If only the NY TImes used the sports headline writers for the news
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Saturday's New York Times sports section features an article blasting the NFL for its treatment of Israel's football team (which plays for the AFC title and a trip to the Super Bowl tomorrow) and team quarterback Tom Brady (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). The headline is titled True Scandal of Deflategate Lies in the N.F.L.’s Behavior.
In
May, the data arrived. The prominent lawyer Theodore V. Wells Jr., who
was hired to investigate Deflategate for the league, delivered a
devastating indictment of the Patriots. The Wells report
concluded that “it was more probable than not” that two members of the
Patriots’ locker room staff had “participated in a deliberate effort to
release air from Patriots game balls,” and that “it was more probable
than not” that Brady was “at least generally aware” of the impropriety.
Although
the evidence was circumstantial — based on ambiguous text messages;
Brady’s discarding of a cellphone; and a trip to the bathroom by one of
the staff members, who took the balls in with him — it was also
buttressed by a lengthy scientific report prepared by Exponent, a consulting firm with dubious bona fides, having disputed the dangers of secondhand smoke and asbestos. Exponent was a hired gun, and its conclusions backed Wells’s narrative.
Brady
liked his footballs at the lowest p.s.i. in the range — 12.5. The
consultants concluded that the drop in the p.s.i. of the Patriots’
footballs — the average was 11.3 p.s.i. — could not be fully explained
by the Ideal Gas Law; it was too steep. But the smaller drop in the
p.s.i. of the Colts’ footballs could indeed be explained by the laws of
physics.
Numbers
in hand, Leonard went to work. He bought the same gauges the N.F.L.
used to measure p.s.i. levels. He bought N.F.L.-quality footballs. He
replicated the temperatures of the locker room, and the colder field.
And so on. When he was done, he concluded that Exponent had made a
series of basic errors. Leonard’s work showed the exact opposite of
Exponent’s conclusions: The drop in the Patriots’ footballs’ p.s.i was
consistent with the Ideal Gas Law; the smaller drop in pressure in the
Colts’ balls was not. (Leonard surmises that because the Colts’ balls
were tested after the Patriots’ balls, they had warmed up again.)
By
early November, he had a PowerPoint presentation with more than 140
slides. By the end of the month, he had given two lectures about
Deflategate, the second of which he had videotaped and posted on
YouTube. A viewer who watched the lengthy lecture edited it down to a
crisp 15 minutes; Leonard agreed to let him post the edited version.
The edited lecture
went up on YouTube on Dec. 1 and has been viewed more than 17,000
times. It is utterly convincing. Leonard told me that if an M.I.T.
undergraduate made the kinds of mistakes that Exponent made, “I would
force them to repeat the experiment and correct the analysis.” Based on
his study of the data, Leonard now says: “I am convinced that no
deflation occurred and that the Patriots are innocent. It never
happened.”
He is hardly the only scientist to take that position. As Dan Wetzel pointed out in a recent Yahoo Sports column,
scientists at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Chicago, Boston
College, Rockefeller University, the University of Illinois and Bowdoin
College — and others — have all come to the same conclusion.
Fair headline? I think so. Now compare it with this headline and the accompanying article's content.
Palestinian Girl with Knife Killed by Israeli Guard, Police Say
A 13-year-old Palestinian girl was fatally shot by an Israeli security
guard at the entrance to a West Bank settlement on Saturday after she ran at him
with a knife, according to the Israeli police.
The girl was identified by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa as Ruqayya
Eid Abu Eid, a resident of the Palestinian village of Anata. The village is about a mile
from the settlement of Anatot, where the episode occurred.
According to the Israeli police, Ms. Abu Eid quarreled with her family on
Saturday morning and then left her home with a knife “intending to die.” She arrived
at the settlement about 8 a.m., the police said in a statement, and ran toward the
civilian guard at the entrance, who opened fire. Grainy security camera footage from
the scene appeared to show a girl with a knife in her hand chasing a guard.
The girl’s father, who was looking for her, arrived at the settlement soon after
she had been shot. The police detained him for questioning.
