Blue Jays / en The Blue Jays and the ballot box: did Stroman send you to the polls? /news/blue-jays-and-ballot-box-did-stroman-send-you-polls <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">The Blue Jays and the ballot box: did Stroman send you to the polls?</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-10-19T06:32:05-04:00" title="Monday, October 19, 2015 - 06:32" class="datetime">Mon, 10/19/2015 - 06:32</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">(photo by recreation via flickr)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/arthur-kaptainis" hreflang="en">Arthur Kaptainis</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Arthur Kaptainis</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/features" hreflang="en">Features</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/blue-jays" hreflang="en">Blue Jays</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/sports" hreflang="en">Sports</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/innis-college" hreflang="en">Innis College</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/election-2015" hreflang="en">Election 2015</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/election" hreflang="en">Election</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/utsc" hreflang="en">UTSC</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżexperts on the connection between politics and sports</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Monday is the day of decision across the country. Will Canadians flock to the polling stations or watch the Toronto Blue Jays battle back from a 2-0 deficit against the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series?</p> <p>These are not mutually exclusive options. Could there be a link between exercising your democratic rights and cheering on the team?</p> <p>“The question of whether the good feelings and community spirit generated by sports victories spill over into the political arena has long been speculated on,” notes Professor <strong>Bruce Kidd</strong>, vice-president and principal of University of Toronto Scarborough.</p> <p>The Progressive Conservatives had hoped the combination of Team Canada’s victory in the 1987 Canada Cup hockey tournament and worldwide approval of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary would give Canadians confidence that Canada had nothing to fear from international competition, says Kidd. It was a&nbsp;feeling with relevance to the federal election of November 1988, fought substantially on the issue of free trade,&nbsp;which the Tories won with a majority.</p> <p>In 1971, Kidd adds, the Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau created Sport Canada as a mechanism to boost support for high-performance athletes.&nbsp;The belief was that victories in international competition give Canadians a better sense of themselves.</p> <p>“But of course, how do you measure such a effect?” he asks. “It's almost impossible. So I'm reluctant to say anything about the spillover effect of the Jays.”</p> <p><strong>David Roberts</strong>, a lecturer in urban studies at Innis College, is likewise open to the possibility of a Blue Jays election boost but doubtful that any means exist to subject the phenomenon to scientific analysis.</p> <p>“There are lots of things that drive voter turnout,” he says. “I have read that there have been record numbers of people voting in early polls, even while these polls were on days when the Jays faced elimination.”</p> <p>It was natural, he adds, for political leaders to embrace the Blue Jays – while paradoxically avoiding games to prevent the perception of having jinxed the team in the event of a loss. This alone establishes a connection.</p> <p>It also makes clear that the Blue Jays have become Canada’s team, and not just a phenomenon of interest to Torontonians. Fans from all over western Canada descended on Seattle late in the regular season.</p> <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0" height="270" id="flashObj" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&amp;isUI=1"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=4562701883001&amp;linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportsnet.ca%2Fshows%2Ftim-and-sid-show%2Fstroman-vote-early-then-go-crazy-for-your-blue-jays%2F&amp;playerID=2513591680001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAAGWRwLc~,cRCmKE8Utf5uJwBuioSF4psFywRcHOq4&amp;domain=embed&amp;dynamicStreaming=true"><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com"><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashvars="videoId=4562701883001&amp;linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportsnet.ca%2Fshows%2Ftim-and-sid-show%2Fstroman-vote-early-then-go-crazy-for-your-blue-jays%2F&amp;playerID=2513591680001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAAGWRwLc~,cRCmKE8Utf5uJwBuioSF4psFywRcHOq4&amp;domain=embed&amp;dynamicStreaming=true" height="270" name="flashObj" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" seamlesstabbing="false" src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&amp;isUI=1" swliveconnect="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"></object> <p>Has the animosity often alleged to exist between Toronto and Canadians from other parts of the country been suspended?</p> <p>“These tensions have roots and manifestations that go beyond a shared hope for the success of the Blue Jays,” Roberts says. “Even though the Jays are intimately connected to the city of Toronto, fans from other parts of the country find it easy to disconnect the two.”