What were the odds? Probably smaller than Michigan State’s 0.2 percent
Just as some of us old-timers were getting used to WAR and OPS and BABIP in the baseball statistics, and finally may have at least a partial understanding of how the NFL quarterback rating works, ESPN Stats & Info has turned percentages loose on us.
Percentages are easier to comprehend than WAR and OPS and BABIP. But now it seems there’s one for every game. And one for every play of every game.
You might have seen the percentages for the last play of Saturday’s Michigan State-Michigan college football game. According to ESPN Stats, State’s win probability before the ill-fated punt attempt by the Maize and Blue with 10 seconds left was 0.2 percent.
I don’t know where ESPN gets this stuff or how they figure it.
But heavy on the lo and behold: On its Twitter feed, I discovered a chart, and it looked official with lots of numbers and jagged lines. Like on an EKG. And on the bottom it said 0.2. It reminded one of when Ross Perot ran for president, and how when the debate commentators asked how he planned to fix the economy and other things, Perot would pull out these charts with lots of numbers and jagged lines.
They probably said 0.2 on the bottom line.
And in speaking of the debates, and of percentages, and of hard-to-fathom infinitesimal coincidences, what are the percentages that each of the past two presidential primary debates held in Las Vegas — one Republican, one Democratic — would produce a sports tragedy, or at least a near sports tragedy?
I checked ESPN Stats & Info. It didn’t have a chart.
I don’t know why this occurred to me, only that it did when TV was turned on the other morning and the Rev. Jesse Jackson was all over CNN, praying for Lamar Odom.
The former UNLV basketball recruit had gone on quite a bender in Pahrump, with multiple hookers and multiple drugs and multiple whatnot, and it darn near killed him. Odom’s attempt to break Zach Galifianakis and Bradley Cooper’s record for debauchery here coincided with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and the other three guys debating political points at Wynn Las Vegas in one of its sprawling ballrooms.
The time before that, when the Republican presidential hopefuls were in town debating political points, popular two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Dan Wheldon was killed in a fiery pileup at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Wheldon perished on Oct. 16, 2011. It was a Sunday afternoon. On Oct. 18, on a Tuesday evening, Mitt Romney and eight other guys and Michelle Bachmann debated political points at the Sands Expo and Convention Center.
On Oct. 17, a Monday, Las Vegas Motor Speedway president Chris Powell did dozens of grim interviews with the national media. They began early in the morning and ended early in the evening.
There were cameras, big cameras, in Powell’s face all day long because the big cameras were in town for the debate. And because the big cameras — and the networks to which they belong — only care about auto racing when somebody in the stands gets hurt by flying debris, or when somebody gets killed. It’s like that Don Henley song.
Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?
Even the Wall Street Journal sent a man out to the speedway. Inquiring minds wanted to know about the fiery pileup. Perhaps salacious viewers would want to know, too.
It is my belief that neither of these stories — one tragic, one just sad on multiple fronts — would have been as tragic or as sad among the general populace were it not for the presence of the national media. I would even argue that Lamar Odom’s sex-driven overdose would have been a bigger story than Dan Wheldon’s death, because Odom is (sort of) married to a Kardashian, and Wheldon only was married to a nice woman named Susie. And instead of a reality TV show, they only had two small boys named Sebastian and Oliver.
Also, having grown up in the Chicago shadows, I can tell you that about 75 percent of the time, Rev. Jackson’s heart is in the right place on these matters. And that the other 25 percent, it’s in front of the TV cameras. I doubt very much he would have flown to Las Vegas to pray at Lamar Odom’s bedside had he not already been here with the other politicians and the big cameras.
I’d probably put the percentage at around 0.2.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski
