hall of skill
One of the things I love best about blogging is watching a conversation take off. Last week’s Hall of Fame ballot got the prolific ladies blogging their views about who should (and shouldn’t) be associated with the selection process, on the ballot or inducted into the Hall of Fame. Last week I ran into Eunice Rosen at the bridge club and we discussed it some, this week Stan and I bounced some thoughts around too.
Judy Kay-Wolff, blogging’s grande dame, summed her position up like this:
I believe the time has arrived to put a halt to the absurd defamation of the ACBL Hall of Fame and honor it by the induction of only OUR VERY, VERY BEST — emulating the superb judgment exercised in the sports field to revere their legendary all-time greats mentioned in my introduction. To do otherwise and elect even one player with credentials substandard to those of our top bridge heroes and heroines would undermine the lofty ideals of its founders!
Everyone agrees that truly exceptional players should be granted entrance to the hallowed Hall, but deciding which exceptional players can prove tricky indeed. Judy looks to Cooperstown for a shining example of a properly administered and appropriately selective Hall of Fame. Linda Lee over at BridgeBlogging, weighing in from Canada, also looks to baseball as a good example of a process for selecting honorees that’s better than ACBL’s.
Though I’m a big fan of the game, I don’t know the first thing about baseball’s Hall of Fame — but reading the ladies’ take on ours made me curious. Does it surprise you to learn that Baseball has, on occasion, inducted into its Hall of Fame personalities of “substandard” baseball skill whose contributions to the game (in other capacities) were nevertheless spectacular? I browsed this list and found several Hall of Famers who weren’t inducted for their player records. Like Harry Wright from Sheffield, England who broke into the majors at age 41, played two seasons and went on to be elected into the baseball Hall of Fame as an “Executive” by virtue of being the man credited with professionalizing the game at the end of the US Civil War.
The Sporting Life later gave this assessment of Wright’s contribution to baseball and the country: Every magnate in the country is indebted to this man for the establishment of baseball as a business, and every patron for furnishing him with a systematic recreation. Every player is indebted to him for inaugurating an occupation by which he gains a livlihood, and the country at large for adding one more industry to furnish employment. (Geoffrey C. Ward, Baseball: An Illustrated History (New York: Knopf, 1994), 23.)
In my opinion, the players who didn’t excel on the field of play but went on to be winning managers and valuable back-office contributors — like Wright, or Bill Veeck, or Kenesaw Landis — shouldn’t be shut out at voting time in Baseball or in Bridge. Does this have anything to do with seeing my beloved on the ACBL’s ballot? It does not — we had a lot of this same conversation last year (vis a vis Rose Meltzer). We’ll probably have it again next year. For the record though, I’m with future-hall-of-famer Fred Gitelman: “It is the Hall of Fame — not the Hall of Skill.”
Published by stacy on January 21st, 2010 tagged Bridge | 7 Comments »
it’s that time again
Time flies, eh? Hall of Fame ballots came out last week, and since we played along with the ACBL electors last year, I figured we’d do it again this year. Last year somebody wrote in and asked if I was pulling for any particular candidate. I wasn’t then, but I most certainly am now. Vote along with me — our votes won’t count, but our rank-and-file voices can still be heard. Write in candidates are welcome in the comments. You may vote for up to three candidates you feel worthy of induction into the Hall of Fame. The 2010 nominees:
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2010 Hall of Fame Candidates Marty Bergen. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF World International Master. Ten NABC national wins and ten second place finishes, also the Cavendish Invitational Teams and Pairs. Invented many conventions and treatments, including: Bergen Raises, DONT, Bromad, The Rule of 20, 1NT Semiforcing BOAR bids, THRUMP Doubles by responder, Jacoby preaccepts, 2-Way reverse Drury, Jump Q= Transfer to NT, many other artificial raises, switched minor after 1S overcalls, Keycard 4C after preempts, many artificial 2NT bids, 2-under transfer preempts. Author of 22 bridge books, including Points Schmoints, ABTA Book of the Year winner. (Appeared on 2009 ballot) David Berkowitz. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF World International Master, WBF Senior Life Master. Holds twenty-three NABC titles and twenty-two second place finishes. Owns a second and two third place finishes in world championship play. Won the Pan American Championships Open temas in 1992, the Mott-Smith Trophy in 1992, the Goren (Herman) trophy 1991, the Cap Gemini World Top Invitational Pairs in 1999. David is the past president of the GNYBA, a frequent lecturer and analyst and is on the editorial staff of The Bridge World. (New to the ballot in 2010) Bart Bramley. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF World International Master, WBF Senior Life Master. Holds twelve NABC titles and eleven second-place finishes. Won the WBF Senior Bowl in 2007 and the Transnational Teams in 2005. Second in the World Par Contest in 1998, ACBL Player of the Year in 1997. Captain of the US Open Olympiad Team 1996 (Rhodes). Member of ACBL Ethical Oversight Committee; Member of ACBL Competition and Conventions Committee. (Appeared on 2009 ballot) Mildred Breed. