... that there are really two camps here: those who consider their rooting interest to be a "consumer choice" of a "form of entertainment," and those who consider it a matter of personal integrity and even honor. The first group thinks the second is a bunch of warped fanatics with no social lives, and the second group thinks the first is a bunch of dilettantes who don't really care about anything.

I think the important point here is that these really are two qualitatively different kinds of fans. And isn't it self-evident that the second (hardcore) group are more serious, dedicated and passionate fans of their team that the first group is of whatever team they're rooting for? That doesn't necessarily make the second group better people, or even more knowledgeable or appreciative of the sport in general, but can it really be argued that they're not better fans?

If Person A has been a fan of a team all his/her life, win or lose, and Person B has been a fan of that team only when they win, I don't understand how anyone can dispute the claim that Person A is a better, more "real" fan of that team. (Again, not making any value judgment about the person generally.)

Just because victories (even in the World Series) can't tell us definitively who the better team is, that doesn't mean they tell us nothing at all about it, which is what some of you (including King) here seem to be arguing. When you look at the series comprehensively, as I think the original letter writers attempted to do, considering not just who won but whether they played better in various aspects of the game, I'd say that a championship series can tell you a whole lot about who the better team is, even if it's not absolutely conclusive.

Plus, the argument that a team's performance in a serious of baseball contests doesn't give us an accurate picture of how good a baseball team they are, relative to the opposing team, is absurd. That's exactly the purpose of a series of baseball games, and probably the only thing it could ever possibly do--determining who the best teams are is the foundational principle of the entire season+postseason structure and the only reason we record wins and losses.

How are we supposed to judge the relative quality of two teams, if not by their performance in a series of games? If the games themselves can't possibly show us who's the better team in the World Series, then what the hell is going on out there on the field?

If the better team has a 55% chance of winning any given game ... you'd need to play a best 134-out-of-269 series to determine the better team with 95% certainty.

How did you conclude that?

And doesn't the fact that you just typed "And we'd need a 17-game series to figure out the 'better' team between [the Rays and the Mariners]" suggest that you're on the wrong track using statistics this way?

(Incidentally, according to your theory, the Rays hypothetically could beat the Mariners eight times in a row by any ridiculous blowout scores and we still wouldn't know who the better team was. But if the Rays also won the ninth, then we'd know. I'd say that theory's flawed.)

I got it, but all you've calculated is the probability of winning (I think), not the probability of being better. I mean to challenge your premise that being "better" requires having a statistical probability of winning with least 95% certainty (or any number, really). Respectfully, I think that's just a misapplication of statistics, which is demonstrated by the hypothetical example of a 269-game series where the 97-win team can beat the 90-win team 134 games in a row and we can't call them better until they win the 135th.

But from a practical perspective, forgiving Al Qaeda would have done nothing to alter the dynamic of that relationship ...

So what? Atwood's point apparently didn't imply that it would have, and the generally accepted concept of forgiveness doesn't require that, from a "practical perspective," it alters relationships or changes the forgiven party in any way. In fact, I'd argue that the most widely recognized notion of forgiveness (esp. the Judeo-Christian one) holds exactly the opposite--that forgiveness, in order to be meaningful, should be independent of the receiving party's desire to be forgiven.

That sentence in the review referring to the meaning of forgiveness was simply wrong. If you want to criticize the lack of practical effect produced by forgiveness, you can do that, but that's completely different from what you actually wrote about Atwood not understanding what forgiveness requires, and frankly it's not at all plausible that the former is what you really meant to say.

The problem isn't that you "should have been clearer," it's that you were wrong. Just correct your mistake and move on.

... but you just made this Indians fan feel even more luckless. And then you had to bring up citywide championship droughts.

... that's not an argument for "the continuing coverage," it's an argument for something much more important. And the fact you just equated the media's continuing Palin coverage with "figuring out how this happened" and "insisting that this farce cease and some basic accountability and transparency be restored to the process" exemplifies what Sullivan finds so troubling.

I gotta agree with gorillagogo here. And this isn't one of those stupid "you should write about something I like better" letters; it's a comment on the state of college football, which this story pretty much exemplifies. It's this big-business politics, as the football programs grow ever-more divorced from (and corrupting of) the colleges, that leads to the farcical BCS and regular-season mismatches and has made me not a college football fan anymore. And I know I'm not original and this isn't anywhere near a fresh insight, which only makes the comment worse.