</p> <p>If there has been one downer in the pennant drive, it was surely the episode in the series with the Texas Rangers in which fans threw beer cans on the field of the Rogers Centre after a controversial decision. An image of a mother and infant in distress was widely disseminated.</p> <p>“Of course this behaviour cannot be condoned,” Roberts says. “But I hope we can place these acts beside the crowds that gathered to celebrate at the intersection of Yonge and Dundas. They took over the streets, but only during red lights, dispersing when traffic needed to pass.</p> <p>“There are lots of ways in which people chose to celebrate victory after what was a bizarre and at times quite tense game. Most did not involve throwing beer. Hopefully those are more formative of the city’s image.”</p> <p>Kidd, an Olympian and gold medalist in the 1962 Commonwealth Games, is philosophical about the beer-throwing outburst (which led the Blue Jays organization to announce a review of the policy of selling beer in cans).</p> <p>“The beer-throwing incident did not reflect well upon the image of Toronto,” he said. “But&nbsp;such incidents are more characteristic of the atmosphere of professional sport than the cities where they occur. I do not think it will do much damage.”&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-10-19-Election2015_baseball-sized.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 19 Oct 2015 10:32:05 +0000 sgupta 7360 at Toronto Blue Jays’ psychologist on the importance of channeling emotions, maintaining perspective /news/toronto-blue-jays-psychologist-importance-channeling-emotions-maintaining-perspective <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Toronto Blue Jays’ psychologist on the importance of channeling emotions, maintaining perspective</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-10-16T11:19:23-04:00" title="Friday, October 16, 2015 - 11:19" class="datetime">Fri, 10/16/2015 - 11:19</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">The Toronto Blue Jays celebrate the AL East win in Baltimore (photo by Keith Allison via flickr)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/carolyn-morris" hreflang="en">Carolyn Morris</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Carolyn Morris</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/sports" hreflang="en">Sports</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/psychology" hreflang="en">Psychology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/medicine" hreflang="en">Medicine</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/international" hreflang="en">International</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/blue-jays" hreflang="en">Blue Jays</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">A Q &amp; A with Professor Brian Shaw </div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The Toronto Blue Jays face the Kansas City Royals tonight&nbsp;in the American League Championship Series, after a riveting duel with the Texas Rangers.</p> <p>Fans who&nbsp;witnessed&nbsp;the team’s rocky start in its last game and smashing comeback after a seventh-inning outrage likely feel psychology&nbsp;plays a key role on the field. But what does the Jays' own psychologist say?</p> <p>Faculty of Medicine writer <strong>Carolyn Morris </strong>spoke with Jays’ psychologist and ¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżprofessor <strong>Brian Shaw</strong> to find out more about the mental fine points of the sport.</p> <hr> <p><strong>What are the most important psychological barriers you need to work on with high-level athletes like the Jays?</strong></p> <p>For elite performers – from high-level athletes to surgeons or litigators – one of the biggest challenges is to maintain perspective. Despite the high stakes and huge pressures, it is key for the players to remember that baseball is still a game. It’s a sport – it’s challenging and difficult – but it’s also supposed to be fun. This isn’t an easy sell, especially considering everything that’s riding on these games and how many of these elite athletes tend to be very self-critical. When used for improvement and learning, this self-criticism can be OK. But not when it’s used for abuse and judgment. So this is where things like “stir the pot” or chanting in some sports come in, they’re bonding exercises and they lighten the pressure and bring some perspective back.&nbsp;</p> <p>The second thing is energy management. Most athletes have no problem getting charged up for a game, in fact they often get supercharged. And that’s where you make mistakes. So you have to calm your excitement levels to the extent that you can perform.</p> <p>The third thing we work on is visualization and mental imagery, to be ready to act in a sequence of events. And the fourth is working on focus. Keeping your mind on the game despite screaming fans, the lights, the action and everything else. You have to get to the point where none of this will affect you.</p> <p><strong>In the fifth game against the Texas Rangers, what effect do you think the anger over the 7th inning incident – where the Rangers scored after the catcher’s throw hit the bat – could have had on the team’s performance? They seemed to launch into a wildly successful comeback right after that.