This is something that has been a pet-peeve of mine ever since I could remember. As I’ve gotten older and hopefully a little bit wiser, my frustration level for people spouting off irrelevant numbers has gone way up and my patience level for those who choose to use said numbers in an effort to seem more educated has gone down significantly.
In the regular season, we’re not inundated with irrelevant statistics dealing with historic trends and records between two teams. We might see a couple of these stats near the bottom of a regular season matchup, but they’re pretty much an after-thought and ignored. The trend towards useless numbers appearing in regular-season reports is starting to gain steam thanks to stats agencies, but once we get to the playoffs in any major sports, it’s like a tidal wave of numbers and head-to-head records that really have no meaning whatsoever.
Lee had one the other day that was just so perfect when it came to irrelevancy...I know, I know...some people just shook their head and said to themselves something along the lines of “When does he ever say anything relevant?”...let’s just move on for the sake of the entry... :-)
He mentioned that the winner of Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals historically had roughly a 75% win percentage in winning the Stanley Cup finals altogether. He seemed proud of that stat, meanwhile, my first thought to that was “What relevance does a team winning Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals in 19xx have to do with the Chicago Blackhawks winning Game 2 on Monday against Philadelphia?” Pure coincidence if you ask me...
There are plenty of other examples of irresponsible and irrelevant historical references being thrown out as the American media has several days to hype-up the Boston Celtics/L.A. Lakers rematch from two years ago and past years.
I just laugh at some media members’ notion that the 2010 Lakers and Celtics are playing with extra-added pressure because they don’t want to let down teams from past glory in the 50’s, 60’s or 80’s...give me a break! They only care about what’s happening in 2010. Kobe Bryant is not going on the court looking to live up to Magic Johnson...Rajon Rondo is not looking to do a little extra to live up to the name of Larry Bird.
I understand the tough spot that media are put in because each playoff game is supposed to be more important than the next...thus, the job is to get the fans as excited about the games as possible. The problem is that every single playoff game is just not going to have the huge swings of emotion and several games can be predictable and uneventful.
So, what well does an overworked media person go to? Well, the irrelevant stat well because nothing can fill up space and require more words than numbers and records.
So please, I beg of you, next time you read a historical record reference, think of the relevancy of the stat and proceed with caution...we’ll all be better off for it!