Statisticians tend to think of their numbers as causes of what happens. A famous scientist, Stephen Jay Gould has argued that baseball players don't win because of talent or effort, but only because random occurances happen a certain percentage of the time. This is putting it backwards. Statistics are put together after something has happened. They are made up of observations of what particular people have done in particular situations. It has become fashionable to dismiss any first-hand observations of what people do as "anecdotal", a word which actually means hearsay, unreliable evidence because it's just a story passed around among people repeating what other people said. From a sociological point of view, this dismisses anything that humans do: we are incapable of observing anything accurately with our own eyes; only statistics are real.
In reality, everything happens in a specific situation, not in an abstract realm of numbers. Micro-sociology shows the causal processes by which people succeed or fail in carrying out their actions. Micro-sociological processes, in this case the theory of interaction ritual chains, involve the flow of emotions, focus of attention, and bodily rhythms that click, or fail to click, between people. Sports is an excellent laboratory for observing these processes, especially in team sports. Teams win when they keep up a smooth flow of coordinated action. The opposing team is trying to do the same thing; each team is trying to make the other team crack. Championship games are particularly volatile, because both teams are good at it. Hence the seeming paradox that great teams often break down during a World Series, Superbowl or World Cup. In fact, that is pretty much necessarily the case; otherwise very good teams would go on at interminable length to the point of exhaustion.
This is also explains the Bobby Thompson phenomenon-- the player who makes the crucial winning play is usually not the biggest star, but a competent role player. Opposing pitchers unconsciously heave a sigh of relief when they get through their biggest threats; making them more likely to let down against a no-name player, who is nevertheless a professional capable of hitting a home run.
All this is illustrated in the fifth game of the Yankees/Dodgers World Series in what will no doubt become the legendary October 2024. Statisticians boggle at how unlikely it is for a team to blow a 5-to-nothing lead; especially after a pitcher has been throwing a no-hitter; and by commiting 3 errors in the same inning; etc. Look at the details of how it happened.
The crucial event starting the chain of unraveling happened in the 4th inning. Aaron Judge, the Yankee star who had been having a terrible series to this point, had broken out with a home run, getting his team off to a lead. Confidence was flowing; the other Yankee hitters piled on. Seeming the Yankees were on track to do what the Red Sox had famously done (against them) in the 2004 American League championship, coming back after a 3 games-to-nothing deficit. In the 4th, after Yankee pitcher Gerrit Cole had disposed of Shohei Ohtani-- the other superstar having a bad post-season-- and team leader Mookie Betts, Judge went high in the air to rob Freddie Freeman of an extra-base hit that might have got them back into the game. Judge crashed into the center field wall-- with tremendous force (a 280-pound man running at top speed)-- but held onto the ball. There was a momentary gasp-- had another superstar injured himself? (like Ohtani had done in throwing out his shoulder)-- when Judge flat on the ground, flipped the ball to the other fielder, unable to throw it himself.
Sigh of relief. Judge is OK. But in the top of the next inning, Dodgers up again, Judge charges a blooping fly ball and lets it out of his glove. Probably his crash against the wall had taken its toll; his body was a little more hesitant of throwing itself after the ball. The rest of the Yankees defense gets a little unhinged too. Kiké Hernandez is almost doubled off second base, but he dances back, beating young Yankee shortstop Anthony Volpe to the bag. OK, two on and no outs. Cole induces the next batter into a ground ball; Volpe decides to cut down the lead runner at third base. But Kiké is coming down the line, weaving and bobbing; new player Jazz Chisholm can't find Volpe's throw, which is coming through the space where Kiké is running. Another error, and the bases are loaded.
Cole now gets back to work. He has been pitching almost perfectly. He is getting himself out of the jam, striking out the 9th batter in the lineup and then Ohtani. The next batter, Mookie Betts, hits a weak infield grounder. But Cole-- already starting to show exasperation with his fielders-- decides to take command by gesturing to Anthony Rizzo to take the ball himself to first base. Cole and Rizzo are freeze-framed in a moment of mutual surprise and uncoordination-- neither one covers the bag. A run scores, the Dodgers are on the board, and the bases are still loaded. The TV announcers had been praising Cole throughout the game to this point, commenting on how level-headed he appeared, showing no emotion for anything. But now he is palpably upset. This does not escape the notice of the Dodger batters; Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez both hit the ball hard; 4 runs score, and the game is tied. One team suddenly loses emotional energy in a cascade of defensive breakdowns; the other team jumps on the emotional weakness.
But the psychological game is not over. Yankee manager Aaron Boone tries to calm down Cole, and thereby let the Yankees get their confidence back, by keeping him in the game another inning. It works; and the Yankees come back to take the lead in the 6th. But now we are into a chain of relief pitchers. Both Yankee and Dodger pitchers are hyper-stressed; the World Series is on the line; one boxing champion had the other on the ropes, but each one in turn got up off the floor and resumed the fight. In the eighth inning, Yankee pitchers can't find the plate, so pumped up with near-100 mph fastballs that they can't control. --- Another point the statisticians miss: bases on balls come in clusters at crucial moments; they are not random (especially 4-pitch walks), but are signs of the loss of emotional confidence. The Dodgers get the bases loaded; now the pitchers have to come in over the center of the plate. The Dodger hitters do their job, lifting fly balls to sacrifice in the tying and winning runs. In the midst of this comes another Yankee error: rookie catcher Austin Wells, in his over-eagerness, reaches out to catch the pitch and touches Ohtani's bat, putting him on base; thereby loading the bases again and setting up the final sacrifice fly.
The Yankee errors and misplays are not random; they are an emotionally contagious breakdown. I have often noticed that in baseball games, the team that makes a series of defensive misplays usually loses. We think pitching and hitting wins games; but fielding-- the most team-involving action in baseball-- is where games are lost.
Freddie Freeman rightfully was the MVP of the World Series. But two role players were the catalysts. In the National League championship series, it was unheralded new Dodger, Tommy Edman, who was the slender little guy whom the Mets pitchers underestimated, and got the crucial hits. In W.S. game 5, it was Kiké Hernandez. It was Kiké who broke up Cole's no hitter leading off the fifth inning; it was Kiké who led off the eighth with a hit, setting up the chain of adrenaline-fueled mistakes. It was Kiké who psyched out the Yankee rookies, Volpe and Chisholm on the base paths. Kiké is a cool guy; you can tell it from his demeanor, his hair-do and his pink-tinted shades. Kiké is the non-star, the opposite of Ohtani and Judge, who is always better in the post-season than in the regular grind. Which is to say, the player who is impervious to pressure; and who thereby puts pressure on the other team to break down. The players who defy the statistics produce the championships.
