Danny points us to our first-ever
boxing article, in which author Kevin Iole makes the following insane comment about boxer Francisco Lorenzo, who apparently won a recent championship bout thanks to a little acting job at the end:
Specifically, he won by disqualification with an acting job the likes of which haven’t been seen since Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets” in 1997, but the point is, he won.Now, this is
slightly better than
comparing people who recklessly spend a lot of money to a mildly famous Mexican food-pimping dog, if for no other reason than at least it's an "acting job" being compared to an acting job. But why "As Good as it Gets?" And why throw in the year?
That characterization is of an old novelist with OCD. So there's obviously no possible actual direct connection. Iole is simply choosing a "great performance," to indicate that Lorenzo really faked his way to the title, and the great acting performance is...this one? It's like Nicholson's 18th best performance in a movie. I don't understand.
Why not Laurence Olivier in "Marathon Man?" Or Pierce Brosnan in "The Thomas Crown Affair?" Or Scott Bakula in "Necessary Roughness?"
Or better yet, why not say something like, "Lorenzo stole this title like Newman and Redford in 'The Sting,'" or something?
There is also this brain twister:
“After watching the instant replay, I believe that there is no one in the world not thinking that a disqualification was one of the greatest mistakes ever in boxing,” WBC president Jose Sulaiman said.
Seems like maybe there's an easier way to say that.
Labels: analogies, boxing, jack nicholson, kevin iole, scott bakula
Hey, you there.
Sportswriter. Bet you thought you could write a logically unsound SAT verbal section-style analogy about Moneyball
and get away with it. Sorry, buddy. Not when this sports journalism blogger just burned through two
Miller Analogies Test prep books this morning (as I do every morning; it's a ritual like having a cup of coffee to me).
"Moneyball" is to baseball what frugal is to cheap;<
buzzer sound FX>
First of all,
Moneyball is a book, not really a formal philosophy. But even putting that aside, let's do this in English. Moneyball, loosely speaking, is a general managing strategy that involves exploiting market inefficiencies in the sport of baseball...is to baseball, which is the sport of baseball...as frugal, a euphemism for the word "cheap"...is to cheap, which is the word "cheap."
Wha?
You don't have to have gotten a 600 on your
M.A.T. to smell that this analogy is to correctness as Hillary Clinton is to giving up-ness! Wait, did that work? No. It did not, on several levels. (Humor and accuracy, no. Topicality and mordant political commentary, yes!)
"Moneyball" is not a euphemism for "baseball." "Frugal" is not a strategy for winning at the sport of "cheap." The whole thing is so tangled I can't even begin to suggest an alternative.
Oh, what the hell, here are a half dozen, each one at least as accurate as what this guy wrote:
Moneyball : regular baseball GM-ing :: Fosbury flop : just jumping normally
Moneyball : baseball :: PlayStation 3 : TurboGrafx 16
Moneyball : baseball ::
Can't Buy Me Love : Tourette's Syndrome
Frugal : cheap :: strudel : Peeps
Cheap : baseball :: Toni Morrison : Pangaea
Analogies : "are to" :: "as" : "is to"
Labels: analogies, miller analogies test, moneyball, pedantry
