The Sports Gene by David Epstein

"I use Grammarly's plagiarism checker because I'd rather I make money from my writing than someone else."*

If you had to read just one book this year, make it this one. 

Some time ago, I read a lovely book called The Genius Factory by David Plotz, which discusses a completely bonkers project to unleash the power of Nobel Prize winners by harnessing their sperm and then extends into a larger discussion on nature vs. nurture. The Sports Gene by Epstein takes this popular debate into the arena of sports and discusses several controversial questions while ensuring the reader is never bored for a moment.

Here is a short & lovely story about how the author got started on his book.

I began reading the book, thanks to a lovely teaser chapter in Sports Illustrated where he discusses how/why the very best baseball players could not handle a softball pitcher, a woman, to queer the pitch, in an already hormone-charged sport (all puns intended).

I didn't even know that running would be such a big theme in the book. Once I learnt that the author was an accomplished collegiate runner himself, before he embarked upon a career in writing, I was even more interested, being a wannabe writer and an amateur runner myself.

Starting with that discussion on baseball sluggers and softball pitchers and the role of talent, skills, training and context and the role of differences between those aspects in those two sports, Epstein grabs the reader from the first chapter. It is not material if you don't understand American sports such as baseball although your reading pleasure would perhaps increase if you did.

The author switches between discussing research, especially of the less-popular variety and conventional thought on the role of talent and training in the lives of sportspersons, peppering the book with some fantastic anecdotes on several sports legends.

One thing which becomes quickly apparent to the reader is the author's grief with the so-called 10,000 hr rule which gained notoriety/currency thanks to Malcolm Gladwell's writing. Epstein devotes quite some effort to deconstructing that myth & consequent over-simplification of the path to athletic success which has stemmed from it. The reader could be forgiven for thinking parts of the book are almost an exasperated, if very-educated rant against such superficial and eye-catching but inaccurate/half-baked observations. Using the examples as diverse of football players (soccer players to Americans), NBA athletes, winter Olympic champions and of course, Kenyan runners, the author passionately highlights both the role of genes and rigorous practice/training. He makes it even more interesting by writing about animals especially dogs in racing of both short and long distance events. There's also examination of the difference between sexes, thanks to genetics.

The book is so well written that the reader could pretty much start with any chapter and read them in any order, thanks to the brilliant writing and perspective the author brings to his writing. Even if you were a researcher and not just someone looking for a good read on sports, the book provides you enough food for thought.

I would particularly recommend it if you have some role to play in the development of a child who is interested in sports.

As your bonus for reading this post, here's a chapter that was dropped from the book, which still makes compelling reading. It gives you a flavour of why Epstein is considered as a must-have participant for debates on talent and performance in sports by my favourite sports scientist.

The book was a finalist at the 2013 William Hill Sports Book of the year awards and is likely to be top of the list for most sports buffs for a while.

Must Read.

*The 1st line of this post is thanks to some support from the nice folks at Grammarly

Good Sport, Bad Sport

The last two weeks have seen remarks by two people who have not achieved great popularity otherwise.
One was John McCain who made a tremendously graceful exit from the soap opera that was the US elections. The other was Ricky Ponting, who while conceding the loss to India in the match and the series, gave all credit to India. Not for once did he whine. I thought that reflects well on Ricky as a sportsman. I think he has received a lot of unnecessary flak for the decision to bowl irregular bowlers at the death of the Indian innings. People should have the balls to stand by their decisions. And he has not been a complete failure either, anymore than his counterpart's performance with the bat.

It is extremely easy to make arm-chair comments (and I make my fair share!). India has screwed up enough times in the past with more obvious situations. Nag the aussies for the right stuff. Even now, it is quite weird why Dada was forced out by what I think was the Vengsarkar lobby. The jerk, formerly chairman of selectors made a dent in the confidence of more than 1 player in the Indian team, by making comments all the time, much of it, unwanted. I am glad he is out. Srikanth while being something of a nut himself is perhaps much better for the team. Lets see.

And before we leave, goodbye and good luck to Dada and Jumbo. While the latter has not rubbed too many people the wrong way, the former has and we love him for it. While Jumbo brought a fairly quiet performance ethic to his game, save for the telling comment at Sydney, Dada never minced his words. And we are fans of both. We believe that Indian sport needs some kick in the backside once in a while. Dada delivered it with some spunk.

