Bet 8
The US men's soccer team will win the World Cup before the Red Sox win the World Series.
Bet 8
Duration ? years (02002-?)
Predictor
Mike Elliot
Challenger
Ted Danson
Stakes $2,000
Congratulations to Ted and his preferred charity,
The American Oceans Campaign, which will receive the stakes!
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Ted Danson is the Winner: http://blog.longnow.org/2004/11/01/long-bet-the-red-sox-win-so-does-danson/.
As immigration and technology continue to make the US a more international nation, so the quality of its soccer team will continue to increase. Already, American teenagers can hold their own with players from more established countries, while players like Claudio Reyna and Kasey Keller have become acknowledged international stars. The Curse of the Bambino, on the other hand, is one of those mystical truths that are beyond the reach of human intervention. Cheers, Ted.
The Red Sox have had such bad luck in the 20th century, I have to believe that in the new millennium it can only get better. Besides, statistically, scoring goals is harder than hitting a home run, and in the World Cup, you have the whole WORLD against you, in baseball, but the Red Sox only really have to beat the Yankees.
The US men's soccer team will win the World Cup before the Red Sox win the World Series.
How come this bet was allowed despite being a pure sport bet.
According to your FAQ :
Why can't I bet on a sports team?
There are lots of ways to bet on sports teams that are far better than Long Bets. Here, the emphasis is on bets "of societal or scientific importance." You could bet about when the Olympics will forbid genetically enhanced athletes, or introduce competition between robots...
Can someone explain me in which way this bet is of "societal or scientific importance" ???
Moreover who cares about one american baseball team or the US football team winning any kind of competition when the focus here is about mankind or real breakthrough...
In my opinion accepting such a bet just discredit the whole process of long term betting.
Personally I relish this bet for its exquisitely explicit outcome---you really know when one side or the other has won---in service of otherwise general observations about trends in globalization and immigration, US education and population size.
Both championships are perhaps the most closely watched in the world, yet they never have been slapped together like this before. And the bet is interestingly cavlalier with time---it could be won this year, or it could go on for centuries.
I would not be surprised if this remained one of the best known of Long Bets.
I really think that it all comes down to the odds in the end. One should keep in mind that no matter how bad the States are in soccer or the Red Sox in baseball, there is an average probability of less than 0.007 for winning the World Cup for each one of FIFAs 150 nations once in four years.
The Red Sox or any of the 30 MLB teams have a larger probability than 0.03 for winning the World series each year.
Which one do you reckon will happen first? The Red Sox have twenty times better odds!
That's pretty nifty. I take it that when voting arrives here, you'll vote with Benson.
Can you extend your statistical analysis into the time dimension? WHEN might the bet conclude?
The statistics alone say that Ted's money is pretty safe on this bet. I would guess that the issue will be settled within the next 20 years. However, a true "Long bet" would be wagering on which will happen first; the Red Sox and Cubs face each other in the World Series, or the sun goes supernova. My money would have to be on a solar explosion.
This only appears to be "a pure sport bet." It truly is a bet "of societal or scientific importance." The "Curse of the Bambino" to which Mr. Elliot refers is but one of "those mystical truths that are beyond the reach of human intervention." Like Sisyphus with his rock, Sox fans have endured decades of disappointment, tirelessly cheering their team on without ever achieving the goal of a World Championship. Applying Camus' absurdist logic, this has arguably become a metaphor for the frustrations of life in our modern world. Mankind's thirst for a Red Sox victory in the World Series represents much more than a desire to have "my team win." It is a symbol of our passionate faith in an enlightened future for human civilization.
I hope Visa isn't planning a career in book making anytime soon, though I would certainly like to place some bets if that is the case. Visa's statistical analysis assumes even odds of winning for every team/country involved. A look at the records of both sports will quickly indicate that to be an incorrect assumption. That is what makes this bet intriguing, perhaps even more so than was originally intended. Winning the World Cup or the World Series is dependent on many, many factors; it isn't simply pulling a ball from a hat to pick the winner.
