NFL Study Belatedly Confirms Its Alumni’s Cognitive Disorders

With a maddening sluggishness that can perhaps best be described as Congressional, the National Football League has spent years resisting a conclusion that retired NFL players and the medical community have long taken as a given — that the frequency and treatment of concussions in the NFL produce devastating long-term effects. So it was a great relief when the NFL’s long-awaited and much-delayed study on brain injury and its effect on players finally confirmed, on Tuesday, what everyone already suspected — that retired NFL players suffer Alzheimer’s, dementia and other cognitive diseases at a far higher rate than other members of the population, and that frequent concussions likely have something to do with it.

The Count: A Self-Serving Critique of On-Base Percentage

In his gig writing about his former job for the New York Times, ex-Phillie Doug Glanville has shown himself to be a perceptive analyst of personality and culture, but not so much of stats. The latest example: Glanville wrote recently about leadoff hitters and reaching base. Though he noted that the benchmark of a .400 on-base percentage was a good one, he added that there are other ways leadoff hitters can help their teams, such as reaching base on error.

To Baseball Reference blogger Andy Kamholz, the irony (or better put, self-serving nature of the piece) was thick.

Panthers Loss Shows More ‘Bad Jake Than Good’

The NFL season is so short that a 0-3 start almost always leaves a team’s playoff hopes in tatters before Thanksgiving. It’s especially puzzling when a team goes from playoff participant one season to also-ran the next.

That’s likely the case for the Carolina Panthers, one of seven winless teams this morning, after they lost, 21-7, to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday Night Football. The Panthers, who were 12-4 a year ago, are among the bottom feeders in points scored and points allowed after Week 3.

Jake Delhomme was only so-so against the Cowboys, but it was his late interception that sealed Dallas’s victory, leading some to call for a quarterback change, especially when he’s ranked 32nd overall.

“There was more Bad Jake than Good Jake in this one, yet again, and it’s getting old,” Scott Fowler writes in the Charlotte Observer. “I have been one of Delhomme’s biggest advocates through thick and thin, but it’s time. The Panthers need to do something dramatic if they want to have any chance of salvaging this season. So I’d start Matt Moore for Game 4-Oct.11 at home against Washington. Give the kid a chance.”

If the Panthers are trying to salvage their season, the Cowboys were looking for

The Count: The Cost of Clubhouse Distractions

Milton Bradley was suspended by the Cubs, his seventh team in a 10-year major-league career, after he described the team as “just not a positive environment” in a newspaper interview. (Bradley has since apologized.)

The book on Bradley from his recent major-league stops is that he is a negative influence in the clubhouse. Statistically minded baseball analysts don’t necessarily dispute that such an influence can have a real and negative impact on a team, but they struggle to quantify it.

The Count: What Michael Jordan Might Have Accomplished

Most appreciations of Ted Williams’s Hall of Fame baseball career note that his career totals could have been much higher if he hadn’t missed nearly five full seasons due to military service in World War II and the Korean War.

Michael Jordan’s nearly five full seasons away from basketball aren’t normally lamented to the same extent. Perhaps that’s because his opponents were glad to have a respite from the six-time champ, while Williams’s terrific batting wasn’t enough to propel the Red Sox to championships.

Never Has 1-2 Felt So Sweet

Since their last winning season in 2000, the Detroit Lions have been a model of mediocrity across sports, losing 99 games while winning only 32. Which probably means most NFL fans couldn’t understand the way that 32nd victory feels in Michigan this morning. It ended the Lions’ 19-game losing streak, which included the NFL’s first 0-16 season.

In front of only 40,896 fans, their smallest home crowd in 20 years, the Lions upended the Washington Redskins 19-14 and improved to 1-2 in 2009. It’s too early to know whether this is just a blip in another disastrous season, but rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford and new head coach Jim Schwartz and the rest of the Lions could celebrate, at least for a day.

NFL Diary: New York Jets 24, Tennessee Titans 17

The Journal provides minute-by-minute analysis of the New York Jets’ 24-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Journal staffer Peter Sanders offers commentary on the game and the CBS telecast.

Well, after a sharp start, a shaky middle and a solid end, Mark Sanchez lives up to the hype and is rolling behind his solid O-line and his nasty defense. The Titans weren’t as bad as you’d think an 0-3 team would be but they couldn’t get it done even with a solid group of parts (Chris Johnson, Nate Washington, Kenny Britt, Justin Gage and LenDale White) that couldn’t quite equal a winning sum.

College Football Diary: Iowa 21, No. 5 Penn State 10

The Journal provides minute-by-minute analysis of Iowa’s 21-10 victory over fifth-ranked Penn State at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. Guest blogger Pete McEntegart offers commentary on the game and the ABC telecast.

Nice win in a drenched Beaver Stadium for the Hawkeyes. They withstood Penn State’s early flurry, eventually controlling the Nittany Lions’ offense with a fierce pass rush. Iowa eventually took control with a little bit of everything — forcing turnovers, a huge blocked punt for a score, a strong running game, and just enough from QB Ricky Stanzi. Kirk Ferentz is now 7-2 vs. Penn State. Impressive.

The Count: Sabermetrics Is Unlikely Weapon in Labor-Relations Dispute

Labor relations and sabermetrics intersected in an unusual press release earlier this month.

The union Workers United claimed that hiring Aramark to handle ballpark concessions cost major-league teams wins. (The claim was meant to highlight what Workers United deems poor labor practices by the company, but that issue isn’t what called my attention to the release, so it won’t be addressed here.) The release relied on a stat called Pythagorean Luck, via Baseball Reference, that subtracts from teams’ actual win-loss records the records you’d expect they’d have, based on runs scored and allowed.

The Count: Paige’s Near-Untouchable Age Record

It was 44 years ago today that an unusual Major League Baseball record was set. It most likely would take a stunt to ever break it.

On September 25, 1965, Leroy “Satchel” Paige took the mound for the Kansas City A’s. Reportedly 60 years old and older than any major-league pitcher in history (more on that in a moment), he pitched like a man in his prime, yielding no runs and just one baserunner over three innings.