Daily Archives: February 15, 2009

Michael Lewis is back at it again. He’s gone from MLB to the NFL, and now he’s got a long, engaging piece in the Sunday Times magazine on perhaps the most undervalued player in the NBA, Shane Battier: The No Stats All-Star.

I’ve always liked Battier but like him even more after reading this profile. Here’s just a sample:

Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly ­reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates — probably, [Houston Rockets GM, Daryl] Morey surmises, by helping them out in all sorts of subtle ways. “I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together. And everything that leads to winning that you can get to through intellect instead of innate ability, Shane excels in. I’ll bet he’s in the hundredth percentile of every category.”

There are other things Morey has noticed too, but declines to discuss as there is right now in pro basketball real value to new information, and the Rockets feel they have some. What he will say, however, is that the big challenge on any basketball court is to measure the right things. The five players on any basketball team are far more than the sum of their parts; the Rockets devote a lot of energy to untangling subtle interactions among the team’s elements. To get at this they need something that basketball hasn’t historically supplied: meaningful statistics. For most of its history basketball has measured not so much what is important as what is easy to measure — points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots — and these measurements have warped perceptions of the game. (“Someone created the box score,” Morey says, “and he should be shot.”) How many points a player scores, for example, is no true indication of how much he has helped his team. Another example: if you want to know a player’s value as a ­rebounder, you need to know not whether he got a rebound but the likelihood of the team getting the rebound when a missed shot enters that player’s zone.

There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team’s interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one: by doing what’s best for himself, the player nearly always also does what is best for his team. “There is no way to selfishly get across home plate,” as Morey puts it. “If instead of there being a lineup, I could muscle my way to the plate and hit every single time and damage the efficiency of the team — that would be the analogy. Manny Ramirez can’t take at-bats away from David Ortiz. We had a point guard in Boston who refused to pass the ball to a certain guy.” In football the coach has so much control over who gets the ball that selfishness winds up being self-defeating. The players most famous for being selfish — the Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Terrell Owens, for instance — are usually not so much selfish as attention seeking. Their sins tend to occur off the field.

“I am not a hustler. I am a practitioner who enlightens the American populace and brings joy to the world.” Joey Goldstein.

It’s times like these when I miss my Old Man because I’ve got no doubt that he would have a Joey Goldstein story. Goldstein, a character ripped right out of the pages of Damon Runyon, “a master presser of flesh and bender of ear who was a fixture in the New York sports scene for four decades,” passed away yesterday in Florida. He was 81.

I met him briefly last fall at memorial for W.C. Heinz at Elaine’s of all places. I introduced myself and shook his hand hand. He looked frail, vaguely like Al Pacino in “Angels in America.” He grumbled hello and moved on. I later understood that he was like this to most people until he got to know you.

Anyhow, Joey Goldstein was one of the true characters in New York sports history. Fittingly, Mike Lupica writes a wonderful tribute to him this morning in the Daily News:

Nobody remembers exactly when they met Joey Goldstein, a character out of an older New York City and a better one, out of all the old ideas about press agents and newspapers, out of a sports world so much more fun than we get out of it now. If you were in the business of sports in New York over the past 50 years, attached to it in any way, you knew Joey. You just couldn’t remember exactly when he came blowing into your life or your office, talking and laughing and wanting to sell you something.

“When did I meet him?” Jimmy Breslin was saying late Friday afternoon. “Maybe college doubleheaders at the Garden. What year was that?”

He was Breslin’s friend and the late Dick Schaap’s friend and he was mine. He was a friend to Roosevelt Raceway in the old days and the whole harness-racing business and later, much later, a friend to ESPN. And Joey Goldstein was so much more than that, from the time he hit the city running as a kid, when he first put a phone to his ear and never took it out:

He was a fast-talking history of sports in this city.

There really should be a book about Goldstein. There isn’t, though he was friends with Red Smith and every other big time New York City sportswriter ever since. But here’s a 1987 piece by Douglas Looney in SI:

What we are dealing with here may be the ultimate triumph of style over substance. Is Goldstein an intellectual? “I have been to Italy 41 times,” he non-answers. Whether his day begins at his home in Old Westbury on Long Island, at his East Side apartment in New York or on the road, Goldstein is hopelessly overscheduled, hysterical, late and on the phone. Whence the frenzy builds. Old buddy Red Auerbach says, “He’s always full of pep, know what I mean?” Yes, sir. Says Goldstein, as he darts through Manhattan’s underground passageways that he knows like the back of a telephone, “I’m energized about everything I work on. I’m eager. I’m anticipating.” He gets his shoes shined (“I do this every day, except if I’m wearing rubbers”); he gets a manicure (“New York is such a dirty place. Of course, I love it”); he’s on the subway; he gets his blood pressure taken at a doctor’s office—all the while he’s checking his watch. He needs to use a VCR in somebody’s office, but he won’t listen to instructions how to use it—he never listens—and only wants to know one thing: “How do you get it on fast forward?” For Goldstein, a moment when he is not talking is a moment wasted.

And here is the ultimate. Joey (“It’s such a sophomoric name. How can a guy post middle-age and Jewish be called Joey?”) has found a newsstand where he can buy The New York Times and the New York Post by 11 p.m., which he hustles—of course—back to his apartment to read. Ergo, he has the next day’s news read before the next day arrives. Fast forward, huh? And talk about getting the jump: Goldstein always works July 4, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve. Why? “Things are real slow. It’s the best time to get things in the papers. And the guys appreciate it.” Which raises the question, how many people at big p.r. agencies work on Christmas?

Too, he’s a mighty sports resource, a walking, talking yellow pages. Any reporter needing an unlisted phone number can get it from Goldstein, whether the number has to do with Joey’s clients or not. Need facts? Call Goldstein. Need directions? Call Goldstein. He’s a kind of AAA without the membership fee. He arranges hotel reservations when all rooms are booked, makes last-minute dinner reservations for 8 p.m. on Saturday, gets tickets to hit shows at the last moment (he attends every Broadway play each season) and somehow finds a parking pass when there are no more left. “I do want to be loved,” he says, “or at least regarded fondly.”

The world will be less lively without Mr. Goldstein.