</strong>&nbsp;</p> <p>I think it’s a fight or flight scenario, so incidents like that can give players a lot of energy. Anxiety and anger are kissing cousins, though, and you have to watch out because outright anger can lead to swinging wildly or doing too much. I think the anger was channeled. Instead of losing it, you need to be able to keep calm enough to perform at your best. When everyone’s losing their heads around you, elite athletes have learned how to keep their energy and excitement in check.</p> <p><strong>What strategies are most successful for keeping your mind in the game?</strong></p> <p>There’s a long history of chanting and singing in sports like soccer and rugby, and many sports have these types of bonding exercises, which keep the fun in the game. Other techniques like deep-belly breathing and other ways of focusing and calming yourself down are common. Another big thing is visualization. Professional athletes probably do more homework in this area than university students! They go over what they need to do in any sequence of events repeatedly, using mental imagery. There are also a variety of concentration and attention techniques to practice quieting the mind to focus in on the game and avoid distraction.</p> <p><strong>How important is the role of the psychologist in high-level sports?</strong></p> <p>Professional sports teams have had psychologists on board for around 25 years. In the Olympics it’s been even longer. As teams look for how to improve performance to give them that edge, psychological factors have become important. Many athletes who have come this far already have a lot of the psychological skills – the mental toughness – but as the stakes get higher sometimes they need more support. It’s just like how most people can walk across a plank of wood when it’s six inches off the ground, but bring it up 600 feet and almost no one can do it. So the team psychologist is like another coach – like a Sherpa guide for the mind – helping strengthen the players’ psychological skills. At this point for the Jays I’m more of a maintenance worker, though, as they have more or less mastered these skills.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-10-16-blue-jays-celebration.jpg</div> </div> Fri, 16 Oct 2015 15:19:23 +0000 sgupta 7358 at Transforming Toronto: ¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżexperts on Blue Jays buzz /news/transforming-toronto-u-t-experts-blue-jays-buzz <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Transforming Toronto: ¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżexperts on Blue Jays buzz</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-10-08T09:36:41-04:00" title="Thursday, October 8, 2015 - 09:36" class="datetime">Thu, 10/08/2015 - 09:36</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">(photo by james_in_to via Flickr)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/arthur-kaptainis" hreflang="en">Arthur Kaptainis</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Arthur Kaptainis</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/city-culture" hreflang="en">City &amp; Culture</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/varsity-blues" hreflang="en">Varsity Blues</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/urban-studies" hreflang="en">Urban Studies</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/blue-jays" hreflang="en">Blue Jays</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/toronto" hreflang="en">Toronto</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/sport" hreflang="en">Sport</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/martin-prosperity-institute" hreflang="en">Martin Prosperity Institute</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-kinesiology-physical-education" hreflang="en">Faculty of Kinesiology &amp; Physical Education</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/cities" hreflang="en">Cities</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-subheadline field--type-string-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Subheadline</div> <div class="field__item">World Series fever may affect civic pride, fitness.. and the return of MLB to Montreal</div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>As a few hibernating mammals in the Arctic might not be aware, the Toronto Blue Jays are in the playoffs. The success of the team has galvanized the city, the country – and the campus.</p> <p>We asked ¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżexperts for their thoughts on the surge and what it might mean for Toronto, civic spirit and the potential of a victorious sports franchise to give fitness a boost.</p> <p>“There is no doubt the Blue Jays season is exciting and that a lot of people – Torontonians and others – are watching,” says <strong>David Roberts</strong>, a lecturer in urban studies at&nbsp;Innis College. “This brings together people of different walks of life, social locations and ages to share the experience of cheering on a winning team.</p> <p>“What that ultimately means for civic morale or pride or anything long term is much more difficult to measure and to predict. Part of the challenge of creating a greater impact is to figure out how to extend the feelings about the Blue Jays to the city of Toronto.</p> <p>“This is no small task and likely takes some visionary civic leadership.”</p> <p>Professor <strong>Michael Atkinson</strong> of the Faculty of Kinesiology &amp; Physical Education also sees the upswing in pride as temporary.