Yankees, U.S. Ryder Cup team look awfully similar
Those frustrated souls who follow sports or politics know the veracity of the phrase: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics." The fact that it's not even certain who first uttered those words -- Benjamin Disraeli, Mark Twain or someone else -- adds even more irony to their assertion. Numbers take the skin temperature, but they don't record the heartbeat. Just ask the New York Yankees, who last week became the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
Virtually anyone allowed access to a laptop or microphone labeled the Yankees as the best lineup in the history of baseball, relying on statistics to make the case. And no number screamed immortality louder than the $200 million in paychecks penned by New York owner George Steinbrenner. But when the Detroit Tigers bumped the Yankees out of the playoffs in the first round, it was demonstrated once again that statistics are a dicey substitute for understanding, the lazy way to grasp reality.
Numbers are no more a predictor of success than superstition. Ask the folks who took exit polls on Election Day in 2004. There are things that can't be measured, only felt, like passion and desire and determination. What statistics record in sports is how often someone hits home runs or sinks putts. What they fail to measure is when these events occur. And that is the true definition of greatness: performing when it matters most.
On paper, years from now, Alex Rodriguez will have had a much more impressive baseball career than Derek Jeter. But is that the true measure of their value? Forget the four World Series rings for Jeter to none for A-Rod -- other factors could explain that -- but how do you measure with statistics Jeter's dive into the stands against the Red Sox in 2004 or his backhanded flip to nail the runner at home against the Athletics in 2001?
There will be people down the road who will look at the comparative statistics and wonder how the 2006 Yankees lost to the Tigers. There will also be people who will wonder how a U.S. Ryder Cup team with the three best players in the world on its roster -- Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson -- could lose to a European squad that was much less impressive statistically. And they will all have been people who relied too much on numbers and too little on observation. They will not have felt the heartbeat or sensed the soul of Sergio Garcia or Darren Clarke or José Maria Olazábal.
This whole disturbing trend -- evaluation by statistics -- is certainly not helped in sports by fantasy leagues. All that matters in those contests is putting up gaudy numbers. But the trend extends beyond sports. Recently, I heard an interview with a high school employee whose title was "graduation coach." Which raises the question: Is the goal to graduate or to learn?
Another quote is appropriate to this discussion, and the author, this time, is known. "A cynic," said Oscar Wilde, "is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."
Is that the collective road we are traveling? Let me hire a consulting firm, run the numbers and find out. Or perhaps we just need to look around and see that success is much more than numbers, and a lot more fun. Just ask the Detroit Tigers -- or the European Ryder Cup team.
Ron Sirak is the executive editor of Golf World magazine
