write the best under pressure. Maybe I can comprehend the introductory ideas but will struggle in upper-level courses. Grades, those omniscient, objective evaluators, don't do much of a job of evaluating me.
I certainly don't condemn the law school for its curve. Furthermore, I realize that competition deserves a prominent spot in our society. When we apply for jobs, for instance, we all have that baseline required acumen. Without ranking each candidate against the others, it'd be impossible to determine who should be hired. Better to compete than to leave such an important decision in the hands of an arbitrary decision-maker. Maybe that's a peaceful compromise: make absolute mastery a priority, and resort to relative mastery only as a tiebreaker. (I don't purport to have any answers...I'm just thinking aloud.)
*I want to make it unequivocally clear that I have tons of respect for the intelligence and academic discipline that most of my classmates possess. While I personally don't get much satisfaction out of "bettering" anyone, it'd be a tremendous compliment to succeed relative to the extremely capable men and women who take my classes.
**At first blush, it may seem easy to make a correct decision nearly 100% of the time. In a game of spades, for instance, unless you've lost your self-discipline you play the card that you think has the best chance of achieving your objective. So, you've made a bona fide attempt to make the correct decision nearly 100% of the time. Good faith, however, isn't good enough. Ex: I lead a diamond because I feel that it's my best chance to win. My opponent trumps and wins the trick. I made a good faith attempt, so what's the problem? Well, if I reasonably should've known that my opponent had no diamonds left (if we had previously played 3 diamond tricks in which the diamonds held, and if I had 1 diamond in my hand), I'm at fault for that error. The analogy holds, albeit tentatively, when applied to sports.
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