</p> <p>“There is very little evidence to suggest that these feelings would remain when the tide of emotion ebbs, or that they would have a significant effect on long-term sport participation or population health."</p> <p>Nevertheless, the craze has some positive offshoots.</p> <p>“Baseball is much more diverse, inclusive and boundary-spanning sport than the other major professional sports in Canada,” Atkinson observes. “And as the Jays are the only major league baseball franchise in the country, they are collectively symbolized as Canada’s team.”</p> <p>Professor <strong>Richard Florida</strong> of the Rotman School of Management’s Martin Prosperity Institute accepts the Jays phenomenon as significant but situates it in a larger expansion of Toronto goodwill.</p> <p>“The Jays of course are part of it,” he says. “They are a great team. But it is bigger than the Jays. It is the Jays, the Raps, Drake, the Weekend. This is a big shift for our city.</p> <p>“I think the spur is Drake, actually. He is the guy who has really worked to give Toronto swag. He is the reason my 10- and 12-year-old nephews in the States know what Toronto is and tell me about ‘The 6.’”</p> <p>Will the Jays give college baseball a boost?</p> <p>“Interest in university and college baseball has been growing,” says Professor Emeritus <strong>Dan Lang</strong>, a former ¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżassistant vice-president of planning who served as head coach of the ¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżBlues for 13 seasons. “Ryerson now has a team, and the colleges have a league.&nbsp;</p> <p>“Every now and then a Canadian university player is scouted and signed by a major-league team. The Blue Jays host the annual OUA baseball all-star game.”</p> <p>That interest, Lang speculates, could trickle down to high school and community baseball leagues. And even watching baseball can train young players in the tactics of the sport.</p> <p>Could the Jays surge stimulate a general interest in fitness?</p> <p>“In a general sense the value of being physically fit is unusually visible in baseball because of the gruelling schedule,” Lang notes. “Unfortunately, the way baseball is televised, the warm-up routines are rarely shown.”</p> <p>Professor <strong>Bruce Kidd</strong>, the former Olympian who serves as vice-president and principal of University of Toronto Scarborough, is willing to concede the role of the Blue Jays in bringing Torontonians together. He is skeptical of any effect on fitness.</p> <p>“While the success of the Blue Jays gives many Torontonians great pride, and distances the embarrassment many of us felt during the Rob Ford years, there is little evidence to suggest that it has any impact on amateur sport or personal fitness,” he says.</p> <p>“In fact, the research is clear that ‘inspiration’ is not enough. New participation requires proactive outreach, knowledgeable, responsible leadership and accessible, sustainable opportunities.”</p> <p>But even if the effect on civic pride is temporary and the effect on fitness negligible, the 2015 Blue Jays phenomenon will leave Toronto with a better-educated populace. All those bandwagon-jumpers have learned a little about the game.</p> <p>“Whether or not the Blue Jays win, fans will have watched far more games than they otherwise would have this season,” Lang comments. “Maybe from here on, the new generation of Toronto fans will be as savvy as those in Boston, New York and St. Louis.”</p> <p>And the consequences of all this baseball-watching could extend beyond Toronto.</p> <p>“Here is my fearless forecast,” Lang says. “If the Blue Jays win World Series, the chances of major league baseball returning to Montreal will improve immensely. And that will be a big plus for Canada, even if it takes some of the wind from Toronto’s sails.”</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-10-08-blue-jays-uoft-experts.jpg</div> </div> Thu, 08 Oct 2015 13:36:41 +0000 sgupta 7339 at Will the Blue Jays clinch the World Series title? Q & A with statistics professor Jeffrey Rosenthal /news/will-blue-jays-clinch-world-series-title-q-statistics-professor-jeffrey-rosenthal <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Will the Blue Jays clinch the World Series title? Q &amp; A with statistics professor Jeffrey Rosenthal</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-10-08T05:55:22-04:00" title="Thursday, October 8, 2015 - 05:55" class="datetime">Thu, 10/08/2015 - 05:55</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">(Photo by Keith Allison via Flickr)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jelena-damjanovic" hreflang="en">Jelena Damjanovic</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Jelena Damjanovic</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/blue-jays" hreflang="en">Blue Jays</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/toronto" hreflang="en">Toronto</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/sports" hreflang="en">Sports</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/mathematics" hreflang="en">Mathematics</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/features" hreflang="en">Features</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>With&nbsp;the American League East title firmly in their back pocket, the Toronto Blue Jays are now focusing their attention on the World Series title, giving fans a reason to hope and rejoice.