There was a little bit of streamy goodness seeping through the digital airwaves yesterday, and fortunately for all of us, theScore was there to scoop it all up and put it on their MLB video page– both in its entirety, as you can see here, or in small bits. It’s Getting Streamed On, Episode 34 – The World Series Preview!
And if you’ve been a good member of the Monkey Army and have subscribed to The Getting Blanked Podcast on iTunes, you’ll be able to get an mp3 of yesterday’s business at some point there too. [Update: Yep... it's here.]
NEXT STREAM: Wednesday, October 26th, at 3:30 PM ET!
Much as I
enjoy being the butt of (I’m sure affectionate) inside jokes, I suddenly
realized today that Parkes doesn’t actually know the difference between the
colloquial and scientific use of the word predict. So, though the season draws
near its end, I’ll weigh in with one last effort; I hope you appreciate me
taking this valuable time out of my busy day on behalf of Dustin Parkes. And I
promise to make this my final attempt to inspire some rigor to the
proceedings.
If you want
to use the word “prediction” in the colloquial manner, that’s fine, but don’t
try to have it both ways. If you’re using it colloquially then it has no
scientific rigor and pretending otherwise is either dishonest or confused. In
science predictions are repeatable; if it’s not repeatable, it’s a hypothesis
(which, incidentally, can be legitimately based on statistical probability). If
inconsistent correlation of expressed anticipation and objective outcome
qualified as prediction then we’d have to declare astrology, roulette and
inebriated bravado as predictive sciences.
If you
really believe you can predict any performance outcome in baseball exclusively on
statistics, why don’t you follow your own advice: liquidate all your worldly
belongings and bet every last penny on it? If you’d take the other side of the
wager, I’d more than happily do that if I can be allowed to predict the
direction of falling bodies on the earth’s surface, the temperature effects of
reduced molecular friction or the number of times the earth rotates on its axis
during the next lunar orbit. Such things are repeatable and thus predictable.
Baseball performance outcomes (or any other) based on statistics are not.
That’s why Vegas,
for the right odds, will happily take ANY wager you want to make based on
statistically derived probabilities, whereas they will not take my wager for ANY
odds: mine actually is predictable and they’d simply be throwing away their
money. But, if you think I’m wrong, I’ll take that wager. Finally, at the risk
of stating the obvious, this is not about a semantic quibble, but illustrating
a symptom of a chronic conceptual vanity that informs the previously referenced
tendency to pseudo-expertise that has reduced my pleasure in the podcast of
late.