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF Women’s World Grand Master. Winner of fifteen NABC Women’s titles, eight second-place finishes. Two gold medals in World Championship competition, a silver and three bronzes as well. (Appeared on 2009 ballot) George Jacobs. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF World International Master. Ten NABC titles, six second-place finishes. Owns the highest percentage in a National Open Pairs game in history as certified by the ACBL (78.31%), a game in which every board was over average. Only person in history to win back-to-back Herman trophies, posted an 82.69% game in the National BAM, won a silver medal in the 2007 Bermuda Bowl and bronze in the 2000 Olympiad. Popular ACBL bulletin columnist, sought-after viewgraph commentator, frequent speaker at National, Regional and Sectional tournaments and Junior camps. Two-time Master of Ceremonies at the Hall of Fame banquet, Master of Ceremonies and speaker at the annual Bridge Teachers Association meeting, Auctioneer at the Cavendish Invitational, member of the USBF Board of Directors and the International Team Trials Committee. (New to the ballot in 2010) Karen McCallum. ACBL Emerald Life Master, WBF Women’s World Grand Master. Thirteen NABC Women’s and Mixed titles, seven seconds; five World Championship gold medals, two silver. Edited Larry Cohen’s Law of Total Tricks, Michael Rosenberg’s Bridge, Zia and Me. Contributor or panelist for Bridge Today and The Bridge World, the Turkish bridge magazine, the Australian Bridge Magazine, Bridge Forum International and many others. (Appeared on 2009 ballot) Rose Meltzer. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF World Grand Master, WBF Women’s World International Master, WBF Seniors Life Master. Three Open, one Women’s and one Mixed NABC titles, four second-place finishes in NABC majors. Five WBF World Championship gold medals (Bermuda bowl, Rosenblum Cup, Transnational Open Teams and twice the Senior Teams). (Appeared on 2009 ballot) John Mohan. ACBL Grand Life Master. WBF World Life Master, WBF Senior International Master. Fifteen NABC titles, seven second-place finishes. Third in the World Open Pairs in 1978. Won the Transnational Mixed Teams in 2000, the World Transnational Senior Teams in 2000, owns a second and two third place finishes in World Seniors teams/pairs. Won the Herman trophy in 1977, was Soloway Player of the Year in 1999. Has twice won the South African National Teams and once the South African National Pairs. (Appeared on previous ballots) Tobi Sokolow. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF Women’s World Grand Master. Fourteen NABC titles and nine seconds, three WBF World Championship Women’s titles, two second place finishes and three third-place finishes. Has won the Women’s team trials a record six times. Winner of the Generali Women’s World Individual in 20o4 and the Open European Women’s Championship in 2005. Won the 2002 von Zedwitz Life Master Pairs (first woman since 1978 to do so). (Appeared on 2009 ballot) John Sutherlin. ACBL Grand Life Master, WBF World International Master, WBF Seniors Life Master. Nine NABC titles and nine second place finishes in major NABC events. Bronze medalist in the 1990 Rosenblum, also holds one gold, one silver and two bronze medals in World Championship Seniors competitions. Along with his wife, Peggy, co-Goodwill Members of the Year for 2008. Past Chairman of the Ethical Oversight Committee. (Appeared on 2009 ballot) |
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Published by stacy on January 16th, 2010 tagged Bridge | 4 Comments »
going mobile
This morning I installed and am testing a mobile version of the blog — dial me up from your handheld and let me know what you think.
Published by stacy on January 13th, 2010 tagged Bridge | 1 Comment »
simplification
“The harder I work the luckier I get,” MGM’s Samuel Goldwyn is often quoted as having said. I’m banking on it being true for me, too. This morning I’ve been studying Rubens again, Chapter 4 (Probability Relationships) is exactly the sort of thing I for which I was hoping when I first sent away for the book.
If I can stick with it and read each paragraph carefully, I am hopeful that I’ll become one of those bridge players who can figure out the odds and be able to speak up like Bob when novices like me suggest bidding 20% slams. In addition to teaching us how to calculate the odds of, say, finding one of two finesses working, Rubens also reinforces something I can’t believe I didn’t know before age 40: “Generally, approaching a problem from the complementary point of view is advisable when the chance of failure is easier to calculate directly than the chance of success.”
Probably I’m just a freakishly late adopter on this — maybe I was a math student the year they didn’t teach the hints and shortcuts unit, because it rarely occurs to me to subtract when I want to find out “how many” of something. Better late than never, eh?
Published by stacy on January 12th, 2010 tagged Bridge | 3 Comments »
woo hoo!
Maddux is back in Chicago! The Cubs announced this afternoon that future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux will be back with the organization as assistant to the General Manager.
I am, you may recall, a huge Maddux fan.