October 23, 2009

Press box versus box score: Big league game stories are conventionally formulaic. So why not create them using an actual formula? Stats Monkey is a project aimed at automatically generating those staples of sports journalism by analyzing box scores and play-by-play feeds. Toronto Star writer Cathal Kelly fires back by revealing the secret process used by human journalists to come up with those precious 700 words, and breaking down a side-by-side comparison.

posted by DrJohnEvans to baseball at 10:56 AM - 7 comments

LOL! That's awesome and shows how pedestrian sports reporting has become.

posted by Drood at 03:32 PM on October 23, 2009

I'm ashamed to admit that I am one of the neanderthals that has grown tired of reading through box scores and has instead opted for highlight vids to tell me the story of the game.

It doesn't help that most of the sports writing in my local paper, particularly that of the local reporters, is duller than a butter knife to read. Maybe it is because that it has followed the same formula for so long that it has become hard to glean the actual information from it.

posted by THX-1138 at 04:26 PM on October 23, 2009

The Robo one is worse. How good Guererro was in day games this season is completely irrelevant. Robo misses the big picture.

However, I read more columnists than re-caps.

posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 04:53 PM on October 23, 2009

Copy editors rejoice: I doubt the game's end would have been as dramatic if the Angels were leading by one when Guerrero came to the plate.

posted by treenerd at 08:48 PM on October 23, 2009

The biggest problem these days is that decent sports reporting no longer exists. And I know some folks claim that blogs are where you find the best sports writing these days, but that's balls as they are just as dull.

posted by Drood at 04:38 PM on October 24, 2009

could they look into developing a robo announcer so that we don't need to listen to the likes of Tim MaCarver & Joe Buck and their Yankee worship.

At least a computer could do better than Chip Carrey.

posted by Demophon at 05:04 PM on October 24, 2009

10 REM CHIP CARAY REPLACEMENT ALGORITHM
20 PRINT "AND THAT BALL IS FISTED"
30 PRINT RANDOM ("INTO LEFT FIELD", "INTO RIGHT FIELD", "UP THE MIDDLE", "FOUL")
40 GOTO 20

posted by DrJohnEvans at 07:01 PM on October 24, 2009

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