I predict Sammy Sosa will hit another home run this season. I predict Dick Vitale will talk a lot, Patrick Ewing will walk a lot and Bob Knight will balk a lot when the whistles turn against him.
There. That feels better. Downright blissful, even.
Please forgive the mind-numbing obviousness of the above statements. I merely wanted to experience the feeling of having a prediction I’ve made in print come true.
Sports predictions are to science what an 8-year-old boy is to his bedroom. Messy. Predictions are borderline necessary in this business. They raise interest, spark debate and offer insight for readers.
They further the water-cooler interest in sports. Without predictions, sports-talk radio would be duller than it already is. Predictions, allowing writers to stray from the factual, can be fun and carefree.
And granted, those of us who cover sports for a living are privy to context and information that make our guesses at least educated ones. But predictions remain exactly that–guesses.
I figure, which is not a prediction, that if one were to find 100 predictions from 100 newspapers across the country, the sportswriters who made them would be correct less than half the time. Do that on the playing field and you’re out of a job.
Luckily, predictions make up an extremely small part of our job.
During last year’s NBA Finals, I wrote stories on Michael Jordan every day for two weeks and slanted them with the feel that this was it, that he would retire. This was, of course, based on his feelings for Phil Jackson and his statements that he would not play for another coach.
But Jordan had changed his mind before. Thus, my prediction was based more on a gut feeling and a read on human nature than anything else.
Hey, one out of a career isn’t too shabby. To paraphrase, even a blind journalist finds a correct nut paragraph once in a while.
But for the most part, making a correct prediction is the exception rather than the norm.
To wit: In my first season covering hockey, I purchased a first-class ticket on the bandwagon at the All-Star break and predicted Philadelphia would win the Stanley Cup. I also gazed into my cracked crystal ball and declared that Montreal’s Mark Recchi and Calgary’s Theo Fleury would not be traded as rent-a-players before their unrestricted free agent status kicked in this off-season.
If memory serves–and you know, it’s just so darn hard keeping track of these things–the Flyers collapsed like some cheap beach chair, barely made the playoffs and unceremoniously bowed out in the first round . . . with Mark Recchi, whom they acquired from Montreal and promptly signed to a long-term contract, as one of their players.
Get me rewrite.
Then, before the playoffs began, I brilliantly and breathlessly got charmed by Detroit’s daring deadline-day dealing and wrote that the Wings would storm to a third consecutive Stanley Cup championship. Never mind that no team had done so since the New York Islanders in 1983.
Never mind a loaded Colorado squad, bolstered by the addition of a guy named Theo Fleury. Never mind a steady, veteran-laden Dallas team that had claimed the Presidents’ Trophy as the regular season’s best and was the team I predicted in that All-Star break story to lose to Philadelphia in the finals. Talk about your fickle predictors.
Nope. I was blind to them all. Detroit would make hockey history, beating New Jersey, of course, and I would crow about my foresight all off-season to whomever would listen.
When I told Chris Chelios I predicted his new team would win the Stanley Cup, he faced me with a look somewhere south of excitement and closer to amusement. Must have been somewhat similar to the look he wore when Colorado dusted Detroit in the second round, which is one round further than New Jersey had traveled.
Did I mention this was my first season covering hockey?
I had one last shot when Dallas and Buffalo won their respective conference championships. Two teams playing for one title with only one right answer. Even with an English degree, I figured I had a 50-50 chance on this one.
I weighed Dallas’ experience against Buffalo’s rock-solid unwillingness to be flustered. I considered Dallas’ exceptional penalty killing and Buffalo’s powerful power play. I mulled over Dominik Hasek’s dominance and Ed Belfour’s newfound maturity and Michael Peca’s toughness and Joe Nieuwendyk’s hunger.
And then I typed the following words: Dallas in six games.
For those who couldn’t stay awake well past midnight last Saturday night and have lived in a cave since, Dallas beat Buffalo in six games to win the Stanley Cup. Thus, I’m retiring from the world of prognostication at the tender age of 31.
That’s my prediction. You read it here first. And, as always, accuracy is optional.