Having said that, I still agree with Visa's conclusion but for very different reasons. Soccer in the US has made great strides in recent years, however, we are still well behind the world's most elite nations. Thus at this point it would be a real overachievement on the part of the US to pull off a World Cup victory. In professional baseball the biggest single factor is money and thus the biggest, best baseball markets have a distinct advantage because they are able to hire the best players and assemble the best teams. Boston is a great baseball town and thus can afford to field great teams every year. The problem is that they have always been in the same division as the absolute best baseball market and over a full season have rarely been able to overcome the Yankees. Thus as Mr. Danson points out all they have to do is beat the Yankees. This task has been made much easier because of baseball's new playoff setup that allows for wildcard teams. Now the Red Sox, assuming they could beat all other competitors, would only have to overcome the Yankees in one seven game series as opposed to an entire season. Looking at the Red Sox this year this might be the first long bet settled.
Of course here like Visa I have simplified the bet down quite a bit and made many assumptions but I think this analysis captures the keys to the bet as far as we are able to see at the present time. Of course if salary caps and profit sharing change the way baseball players are paid or if soccer worldwide loses popularity relative to the US or if the advancement of soccer in the US suddenly accelerates this analysis is useless. There are also those factors that I can’t get my feeble brain around. Factors that led to the US winning the 1980 gold in hockey, or factors like those that kept John McNamara from pulling Bill Buckner for defense in game 6. Yes the will of the underdog and curse of the Bambino can throw away even the best analysis, which is why this is a bet. As smart as we humans think we are there are very few things we can predict with absolute certainty which is why though this bet may not be of great importance to the future of humanity it still captures what I think is the essence of this site. It makes us think about the future and realize that in the long-term (even in human terms, which aren’t so long) the possibilities become wider and wider and if we want to plan for future generations our thinking has to become wider and wider.
It must be hard living a delusional life thinking that Boston will ever win the world series!!! A team from outer space will win the series before Boston does....
"In the long-term the possibilities become wider and wider and if we want to plan for future generations our thinking has to become wider and wider."
That one's worth etching in marble somewhere.
No marble etchings please, that's just evidence for those future generations that we should have known better. Let's hedge our bet and plan for the future but not leave any evidence so if our plans don't work out at least we can claim naivety. I certainly don't want my great great great grandchild thinking I could have left him/her with a better world if only I had thought about it. :)
What people failed to mention is that the World Cup is only played once every 4 years, while the World Series is every year in mid-fall unless a strike happen again and they lose a chance to win as the Montreal Expos did in the last strike where they could have went all the way.
In MLB you can buy yourself a championship(as well a loser a la Texas Rangers) but World Cup has a pool of players restricted to players from your country, so therefore you can be playing against the same game level as another country. Baseball can have teams like the Yankees loaded with talent or like the Red Wings in hockey.
The World Cup is based on a round robin and then win your way up the finals without a loss.
World Series, is a best of 5, followed by 2 best of 7 series. There is a margin of loss here.
I would have to agree with Ted that the Red Sox will before the US soccer team as the odds are much better on their side.
To beat a team like Portugal 3-2 is a great performance by anyone's standards! Americans should party!