</p> <p>There hasn’t been much reason for either since the Blue Jays last won the World Series in 1993.</p> <p>But, the Jays’ fortune seems to be turning and <em>¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżNews</em> turns once again to professor <strong>Jeffrey Rosenthal</strong> for his take on their odds of clinching the World Series title again this year.<br> <br> Rosenthal&nbsp;is&nbsp;an award-winning professor in the department of statistics renowned for his ability to teach quantitiative reasoning to students who lack confidence in math&nbsp;and the&nbsp;bestselling author of <em>Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities</em>.</p> <div> <hr> <p><strong>What are the odds of the Blue Jays clinching the World Series title again after 22 years?</strong><br> Well, at this point, to become World Series champions, they have to win three different series along the way.&nbsp;Each of the three series will be against another top-level MLB team.&nbsp;So, naively, you could say the Jays have a 50 per cent&nbsp;chance of winning each series, so their chance of becoming champion is 50 per cent&nbsp;x 50 per cent&nbsp;x 50 per cent, or 1/8, or 12.5 per cent.<br> <br> Of course, you could try to nuance the probabilities a bit better, based on everything from regular-season records to pitcher rotations to home-field advantage and more, but it’s pretty tricky.<br> <br> <strong>Suppose you wanted to take the regular-season records into account.&nbsp; How might you do that?</strong><br> To take one possible approach, consider their first series, against the Texas Rangers.&nbsp;Now, the Blue Jays won 93 out of 162 games in the regular season, while the Rangers only won 88.&nbsp;So, you could approximate the probability of the Jays winning any one game against the Rangers as 93/(93+88), which is about 51.4 per cent.&nbsp;Assuming this, the chance of the Jays winning the best-of-five series then turns out (using the “binomial distribution”) to be slightly better, about 52.6 per cent. So, that’s a little bit better than 1/2, but not much.<br> <br> <strong>How would the probabilities play out in subsequent rounds?</strong><br> Well, in the next round they might face the Kansas City Royals, who won 95 regular-season games – two more than the Jays.&nbsp;This gives an estimate of about 49.5 per cent&nbsp;of the Jays beating the Royals in any one game, which turns out to give them (again using the “binomial distribution”)&nbsp;a probability of 48.8 per cent&nbsp;of winning the best-of-seven series there.<br> <br> If they win both of those series, then in the World Series their worst case would be to face the St. Louis Cardinals who won 100 regular-season games.&nbsp;If so, then their chance of winning any one&nbsp;game is about 48.2 per cent&nbsp;and their chance of winning the best-of-seven series is about 46.0 per cent.<br> <br> <strong>So according to this analysis, what is the probability that the Jays win the championship?</strong><br> Putting all of the above together, the Jays’&nbsp;chance of becoming world series champions is 52.6 per cent x 48.8 per cent x 46.0 per cent, which works out to 11.8 per cent –&nbsp;just slightly less than the naive estimate of 12.5 per cent.<br> <br> In short, I wish the Jays all the best, but I wouldn’t bet my life savings on them going all the way.</p> </div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-08-17-blue-jays-2_0.jpg</div> </div> Thu, 08 Oct 2015 09:55:22 +0000 sgupta 7336 at Will the Blue Jays make the playoffs? A statistics professor discusses the odds /news/will-blue-jays-make-playoffs-statistics-professor-discusses-odds <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Will the Blue Jays make the playoffs? A statistics professor discusses the odds</span> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>sgupta</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2015-08-17T09:28:47-04:00" title="Monday, August 17, 2015 - 09:28" class="datetime">Mon, 08/17/2015 - 09:28</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Photo of Toronto Blue Jays (above) by Keith Allison via Flicker</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/jelena-damjanovic" hreflang="en">Jelena Damjanovic</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-legacy field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Author legacy</div> <div class="field__item">Jelena Damjanovic</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/blue-jays" hreflang="en">Blue Jays</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/teaching" hreflang="en">Teaching</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/sports" hreflang="en">Sports</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/faculty-arts-science" hreflang="en">Faculty of Arts &amp; Science</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/top-stories" hreflang="en">Top Stories</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>After an impressive 11-game winning streak that thrilled longtime&nbsp;fans and attracted new ones, the Toronto&nbsp;Blue Jays faced the Yankees on August 14 with great expectations&nbsp;from the stands.</p> <p>They lost the game but is it possible to predict how the rest of the season will go?.