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49ers' fans take great comfort in labeling Russ Wilson a "game manager."  (They need it.)  Seahawks' fans chip their teeth with just as much enthusiasm, hearing this.  Troy Aikman bristled about it during the Super Bowl:  "You're taking away from him everything he's done on 3rd down, everything he's done outside the pocket, taking away all the wins."

Dr. D thinks he knows why --- > fans scoff at "game managers," players and teams who play intelligently rather than as if the game were a first-person shooter.  The Spurs didn't play the NBA finals as though it were a video game.  Greg Maddux didn't pitch that way.  Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson don't think that way.

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2nd-Order Thinking

Before 1857, world-class chessplayers acted as if the game of chess were itself a 1st-person shooter.  They attacked from the 2nd and 3rd move.  They sacrificed two pawns, they moved out a Knight and Queen and Bishop, and they started looking for "cheapos."  Easy, quick little 2- and 3-move tactics designed to win in fast food style.

Then came Paul Morphy, a very young, very effeminate-looking boy from New Orleans.  Morphy understood not one thing, but two things:

• He knew HOW to attack, just as well as Staunton and Paulsen did
• He knew WHEN to attack!

While his opponents fired up their blitzkriegs on move three, Morphy played for position.  He "CENTRALIZED" his pieces, moving his Knights into the middle of the board where they were capable of both attack and defense.

His opponents tried a few roundhouse punches, but his centralized pieces easily exchanged off the couple of attackers.  Then his own pieces flooded through the holes in the pawn structure and forced victory.

Morphy slaughtered opponent after opponent -- blindfolded.  They used 1st-order thinking; he used 2nd-order thinking.

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Russian grandmasters understand this profoundly.  They refer to their chess opponents as PARTNERS.  "It was a pleasure to play those games with Portisch," said the world champion Karpov one day.  Play WITH Portisch?!  What's he talking about?

You sit down to play a game of chess, he has the same 16 pieces you do.  You've got no inherent right to win.  Not at first move.

A first-person shooter, well, your opponents are sedated zombies.  The game is about you.

Junior chessplayers, age 13, they play like the game is a first-person shooter.  They lose badly, and then they go back to try to figure out which shot they should have placed better ...

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Cases In Point

Colin Kaepernick, to me, plays as if he believes to his core that the game is about him.  A lot of fans want this kind of QB.  Guess why?  Because they watch their favorite NFL team in video-game mode.

Russell Wilson, in my humble opinion, grasps the idea that the other team has the same 11 players that his does.  He's got no inherent right to win, by virtue of his 5' 11" height.  "Dreams don't come true; dreams are made true."

Robinson Cano steps onto the field with his playing partner, the enemy pitcher.

Dustin Ackley used to swing as though it were a first-person shooter.  He's learning about that.  In fact, you might say this is the most important difference between an MLB(tm) player and a AAA player?  2nd-order thinking.  ML players know how to attack, and they also know when.

Chris Young and Hisashi Iwakuma are second-order thinkers.  Kuma might be a third-order thinker :- )

James Paxton, I've got to admit, pitches like he's in a video game.  We keep saying that he's just getting started; when he adds Kershaw's ability to cross hitters up, wow.  (Oddly, it's the occasional player like this that stokes the kiddies' lust for easy victory.)

Taijuan, of course, pitched his last two times out as though he's starting to understand that the enemy hitters have just as much right to be there as he does.

Brandon League -- you grok how painful it was, for Dr. D to watch SrFrBoi29 throw exactly the same pitches in all the same counts?  The ultimate example of a guy who saw his opponents as alien invaders, there to fall to his plasma rifle.  (League has 60 strikeouts vs 40 walks the last two years.)

Felix Hernandez has both (1) overwhelming talent and also (2) a profound understanding that he is not in a first person shooter.  When you've got a guy who knows how to attack, and when, well .... the irony is that he looks like he's in a video game.  :- D

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You could make your own list.  The point is, a 2nd-order thinker like Russell Wilson or Robinson Cano?  They've got bright futures.

Sometimes, we fans want our sports teams to look like they're in video games.  Honestly, that never appealed to me.  The Spurs' defeat of the Heat, and the Seahawks' defeat of the Broncos, and Robinson Cano's .386 OBP in Safeco, and Hisashi Iwakuma's rebuttal of his critics?

Those things are much more satisfying for me than video games are.

BABVA,

Dr D