oldutician You define luck as the home run that just clears the fence and the single that just eludes the infielder. But over a season, those factors even out. That kind of luck only applies to a single game or series. You didn't mention the only real way luck affects a season - injury.

Actually Neyer defined it that way, but yes he was just talking about within a single game.

I think luck affects a season in a lot of ways. There's injuries, sure. But what about your opponents' injuries? You get to play the champs six times when their slugger's on the DL, and your division rival has to play them six times three weeks later at full strength. That's dumb luck. How about rainouts screwing up your pitching rotation? Some team (the Dodgers was it?) had to play double-headers on three straight days in a pennant race one recent year. Bad luck for them, good for whoever they were in the race with.

Or how about happening to catch a team when they're red hot or ice cold? The Braves offense, dormant all year, has been a buzzsaw lately. If you've had to play them, bad luck for you.

And as for the luck evening out over a season, how do you know? Does it really? How do you know it doesn't take, say 200 games, or 500, for luck to truly even out. Or maybe it never does. How many times in 10,000 coin flips is it exactly tied, heads and tails (or within one on the odd-numbered flip)? Am I to believe that if one team won 96 games and its rival won 95, they had exactly the same number of bad bounces, seeing-eye grounders and wind-blown home runs?

How do you explain pitchers or hitters whose batting average on balls in play spikes one year, or dips severely. Everything else is the same, but the balls are finding holes, or finding gloves. For a whole year. If luck evens out over the year, those numbers should stay constant if the pitcher's or hitter's other numbers are roughly the same.

I don't know. I don't know how to do the math or what to study. But I don't believe luck evens out over the course of a year. Largely, sure. But not entirely.

richinohio Historically Bad trades? How about Bob Wickman for an A-ball catcher?

I know! What a steal! Who would give up an A-ball catcher for Bob Wickman? Is the guy missing an arm? Hang on. Let me read the rest of your letter ...

July 24, 2006 | I have come to the conclusion that there are three topics that should be avoided in polite conversation because too many people are unable to talk about them without becoming bat-guano crazy. Those three are religion, politics and Alex Rodriguez.

Not to be the first person to post a letter to my own column, but I just want to say I know I should have written that there are four topics: Religion, politics, Alex Rodriguez and the Tour de France.

I just couldn't make it work without breaking up the lede too much.

amspeck: I'm not testing you. OK?

Why don't arena football fans write me? I never write about it, and, without having checked, I'm reasonably sure it's a bigger sport in this country than bicycle racing, which would explain why it's on network television while the Tour de France, cycling's premiere event, is on a small cable station that's changing its name in a desperate attempt to gain traction.

Watch tomorrow's column for, maybe, more on this subject.

Graf: I would compare A-Rod to Alfonso Soriano. Great hitters most of the time, and decent-but-not-great fielder.

Really? I wouldn't compare them.

Soriano is having a crazy, freaky career year, and his OPS is .955. A-Rod's had five years over 1.000.

A-Rod's having a crazy, freaky off-year, and his OPS is .878. Soriano's had exactly one year with an OPS that high before this year. (Soriano's in a pitcher's park this year, but he was in a hitter's park for the last two.)

Also, A-Rod isn't a decent-but-not-great fielder. He's a great fielder. He was a Gold Glove shortstop, vastly superior to the guy he deferred to by moving to third base. John Dewan's "The Fieldiing Bible" ranks him 7th in the big leagues, 3rd in the A.L. as a defensive 3B over the last three years, 2003-05. Only Beltre and Chavez were better in the A.L.

Dewan writes, "A-Rod is a fine third baseman, with natural instincts and a very strong arm. In 2004, he ranked fourth among all third basemen. After a shaky start in 2005, with 11 errors through June, he settled down and only made one error the rest of the year ... In the field, his most similar player is Hank Blalock."

He's going through another bad spell this year, but he's not a poor third baseman. Fielders have slumps and off years just like hitters do, though I would guess (I don't know this) that they tend not to be as frequent or pronounced.

It's bad enough the Yankees moved a great shortstop to third to make way for a lousy one. Now you want to move him again?

I should clarify that. Rodriguez isn't a great fielder as a third baseman. As a shortstop, he's a great fielder. As a third baseman, he's good, very good when he's not going through one of his spells. But those spells count, so he's only good.

Just wondering: Do the several of you who have suggested some sort of scrum-type scenario in place of the kickoff realize or remember that that's how the XFL started games?

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