As someone who does not really follow football (and has almost no knowledge at all of the Red Sox), it seems to me that the sheer size of the US has to help Mike's chances of winning. Football fans tend to think that a culture that prizes the beautifu l game above all else is a necessary part of producing world-class national teams. On those grounds it's natural to think that America will not become a world-beater in football anytime soon. But it's entirely reasonable to question the assumption that you need a national commitment to football to field a world beating team. Consider a naive model in which raw footballing ability is spread across the world at random. What a country gets depends not on its wealth or interest, but just on its suze. (This is a key difference between the two halves of the bet; baseball clubs can buy their teams and countries must play with what they?re given). A large country, such as the USA, will end up with a lot more potential football stars than a small country like England, or a very small country like Costa Rica. The question is how efficiently that potential is translated into people actually playing football. Many people who could be good footballers could also excel at other sports, but in countries where footbal l is the most culturally validated and lucrative sport that a young man can invest his potential in this will matter little. In the US it probably matters a lot, and probably leads to many potential football stars not getting into the game. In this naive model, a nation's world cup prospects are a function of its size and its efficiency at finding potential athletes and ensuring the best become footballers. In most of the countries with a serious chance of winning the world cup, this efficiency term i s pretty close to one. There are very few people who could be becoming world class footballers in Argentina, Brazil, Spain and Italy (or for that matter England) who are not doing so. In America the efficiency is clearly much lower. But in America that ef ficiency is growing. And it does not have to get anywhere close to the maximum for America to start fielding sides quite as good as the best in the world, because America has all the traditional footballing nations completely beaten in terms of sheer size. At the moment an America where football is only a small interest is performing in the world cup about as well as football obsessed countries a hundredth to a fiftieth of America's size (Costa Rica, Croatia). The naive model suggests that if America can get ten times better at turning talent into footballers then it might field teams as good as football obsessed countries a tenth to a fifth of its size -- which is to say, Argentina and Italy. Give the pace at which American football teams have improved over the past twenty years, and the increase in American interest in football, that sort of efficiency gain doesn't sound outlandish for the 2018 or 2022 world cups. This should obviously all be taken with vast pinches of salt. But it raises an inter esting qualitative issue. It is clearly true that a country as big as America could in principle win the world cup without football being more than a minority interest at home. In a world where there's already dismay at America's pre-eminence in so many fields, the idea of it beating the world at a sport it doesn?t even value that highly is one that many will find truly irksome. There again, maybe China -- bigger still, increasing its efficiency all the time, and without incumbent rival sports to distract it -- will rise in performance even more quickly than the US ... P
If I had the money to bet (which I don't), I'd predict that, if by 2012 the average American keeps thinking that the fate of the Red Sioux is "of societal or scientific importance" to Mankind, then the Russians will certainly lead the software industry worldwide.
Regards,
The link between Camus' absurdist logic and the plight of Red Sox fans is false. For Camus, Sisyphus defines the absurdity of modern man because he, Sisyphus, *recognizes* that he can never succeed. He knows that he cannot defeat the will of Jupiter. He understands that he is doomed to roll the rock up the hill, and so the task *itself* gives meaning to his life. There is no hope, there is only the work and the grim satisfaction of the struggle. As Camus puts it, "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."
Obviously this is not the case with Red Sox fans. As fans they hope and believe the Sox can win at some point. This is evident simply by looking at Mr. Danson's reply and at most of this thread. The notion that the Sox are "due" or that the odds are on their side takes this discussion out of the realm of Camus/ Sisyphus. In truth, the very fact that there *is* a bet achieves this. No person who correctly understands the myth of Sisyphus would bet on when he would succeed in defeating the wishes of the gods and rolling his stone to rest at the top of the hill. It's a given that this will *never* happen, whereas it is implicitly stated in this bet that the Sox will win - it is only a question of when.
For Camus, Sisyphus is inherently tied to the moment. His doom has no bearing on "an enlightened future for human civilization." And despite your attempt to justify it from a philosophical standpoint, neither does this bet.
The big difference is that the Red Sox can buy and sell players - so the quality of the team can migrate upwards or downwards fairly rapidly. In the World Cup, the country has to produce home-grown talent, and American players just aren't good enough to win it at the moment. It will take decades to take the next step up - from the also-rans to the contenders.
Only seven different nations have ever won the World Cup: Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, England and France.
It's difficult to say exactly why each team won when it did, but all of these countries share two characteristics. Football is the biggest sport, commercially, in each of them. Their top players all have access to the world's biggest and best club competition - the European Cup (or Champions' League, as it is now known).
In the US, by contrast, there is little commercial interest in the sport - which will hamper the game's long-term development - and very few American players are good enough to play for European teams in the Champions' League.
Until that changes, I can't see the US football team winning the World Cup.
People!!! population and money is not everything in soccer. All the countries that won soccer worldcups are countries in which soccer is a fanatic way of life!. There is no way that the US will ever be able to draw as many good players (not even buying them from abroad) as argentina, brazil or italy for a case. Just think of this.. if you ever travelled to any of these "soccer" countries you will see scores of kids kicking the ball barefoot in the streets... I don't think the US will ever have that nursery of good players. Therefore the US will never win a worldcup.
