Inexplicable Podcast Review: Gladwell’s Revisionist History has great name, iffy debut

Scotland Forever, one of Thompson's works.

I’ve eagerly read and written about Malcolm Gladwell’s past literary efforts, so I was excited when he shared on a Bill Simmons podcast last week that his own, Revisionist History, would be launching in mid-June. And hell, that’s a great name for a podcast! My excite level was high.

Unfortunately, the first episode, “The Lady Vanishes,” was highly disappointing. While Gladwell is well-known for usage of individual stories to make larger, grander points, I didn’t think the connection established in his first show was all that strong.

The basic premise – When countries elect female leaders for the first time, or when the Royal Academy of Arts features a woman artist for the first time, this period of time is usually followed by an intense criticism of that individual. While this seems logical to me, I don’t think Gladwell did a strong enough job of illustrating the point, as his two prominent examples were the sexism faced by Julia Gillard and the Royal Academy’s tokenism in the 1800s.

Gillard definitely dealt with misogyny, and her speech on the matter in October 2012 has its own Wikipedia entry, so it was effective and prominent. However, there are shades of grey to the incident – like that Gillard’s effort served as a smokescreen for the crude comments of someone in her own party – that Gladwell kind of downplays. Yes, Gillard definitely dealt with unfair sexism, but it was self-serving of her to address these while her own party was involved in a scandal.

The Roll Call.

Likewise, I think using sexism in the painting world in 1874 didn’t create strong enough support for Gladwell’s arguments, although it was definitely a compelling yarn that left me wanting more. The segment focuses on Elizabeth Thompson, who essentially received strong attention from the Royal Academy and prominent painting placement, but was never admitted as a member. The voting block of 40 old men probably had something to do with it. Her story was interesting, but I had to hit up Wikipedia and other sources to learn more about her.

As Revisionist History goes on, I’m hoping there is more focus on the individual stories, and less tries at sweeping societal points. The basic premise of the show – a look back at incidents that are wrongly recalled – is interesting enough to stand on its own without delving deeply into psychobabble.

I’ve written about podcasts here and there, and this entry from 2014, after Serial finished, is still mostly valid. And hey, I host a podcast! If you like pre-2000s video games, check out Your Parents Basement.

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More on the intricacies of basketball strategy, or, eff convention

In the past, using my experience as an impartial scorer and scoreboard operator for some local basketball contests, I've advocated a "feed the best player no matter what" strategy. Quite frankly, bizarre basketball strategies intrigue the heck out of me, since I believe the game is based far too much on a rigid sort of "play the right way" philosophy that minimizes most teams' chances to win.

Therefore, I eagerly devoured a story from Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker that I just stumbled upon tonight. Basically, if a bad basketball team wants to win, it should press constantly, and especially the inbounds pass. (Note: This is a long read, but if you have an interest in basketball, military strategy or just good writing, then it is worth it.)

Gladwell's interviews backup a hunch I've had for a while - The press is the best defensive basketball strategy. Like Rick Pitino's story in the article, I've also seen David almost upset Goliath, although on a much, much smaller scale. When I was 10 or 11, the best player on my rec team fouled out, and we were down by 15 points with about six minutes to play. We were one of the better teams in the league, strictly because of him, so the chances of us winning were really bad. (How good was he? I was probably the second-best player, and I averaged something like six points a game. Yeah, I was a stat nerd even back then. On the plus side, I had more than 10 boards a game, I'd guess.)

Because the best player had fouled out, our coach basically decided to just let us play the rest of the game, so it was me and four bench players doing a full-court press. Lo and behold, we rapidly got back in the game, and probably could have won if not for the clock running out on us. I ended up with 18 points, pretty much all on putbacks and lay-ups after he had fouled out. (It remains a high for me in any game where score was kept. So ends Steve Greenwell Recreational Basketball Glory Days Storytime.)

So yes - Pressing for the entire game instinctively makes sense to me as a winning basketball strategy. On the college level, Division III school Grinnell uses a variation of what is described in the article. This eHow article provides a pretty good rundown of it, and Grinnell has used that to compile 73-46 record the past five years, even though 1) they don't recruit great basketball players and 2) everyone knows what they're going to run.

However, even Grinnell's methods leave something to be desired. First, they don't really play conventional defense - If someone beats their press, they've content to let them get a layup. Grinnell doesn't really try to create the Rush, as Pitino's teams try to do; Grinnell is playing its own game altogether and doesn't give a shit if you score, because frankly, you're just getting in the way.

Second, Grinnell teams work in shifts regardless of player quality. Pitino doesn't play all of his guys equally - He worked the hell out of his better players like Sosa and Antoine Walker. Yeah, because you play a certain style, it means that you won't get the elite basketball players looking to showcase their skills. (I was shocked that only one Pitino player, the aforementioned Walker, had made an all-star team, but that made sense.) However, this doesn't mean that you should be happy with inferior players taking shots away from more efficient options.

