Ouch!

13-1 Boston. Yikes. Paul wrote about this year’s World Series earlier tonight, forecasting a Red Sox win, but this is ridiculous. Here is a word of hope, though, for Rockies fans: the first game of the World Series is generally won by the team with Series experience, and says little about the eventual outcome. I can’t offhand prove that this is true, but Paul, who took a college statistics course for the sole purpose of improving his annual baseball predictions, did the research and told me this many years ago. Right, Paul? Or is Kelly Linton my source? That would be quite a different matter…
PAUL responds: It sounds like something I might have said, though I’m not confident that it holds up now or did then. Surely, the team that wins the first game has a nice advantage. It’s possible that the advantage is not quite as large if the winning team has more Series experience than the loser, but I don’t think I’d bet on this proposition.
On the other hand, I do remember betting on the Detroit Tigers, and getting good odds from John, after they had lost the first game of the 1968 World Series to St. Louis. The Cardinals had substantial World Series experience (1964 and 1967) and the Tigers had none. Detroit went on to win the Series in seven games.
I did take the stats course in the hope of improving my baseball predictions. My predictions became more elegant, but not more accurate. What I learned has come in handy at times in litigation, though.