Now... I live in Boston.. and to say that the red sox will win the world series... (glup).. but I have to take a side... and is gonna be hard... they will eventually win and is not gonna happen in this century... maybe next one.. with Ted's clones...
It's not a matter of when the U.S. will win the World Cup. It's will the money still be here when they do. Best guess is around the 2040s.
"Can someone explain me in which way this bet is of "societal or scientific importance" ??? "
Perhaps because an editor for time who might get the site some publicity and Ted danson, who has got the site some publicity wanted to bet on it.
It does not matter whether Major League Baseball teams can
"buy" championships or not. That is because however much the Boston Red Sox spend to buy it, the New York Yankees will spend more; and more effectively.
The Curse of the Bambino is the single most powerful, compelling, and unexplainable phenomenon in the history of the universe. If ever a team was closer to winning any game, it was the Red Sox in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets. Unbelievably, they managed to have everything in the world go wrong and lose the title.
This just proves that Ruth is up there somewhere still smiting the team that traded the greatest player ever, for cash. While it is unlikely the USA will win a World Cup soon, even in this millenium, it is IMPOSSIBLE for the Red Sox to win the world championship. It will never happen.
Why is this socially important? If we have to have a reason I guess we could add another part, like both will happen before Boston's big dig is paid for.
As for Rubin's assertion that the famous Buckner grounder signified possibly the closest a team came to winning a game and losing it, I'd like to nominate game 6 of the NLCS in the same year, when Glenn Davis hit a double about a foot from the top of the fence. If it had gone out the Astros would have won instead of sending it into extra innings, where dispite a nail biting home run off the foul post, the Astros lost. (I'm not sure if it still is, but at the time it was the longest playoff game of all times.) Mike Scott would have pitched game seven. For the record, in the three most important games that season (game 1 and 4 of the NLCS and the pennant clinching game) Scott was 3-0, pitching 27 innings, and setting a playoff strikeout record despite only pitching 2 games. He allowed 1 run over those 27 innings and had a no-hitter in the pennant game.)
(Yes, I'm a Astros fan. My other team is the Yanks, so I have a vested interest in seeing the Sox fail, and they do it so well, and a certain cockiness that makes me say the Sox won't ever win a World Series.) My poor Astros have never been to the show, so at least in that respect I understand the Red Sox fans' need to believe in the impossible.
Soccer is (by far) the biggest sport in the world. Really, when you think about it, you only need a couple of rags tied into a ball and two sticks for a goal to play. It's played EVERYWHERE in the world. Baseball however is complicated with many different accesories, and almost only played in the US. The United States soccer team however is far behind most countries in skill (even if it beats the Brits, it still has Brazil and Portugal to deal with, not to talk about France, Italy, and many more countries.) Plus, the World Cup is played only once every four years, and much can happen with the Red Sox in four years, unlikly as it may seem.
Anyone who thinks that the US will win the world cup first is a fool to me.
Red Sox win the World Series? Hell freezing over? The two are synonymous. Even non-Yankee fans (heaven forbid!) are forced to admit that the New York Yankees are the best team that money can buy!
As it so happens, I'm a Braves fan. They have more of a chance of beating the Yankees than the Red Sox do, even if the margin is minimal.
john p. sullivan (sully) argues that my comparison of the plight of Red Sox fans to the sad fate of Sisyphus is invalid because these loyalists "hope and believe the Sox can win at some point." This suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of Sox rooters. They cheer on knowing they cannot win. Enlightened human civilization may well prove to be a similarly unachievable outcome.
The reason why the American women's soccer team is dominant in the world is not only because they are women of high ability and skill, but also because women's soccer in general is not highly promoted internationally. It's simply not a big thing at all in other countries, and no offense - the standard isn't that high. Conversely, the reason why the American men's soccer team won't win the World Cup is because America isn't developing its soccer hopefuls in the right way - and doesn't appear to be anytime soon.