Sure glad I read the article for the context. I wonder how many other people didn't/
Which is harder to get: Tom Brady's text messages or Hillary Clinton's emails?
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Which is harder to get: Tom Brady's text messages or Hillary Clinton's emails?
Let's go to the videotape.
So he's a Dolphins fan - what can you do? And yes, I heard that Brady came out for Trump this week. Fortunately, that matters less in the US these days than it used to.
Israel's Football Team (I'm sure he didn't know they were called that) went to visit President Hussein Obama at the White House on Thursday. Obama's joke about Deflategate fell flat. But most important, star quarterback Tom Brady (in the sunglasses behind owner Bob Kraft and an IDF soldier from the Boston area a few years ago) didn't show up.
"I usually tell jokes at these events, but I was worried 11 of 12 of
them would fall flat,” Obama joked during a ceremony honoring the
Patriots' Super Bowl title on the South Lawn.
The crowd let out an audible groan at the president's jab.
The president conceded that the "whole story got blown a little out of proportion."
The
Patriots' championship run was clouded by allegations that a team
employee deflated 11 out its 12 footballs during the AFC Championship
game.
Team owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick, and
starting quarterback Tom Brady, who was not in attendance at the White
House ceremony, have denied any wrongdoing.
In February, an NFL.com report found that only one football was severely deflated.
Good for Brady. Reminds me of another Boston sports hero who didn't show up at the White House during Obama's term.
Participants on the trip say Brady was visibly
moved by what he saw and experienced. Shrage remembers a Chabad rabbi
who was close with Myra leading the group’s Friday night dinner.
“Everyone started to dance, and Tom soon joined in. To see Tom Brady
dancing in a circle with us, singing with us, that was really special.”
“I think he was enormously moved.”
The Krafts took Brady to an IDF infantry base
as well. Boston-born Netzach Yehuda battalion soldier Avi Sandler was in
basic training in the Jordan Valley. He had just completed a week of
field exercises and a forced march back to his base.
He was told to put on his beret and report to the Deputy Company Commander’s office.
“I was nervous, as at that point one only went
to his office if he was in trouble,” said Sandler.
“As I entered the
office and saluted, I saw two other soldiers with American backgrounds
already seated. We were told that a group of important Americans will be
visiting the base tomorrow and that we were chosen to attend as
representatives.”
Fellow soldier Label Garelik was sitting in
his room when his sergeant came in, and told him that there were some
Americans visiting who wanted to speak to soldiers who had moved to
Israel from the US.
“Some Robert Kraft or something.”
The next morning, the soldiers were bused to the firing range, where a weapons demonstration was prepared for the visitors.
“Quietly, on the side, my friend says, ‘Avi,
isn’t that Tom Brady?'” Sandler recalled. “Other than Mr. Kraft, we had
no clue who was visiting. I responded, ‘It looks like him but what would
he be doing here?'”
“‘We quickly turned to Brady and asked, ‘Are you Tom Brady?'”
“‘Yes,’ he responded. Our mouths dropped.”
One of the soldiers asked Brady if he wanted to play football with them.
“I don’t mix business and pleasure,” Brady joked.
The soldiers gave a demonstration of the
various weapons lined up at the range. Brady exclaimed “Damn!” as the
machines gun were firing.
The Patriots quarterback even took some target
practice at the base’s shooting range. “I was worried about the
recoil,” Shrage recalled. “We certainly didn’t need Brady hurting his
throwing shoulder shooting a rifle.”
Other New Englanders were given the opportunity to meet Brady at the Israel Museum at a Saturday night dinner.
Read it all. So whom are you rooting for today? GO PATS!
After losing in the AFC divisional round last month, the Ravens have been given 14-to-1 odds to win the Super Bowl in Indianapolis.
The Green Bay Packers, who beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl on Sunday, are favored to repeat with 7-to-1 odds. The other top favorites are: New England (8/1), Pittsburgh (10/1) and San Diego (12/1).
For those who missed it, Brady had foot surgery right after the Patriots lost in the divisional round. But he was the first ever unanimous choice for league MVP last week.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