How would this translate to the high school level? I imagine that a coach in a weaker league, such as Rhode Island, could dominate the competition by just pressing all the time. Except in rare instances, most of the state does not have Division I basketball prospects, so pretty much all the teams have guards that would be rattled and worn down by a constant press. Personally, I'd love to try it out at some point, but I don't really have the means or ability to be a basketball coach at any level right now. Something to shoot for when I'm older, perhaps.

For an exhaustive description of Pitino's press, and a lot of other basketball strategy, check out this site. The rec basketball photo is from here, and before anyone asks, sorry, it isn't me. It is just a random Google Images thing.

News - Sunday, November 1, 2009

This teacher is impossibly cute to me. sigh.

I haven't felt great most of the day, so here is a belated news post for all of you. I blame BRETT FAVRE, as the media overload about his return to Green Bay has turned my brain and optic nerve (I think that's a real thing) into mush. But on the plus side, I have been able to catch up on and Glee and Titan Maximum and Modern Family and The Office and Community this weekend. (Not so shocking news: I did not go out for Halloween, and it felt great!)

- This is a bit of a belated pimp for this article, but it really is quite splendid. Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favorite authors, did a piece for The New Yorker showing that there is an especially strong link between brain damage and professional football. The article also tries to turn the findings into a bit of a statement on dog-fighting, but I found those parts of the piece less effective.

However, I am not surprised by the main finding at all. For years, NFL players have been dying early and suffering from an array of health problems that you just don't see in other sports. For example, old NBA players and NFL players might have problems with bad knees, but NFL players are also getting dementia and post-traumatic stress disorder.

- On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've just started reading The Book of Basketball by ESPN sports columnist Bill Simmons. If you don't like his usual work, then this isn't going to convert you, but it is an authoritative tomb on his chief love, professional basketball, and specifically the NBA and ABA. I give it a solid B+ so far, since it is well-written and enjoyable, but the narrow topic scope means I have to be in the mood to read about the NBA. Also, one of his chapters is a legit 80 pages or so.

Random note: Amazon offers this book for $30, but after discounts, the actual price is $16.50 plus shipping. I bought it from a Borders / Waldenbooks for $21, off the list price of $30, since there was a 30 percent discount. This begs the question, where are these book stores that actually sell goods at full price? Do they even exist?

- Mel Gibson's girlfriend just gave birth. Thing he'll be getting it circumcised? Hi-oh, thanks for coming ladies and gentlemen! (p.s. This lame joke doesn't even work because it was a girl. Sigh!)

- In weird, funny Halloween news, San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili caught a bat during a game. Seriously. He was rather non-effected by it as well... Good for him.

- In weird and creepy Halloween news, some police departments do keep a tight eye on sex offenders during the holiday. In what makes perfect sense to me, they aren't allowed to hand out candy and they have to keep their lights off. Also, there are like a dozen stories on Google News about stabbings at Halloween parties, so if you do hold a party, don't leave the jack-o-lantern carving knife out on the table, seriously guys.

- And finally, in stripper news... And sad video gamer news... A bunch of Russian Counterstrike players managed to play despite strippers getting busy all up in their area. Some of them are kind of haggard looking, but really, if you're playing competitive Counterstrike in 2009, you should take whatever you can freakin' get.

The Bill Simmons picture is from this blog which has a good post about the NHL. Mel and his baby-momma are from the People article linked above. And the pictures of my new crush are from here, here and here. Note: The first two are awesome and I'm following both now.

The death of USA tennis and crazy parents

I always hype up Slate.com on here, and it is articles like this by Huan Hsu that keep me coming back. I find his analysis of the problems of USA Tennis right on, and it ties in with others theories like the 10,000 hours principle extolled by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers (highly recommended by me) and the dip of Seth Godin. If you just follow the established training regimens for tennis, you probably won't be a Grand Slam tournament winner, even though you'll surely be psychologically broken if you do have a nutty parent. (Example: The father of Jelena Dokic [left] claimed that her boyfriend had kidnapped her, and was so abusive he was banned from courtside at pretty much every tournament.)

It is kind of a logical supposition to make, although one that isn't always apparent. Professional athletes largely come from broken or nutty homes. How else do you practice basketball eight hours a day unless the parents are a bit absentee and you let your homework effort slide? Natural ability and aptitude do come into play, but they are only part of the equation. Insane devotion spurred by parents helps.

I imagine this is an even greater issue in individual sports like tennis, boxing and swimming. At any given time, I'll guess that only 100 to 500 adult boxers, tennis players and swimmers are good enough in the world to make their primary living from the sport. Since all of them are individual sports, there is far less opportunity to earn a living. Contrast this with baseball - Even AA and AAA players often make as much as they would in jobs they could use their degrees (assuming they have one) on, and there are hundreds of teams, plus thriving Asian and Latino leagues, all of which need roughly 20 to 30-man rosters. A rough estimate of that gets me to 3,000 players. More players means a greater opportunity for different personalities.