Firstly, American soccer is severly underfunded compared to other leagues, like the English Premiereship. There are not enough soccer fans to draw in the advertisers, or at the least, the soccer fans here are not enthusiastic enough about the American teams to make it worth the while of any sponsors to fund American soccer on any significant scale. And as long as Americans are not serious about soccer, a soccer culture like that developed in South American countries will never develop in the US. And as long as that doesn't develop, it will never be any more than a dilletante's sport in America.
Secondly, American soccer is extremely insular. As long as the American leagues do not participate in international competitions aside from the World Cup, American players will never improve to international standards. Those that do show promise are going to be snapped up by international teams willing to pay them the bucks that American teams simply can't match, and they won't go back to pass those skills on to American players. So what you have is basically a bunch of players who are great within their own league, but completely outclassed when compared to Europe, or even South America, let alone the World.
Now as far as the Red Sox goes, at least America is serious about baseball. And Red Sox fans are damned serious about the Red Sox. But what really needs to be done is what Bill Lee suggested once - we have to exhume Babe Ruth, bring his bones back to Fenway, and personally apologize for selling him to the accursed Yankees before the curse is to be broken.
As unlikely as that proposition appears, it's a damn sight more probable than the American men's team getting anywhere near international standards in the forseeable future.
The U.S. men's side had an excellent showing in the most recent World Cup and barring injury, Freddy Adu will be about a 17 year old phenom on the 2006 U.S. side that goes to Germany and advances to the Final Four. He'll be about 21 when the U.S. loses in the Finals on penalty kicks in 2010. He'll be about 25 when the U.S. finally wins in 2014. As a BoSox fan and despite all rational indications to the contrary, I gotta *believe* they can win by then.
There are 2 reasons you are wrong:
First off home grown talent isn't a requirement, I will explain this next....
In 1945 the US won the world cup with a team made up almost entirely of Portugeese immagrants.
Last year we almost made it to the final round.
With the abundance of youth leagues in the USA home grown talent will only get better.
Looking at the 86 WS, Buckner lost game 6 for us and then came back in game 7 and made the exact same flub to ensure our defeat. Looks to me like he may have been earning 2 paychecks that year.
And moving to other Boston teams, the fact that Patriots managed to win in 2002 was a simple fluke. What truly amazes me is that no one has ever bitched that there were clearly 4 seconds left in the game when the winning field goal bulged the net.
Until Harry Sinden dies or is fired from the Bruins they will never win another cup.
And the Celtics will in again before Red dies.
Brazil has dominated WC for the past 70 years even when challenged once in a while.US has not only to overcome Brazil, but others like Germany,Argentina and at least other
10 strong soccer playing nations but Red Sox can win the
World Series this year, in 2003! you read the prediction here first!
The babe will be sold to the new city,
Where the sultan shall build his palace.
Full of fury at the rebith,
The monster will sleep in the tenth month.
....If Nostrodamus predicts it, it must be so.
Boston competes in the AL East with Baltimore,Tampa Bay, Toronto, and of course the Yankees. Baltimore and Tampa are in diffrent phases of rebuilding, and while Toronto has an at times dominating offense, it has no pitching besides Halladay, and is not in the market to add more payroll.
The AL East boils down to Boston and New York. Boston displayed oustanding offensive production so far, (supported by the fact they delt all-star shea hillenbrand to arizona) while the Yankees have struggled at times. Both have decent starting rotations and adaquate bullpens. The Yankees starting pitchers however are getting old. Clemens is 41, Mussina is 35, and Wells is 40. In baseball years thats ancient. Pitching wins championships in the playoffs. Boston will have a two to three year window to make a run at the Yankees while Stienbrener builds his team up again through free agency. Pitchers dont fall off trees, and teams will be hesitant to deal with the Yankees. I think that if Boston dosn't win it this year, GM Theo Epstine will aquire another arm to complement Padro and the Sox will make a serious run in 2004. Odds be damned, I'd bet the sox.
Another factor to be considered besides my points mentioned below is Bosox will get a chance 4 times more than the US Soccer team since WC Soccer takes place only every 4 years unlike World Series - annual fixture.
