THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Plagiarism: is there a bigger turnoff?

I listened with amusement for years as Joe Rogan was calling Dennis Leary a joke thief, and this other comedian a joke thief.  More recently, he’s been calling Carlos Mencia a joke thief.  A few weeks ago I saw a clip of a Bill Cosby classic, about how fathers kill themselves helping their kids play football, learn football, do everything football, and after many tough years, when it culminates with a touchdown on national TV, and the camera goes on the kid, the kid always says “hi mom”.  Mencia did the exact same joke.  (You can find the clips on You Tube.) Ever since, I’ve been turned off by Mencia. 

There was a joke that Norm McDonald did about what you wish for if you only had one wish… and if you only had two wishes… and if you only had three wishes, and on and on.  Very funny piece, and Norm is funny to begin with.  But, then I heard a clip of the joke from someone else from decades ago.  Norm ripped it off.  I want to believe that the Norm case is different.  Maybe I missed the beginning of the bit where he said “there’s this joke that goes...”. 

Anyway, here’s some football plagiarism for you to consider:
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2007/05/18/ramblings/5144/

Some knucklehead actually accused me of stealing the FIP formula, which you can read about on the slow-loading Wiki DIPS page. 

JC once accused BP of stealing his Mazzone idea on his blog.

I think in baseball, we are mostly spared, because the best sabermetrician around was also the first one around, and he opened the floor to most ideas to begin with.  I’m doing stuff in hockey that is completely my own, with not a bit of inspiration from others.  For whatever reason, I’m not publishing my work yet.  However, every time I turn around, I see someone who did something similar to what I’ve done.  Obviously, we each did it independently.  But, once I come out with my stuff, I may be be accused of stealing.