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Jeffrey Rosenthal</strong>&nbsp;is&nbsp;an award-winning professor in the department of statistics <a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/teaching-and-learning-symposium">renowned for his ability to teach quantitiative reasoning to students who lack confidence in math</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;bestselling author of <em>Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities</em>.&nbsp;<em>¸ŁŔűź§×ÔÎżNews</em> spoke with Rosenthal about the likelihood of the Jays making the playoffs and other useful applications of statistics in the classroom and beyond.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Are you a baseball fan?</strong><br> Well, I'm a "fair-weather fan" –&nbsp;I don't follow baseball as closely as I used to, but when the Blue Jays are doing well, then I get excited along with everyone else. I can still remember the thrill I felt when Joe Carter hit his World-Series-winning home run back in 1993.</p> <p><strong>Is it possible to calculate the likelihood of Blue Jays making the playoffs?</strong><br> Yes and no. There are so many variables that it's impossible to take them all into account. But by making various simplifying assumptions, you can at least get a "rough" idea of what the odds are. But even rough estimates can be useful and insightful. &nbsp;</p> <p>It's kind of like repeatedly flipping a coin. You might get a few heads in a row, but you probably won't get <em>too</em> many heads before tails comes up. With the Jays, even if they have, say, a 60 per cent chance of winning each game (which is quite good), the probability of winning the next nine games in a row is only one per cent, i.e. very unlikely.&nbsp;That's why long winning streaks are very rare, even for good teams. And indeed, on Friday, the Jays finally lost, after 11 wins in a row.</p> <p><strong>So, what are the lottery jackpot odds?&nbsp;</strong><br> Since the success of my general-interest book, I am often contacted by the media to calculate all sorts of probabilities, from lotteries to opinion polls to crime statistics and games and contests and more.&nbsp;</p> <p>In some cases you can be very precise, like for lottery jackpot odds or simple gambling games. In other cases you have to be more creative and make more assumptions as you go, like for homicides or the Blue Jays.</p> <p>For the Lotto 6/49, to win the jackpot you have to choose the same six numbers between one and 49 as the lottery people do. The problem is, there are nearly fourteen million different ways of choosing those six numbers. So, your probability of winning the jackpot with one Lotto 6/49 ticket is about one chance in fourteen million – <em>extremely</em>&nbsp;unlikely.</p> <p>That's why I've never bought a ticket.</p> <p><strong>What are some other applications of statistics in the real world?</strong><br> There are so many, which is what makes the subject so interesting. In addition to sports and gambling, statistics are important for understanding crime rates and trends, demographic changes, medical studies, genetics and diseases, polls and marketing, physics and chemistry, financial markets, and so much more. &nbsp;</p> <p>Whenever we have data available, whether from an experiment or a survey or commercial transactions or computer usage or anything else, we can use statistical analysis to understand it better and make future predictions.</p> <p><strong>How does understanding statistics make students more informed citizens?</strong><br> <img alt="photo of Professor Rosenthal with students" src="/sites/default/files/2015-08-17-Rosenthal_12_10_29.jpg" style="width: 375px; height: 250px; margin: 10px; float: right;">Much of our news and political debate involves quantitative items like debts and deficits, public opinion, demographic predictions, revenues and costs, and so on.</p> <p>Some citizens aren't equipped to understand such things, which lessens our ability to make intelligent decisions and to hold our leaders to account.&nbsp;</p> <p>The more numerically literate we become as a society, the better we can navigate the demands of our modern world. In fact, I teach a course, STA201: Why Numbers Matter, which is designed precisely to get non-science students thinking about these sorts of issues and becoming more comfortable with them. (<a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/why-numbers-matter-gambling-poetry">Read more about the course</a>.)</p> <p><strong>How do you do that?</strong><br> I've tried to come up with examples of quantitative reasoning which aren't too difficult, but which are fun/different/engaging. For example: how objects and weights (from Godzilla to Mini-Me) scale with differing sizes; gambling probabilities; exponential growth of anything from&nbsp;investments to&nbsp;diseases or even the&nbsp;incomes from Jane Austen novels; the mathematics of musical notes; margins of error in public opinion polls; Fibonacci sequences and the Golden Ratio; and more. The student response has been very positive, so that's great.</p> <p>(<a href="http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=680200&amp;playlistId=1.2517716&amp;binId=1.815892&amp;playlistPageNum=1&amp;binPageNum=1&amp;hootPostID=7e44d6f63067f9c877fdec27fb26cf92">See Professor Rosenthal discuss the probability of the Jays making the playoffs on CTV News.</a>)&nbsp;</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-picpath field--type-string field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">picpath</div> <div class="field__item">sites/default/files/2015-08-17-blue-jays-2.jpg</div> </div> Mon, 17 Aug 2015 13:28:47 +0000 sgupta 7216 at