Terrance is absolutely right. The curse is real and the Red Sox will never win.
Forget about bringing the Babe's bones back to Fenway. Anyone who approaches his grave with ill intention will immediately be stricken by a bolt from above.
Soccer people underestimate the power of kid soccer in the U.S. Our development programs are excellent and we will see better and better international results. We could very well win the World Cup sooner than they think...and certainly sooner than the Red Sox win the World Series.
Sorry Ted.
I remember when the Chicago Cubs occupied the same unenviable place in which the Bosox find themselves.
Seriously, we Americans invented baseball. We didn't invent soccer, and we haven't even begun to build the level of youth soccer needed to develop Peles on a reliable basis. Conversely, we DO have baseball in almost every high school, AND an extramural Little League program many decades old, AND a college baseball system also very much alive and well. And if that doesn't help Boston, there's always the Dominican Republic....
I have to agree with Ted here. The Boston Red Sox have every prospect of getting lucky in recruitment and breaking the Babe Ruth Curse before we make any serious noise in the World Cup playoffs.
Link below to New York Times's coverage of latest playoff game:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/15/sports/baseball/15BOST.html
This could be the big year.
They got close.
The cruelty of the Curse of the Bambino is that, from time to time, they do get close.
Maybe there is a logical reason that the Yankees always win. No, I'm not talking about the bigger New York market that lets them pay more money, or fact that whenever a hitter gets in a slump they can call in 50 million Hall of Famers to get him squared away, or the fact that Yankee players may simply be to scared of what Yankee fans would do to the team that let the Red Sox win. I'm certainly not talking about the curse, although psychologically, it's got to be a factor.
I'm talking about Yankee Stadium being a better stadium than Fenway. I've been to Fenway. It's beautiful. It has great history. So does Yankee Stadium though. I'm not talking about how intimate the place feels, or which park is prettier.
I grew up as an Astros fan. The Astrodome was a homerun hitter's worst nightmare. As a result, Houston focused on pitching. Even when the rest of the team was terrible, you could always count on good pitching.
Twins fans have watched their best teams be built around fly ball hitting contact hitters, the theory being that in the Metrodome, all you had to do was hit a fly ball and you had a home run.
In there own ways, Yankee Stadium and Fenway are very similar, yet diametrically opposed. In Yankee Stadium you have the short right field porch. It has made legends out of good left-handed hitter. In Fenway, you have the Green Monster. At first glance, it seems like an impenetrable barrier, but, like the right field porch at Yankee Stadium, it is one of the shortest distances in the game.
So, how does this make Yankee Stadium a better park? It makes it a better park because it forces the Yankees to focus on quality left handed hitters, and to get the other teams' lefties out, they have to focus on quality left handed pitching. The Red Sox have to do the opposite.
After that, it all comes down to genes and the way the rest of the league sets up. Since righties are more common, the team that stocks up the most on lefties has an edge.
It's just one more piece of the legacy of Babe Ruth, and the House that Ruth built. Big left handed power hitter, itsy-bitsy right field porch.
Instead of annual rituals to exorcise the ghost of Babe Ruth, the Red Sox might be better off just building a new park, and moving the Green Monster to right field.
(Of course, if you tear down the old Green Monster the 'Evil Empire' will probably buy it and show Pride of the Yankees on it somewhere in it's new location in the Bronx, so be careful how you get rid of it.)
Red Sox Nation rejoices tonight. They finallly did it. Congratulations, Ted. Cheers!
Not only did Ted Danson win the Bet, his argument was dead on. All the Red Sox had to do was beat the Yankees.
.....could a US soccer team ever win anything before a US baseball (yawn) team - you couldn't get the requisite 11 Americans skilled enough to play. The US has been involved for perhaps the last 30 years; the rest of the world have been playing for over 80. Keep working on it, you might get better - specially with Beckham coming over to give y'all pointers. Note: it’s only in the American media that Claudio Reyna and Kasey Keller are considered ‘acknowledged international stars’ – most fans in Europe, where the real stars are, have no idea who they are.
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