The Fix Is In by Brian Tuohy

Author:Brian Tuohy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feral House
Published: 2010-07-28T04:00:00+00:00

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

In 1969, a researcher and mathematician by the name of Robert Helmbold wrote a research paper for the Rand Corporation titled Have the World Series Been Fixed? Helmbold wasn’t discussing the fabled 1919 World Series featuring the Black Sox. No, he was considering the situation surrounding the games being played at that time in the 1960s. It was Helmbold’s contention that the longer the duration of the World Series, the more everyone involved, from players and owners to mass media and even the gamblers, profited. He felt it might be necessary to monitor the league to ensure the outcomes weren’t prearranged.

His research begged two important questions. The first being, could one, using mathematics and statistics, determine if the World Series was being intentionally lengthened? Helmbold’s “fix” wasn’t concerned with who won or lost. To him, that was unimportant. He was interested in figuring out whether the World Series was reaching the maximum length, seven games, more often than it should statistically. The equations, graphs, and reasoning that Helmbold used to reach his conclusions were designed to determine how often a seventh and deciding game should actually be needed in a seven-game series.

The second question regarding Helmbold’s work is, why bother? It seems doubtful that someone like Helmbold would just randomly think, geez, maybe I should work out a mathematical formula to see if the World Series has been fixed without feeling that something was wrong. His work wasn’t on a conundrum screaming for a solution. In fact, it is probable that not too many people felt that a problem even existed. Yet Helmbold went out of his way to determine an answer to a question no one seemed to be asking. Did the Rand Corporation see something strange afoot? His paper never mentions why he undertook the project, it simply presents the idea that a longer World Series benefits everyone involved.

Despite his work, Helmbold oddly never offered a clearcut, definitive answer. It very well may be in part because of the rather small sample of numbers with which Helmbold had to work. When he wrote this paper, there had only been 64 World Series played, which in mathematical terms makes it difficult to find true anomalies within a sample. What Helmbold did instead was present a hypothetical situation involving a fictional law enforcement-like agency created to monitor baseball and the World Series. Using a Bayesian probability model, the agency tracked the number of times a World Series went seven games, and then determined if that occurred often enough to be outside the baseline norm. In Helmbold’s theoretical model, both the 1967 and 1968 World Series, which reached seven games, merited investigation. Perhaps to avoid any libel cases, Helmbold didn’t flat out claim that his mathematical findings meant the Series were rigged.

Setting aside Helmbold’s high-minded math, take a gander at what the plain old numbers do show. The first World Series televised to a nationwide audience was in 1949. Between 1950 and 1969 (when Helmbold’s paper was released), 11 of the 20 World Series played between those dates went the full seven games.

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