Dutch Soup

The Dutch team, until today, my favourites to win the Euro 2008 were outplayed by the Russians.
The following were the reasons they lost
- Arjen Robben didn't play (I am not sure whether he was out injured)
- Robin Van Persie didn't start. The Dutch as a result played like a crippled team making attacks only down the right side. The moment he came on, there was some action on both fronts.
- Nistelrooy should have been replaced. Bouhlarouz got substituted when he was playing well
- The Russians marked their men perfectly except for the solitary goal they conceded and the Dutch seemed to have no clue how to react
- The Russians also played their own version of Total Football by having only 2 men manning their D for most of the time, while the Dutch had as many as 7 men at one point in time handling the mercurial strikers Andrei Arshavin & Pavlyuchenko who toyed with the Dutch defence especially after the exit of Khalid Bouhlarouz

Tragedy. But the Dutch have only themselves to blame. The young Dutch team also looked deflated from the beginning as if they were coming off a viral attack while they were supposed to have had an extra day's rest. Am sure there must have been something wrong in planning as well :(

I guess I will now watch only the highlights and goals

Euro 2008: Italy vs. Netherlands

What a demonstration of good football!
Only sore point of the match was the extremely obvious (to everyone but the linesman) offside. Time for the equivalent of the 3rd umpire?

Anyways, Italy's fate was sealed by the statistic of more than half the squad being over 30. The Dutch, by contrast had enough fresh blood to make a blue whale feel rejuvenated. Until Del Piero appeared, the absence of fine talent was painfully visible to anyone watching. Luca Toni didn't get enough passes and Dinatale despite trying hard was alone in his efforts. Other than Del Piero, Zambrotta was the only one who was trying hard and looking threatening. The rest were as if they were nursing hangovers.

And the likes of Materazzi and the rest of the defence played like schoolkids learning to play football. When was the last time you saw 6 guys chasing 2?!

The Dutch with new, young players demonstrated a fantastic brand of football - fast accurate passes and incredibly quick counter attacks - 1 of which yielded the best goal of Euro 2008, so far. Both Wesley Sneijder & Ibrahim Afellay demonstrated energy, skill and speed. The Italians demonstrated lack of coordination, old age and sluggishness. Hope they recover from this. Maybe Buffon should rest. He has been speaking too much and working too little. After the defence failed on the 1st 2 goals, the attack left more Italians in the Dutch half for more time than in theirs in a rush to attack, resulting in a silly lapse and another goal.

Where art thou Paulo?!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all the readers of this blog and others as well :)
Have a healthy and a very happy new year ahead

I wanted to join the bandwagon Down Under, but Roebuck made my task simpler.
As I was telling H, for once, Roebuck has written like a true cricket lover without letting his country of residence over-rule his sense of judgement.

There are also 2 new members on my blogroll - both people I admire, one who serves as my investment guru and another who is currently leading a life I would have fun leading

A Farewell to Charm?

Amit Varma had recently written about the issue of doping in sports
arguing with 2 reasons to relook at doping. The first was that it will become impossible to catch dopers and
the second was that using performance- enhancing drugs will no longer seem an ethical
problem. While the latter seems more possible, as Amit himself argues,
we may be looking at the wrong glass. Amit’s idiomatic, (schizophrenic!) glass (half-full/half empty?) being represented by a lot of dopers being caught these days and its pessimistic twin - that of doping being a lot more widespread. But then again, the glass Amit is looking at is not the same as what we should look at, according to me.

Sometime ago, my sports fanatic buddy, H and I had this long argument on the same issue, before work intervened to ensure we justified our salaries and returned to more worldly matters;) H's argument then was similar to Amit's. H though has had a rethink on his stance now.

My reasoning is based on a rather old fashioned attitude. The reason a lot of us follow sport is that it offers vicarious victories and defeats to us. We grow up admiring sportsmen and some of them become role models for us. We see the reflection of a part of ourselves in our heroes and perhaps think we could have done something with our talents had we had 100% control over our lives. Now, if that aspiration is left at the mercy of doping, there is little else to
look up to sports for. I think Amit's argument is largely economic. I don't think performance in sports must be viewed only from an economic lens.

A recent incident where Sachin donated a bat from one of his historic knocks to the Bradman museum drummed up the argument against purely economic reasons for decision making. Would it have been more economic for Sachin to open his own museum and place this as one of his exhibits?

Similarly, would you rather look at Mark Taylor's bat from his knock of 334 where he declared at the same score that Bradman had set and express your admiration for the same or would you rather be pleased looking at Hayden's bat for the (currently) highest individual
Australian score? Your answer to this question would largely determine your stance on the doping argument. It is about making the choice against charm. It is known that Taylor declared fully aware that he was level with Bradman's score and one more would have taken him past
that Australian icon. Hayden went about his business overhauling the same score with little fuss. It is not that Hayden has any less respect for the history of Australian cricket but I would argue that his sense of charm for the sport is not comparable to Taylor's.

Further, there is a certain charm in competing on fair grounds.
There is a definite contentment derived from knowing that your hero is unblemished. Surely Ben Johnson's legion of fans (if there are any left) cannot be comparable to that of Michael Johnson. Surely you would rather support Paula Radcliffe (in a sport close to my heart)
rather than support Katrine Krabbe, regardless of which nation you belonged to.

If doping is legalized, the Olympics will largely turn into a contest between pharma companies if you asked me. In that case, I would say lets do away with the concept of nations competing against each other and just decide on performance of molecules.

And finally, the other argument of legalizing something only because it is difficult or impossible to catch up with the wrongdoers, is a whole can of worms waiting to be unleashed. For one, we should then invite the legendary Pakistani hackers to Janpath and make them admin
for nic.in since we can't match their wits anyways.

However, one note of anxiety which dominates my own mind these days, is that of whether I will soon read about the ungracious fall from glory of yet another sporting hero of mine. A recent case in point being Alexander Vinokourov who had ascended a pedestal in my mind due
to his tribute to one of his Kazhaki comrades a few years ago. However when the unthinkable happens, I shall perform my own mental funeral service to my fallen hero, I will continue to argue for keeping doping away from sports. It is fine if I don't find newer, cleaner ones
to fill that space.

Seizing the Saturday

Frequently I am accused of writing mostly on running, reading or quizzing, all three fond loves. Considering that my life outside work is not enough to do much else, (not that I would want to do anything else currently,) that is mostly what I write about.

Occasionally, something nice outside the above trio comes my way and I do seize the moment. Yesterday, someone who is currently a coach of sorts to me, for running and other stuff, called up and asked whether I would want to sit in the corporate box to watch India play Pakistan. This has been my only other live cricket match experience, the other one having been a Kar vs TN Ranji fixture at the same venue more than a decade ago. So I eagerly assented and watched Yuvi and Dada, first rescue India and then punish Pakistan. There is a certain masculine delight in hearing the bat hit the ball and go thwack! Thanks Commander.

I also managed to see the movie Maqbool, y’day after almost few years of waiting to see it. Good watch. Really nice background score and my crush on Tabu continues to strengthen.

Finished reading another book in the week by Bryson. Now onto Keay.

And finally, I was a little sad to discover that I missed the selections for the Indian Scrabble team that is on in Bangalore from this morning and continues till t’row evening. Considering I read it only an hour before it closed for the day, I am not very unhappy, especially since a pleasant lady answered the phone when I called the club. And they being the nice people they are, they invited me to join them to just play in weekends or for other scrabble events in the future. Now I have another hobby to cultivate every Saturday evening. If you are also a scrabbler or even just a word-maniac, join the Scrabblers on Saturdays.

Whither Vino?

Is it time to say, well done Vino for the Tour De France 2007?
Well there are 6 more days of cycling. But after today's race in which Vino lost 29 min, I don't think he will get the maillot jaune this year. He is now 34 mins+ behind :(
While I was hoping that he would win this year, an accident ruined his chances. He had set hopes aflutter y'day when he won the time trials with 50 stitches on his knees after the accident, but today destroyed all of y'day's work.
I am more shocked to learn that he is 34 and has perhaps little chance of a repeat performance of hard work that he has shown over the years. But then Lance won his last when he was around the same age and Vino was the only guy who matched him move for move in 2005 although Basso came 2nd.
Hope Team Astana can sock it to the other teams t'row and for the next 5 days.
Good luck to him.
I think that Contador is a definite contender for the Tour sometime soon although Kloeden (also Team Astana) can also upset calculations this year itself. He has lived far too long in the shadow of teammates such as Uhlrich.

Weekend Sport

The Tour De France 2007 has kicked off y’day. Ferrari is back to its winning ways. But the day belongs to Roger Federer.

But who won our hearts? Rafa, without doubt. He showed himself to be a complete sportsman, scowling when down and playing like a man possessed at all times. If only, he had a better serve or better luck. The golden cup would have been his for the first time.

Instead it went to the same man for the fifth consecutive time. He was humble in his victory, acknowledging the generous dollop of luck that came his way and also paying tribute to Borg, the man whose record on the very same lawns, he matched today. We also liked the custom made signage on his kit - with four little symbols - a derivative of the Swiss flag and some golden tints matching the rest of his Nike gear. There should be fifth one soon.

We think that Fedex is unnerved whenever he plays Rafa, whatever the surface. Rafa on the other hand just plays. Most of his brilliant shots disappear. He plays mostly defensive spin shots for return of serve. Until the last set, he rarely played the blistering forehand shot that he plays a lot, against lesser opponents. In fact his best play of the match was one ace, served at 129 mph. Rafa simply had no answer to that one, despite being in the right place and perfectly poised. Some psyching up is needed. We recommend Lance Armstrong, the maniac with the incredible VO2 max, among other things.

Maria Sharapova who played Venus, was asked about a similar issue – whether she has problems when she plays one of the Williams sisters, considering her poor record against them. She gave a reply befitting a champion. She said that she has been number 1 before and she has won Grand Slams and hence, stuff such as that should not matter. But if you saw that match, you would agree with me that the Williams sisters should really be playing along with men. They are simply too strong for the women a la Judith Polgar.