Brad Lidge and Carlos “Chooch” Ruiz celebrating the final out after the 2008 world series

The above picture was one of the greatest moments of my life. As I danced around my living room much more sillily than a 13 year old should have been and high fiving my father. The moment will be etched in the history of me and my father’s relationship. We like sports for the moments that are created by them. These moments are no better than the underdog upsetting a goliath in the playoffs. The shortened playoff season offers opportunities for these upsets to take place under the “on any given night” theory. There have been a history of mathematically inferior teams in all sports overcoming superior teams and getting to the top of the mountain. It confirms the scientific idea that chance is always possible. This Harvard Study conducts the standard deviation, means, and z scores on test runs by the SRS scales and Pythagorean Win expectation, which is a study calculating how many games they should win and how much they should win by. The results are posted in a table on the Harvard study. The saltiness is alive in this Harvard article because the 2008 and 2012 super bowl games in that the New York Giants upset the New England Patriots who were heavily favored in both of the the games. The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals  won the World Series being ranked in the bottom third of the league after sneaking into the playoffs on the last day of the season due to the loss of another team. If this teaches us anything that chance is always at play when it comes to open competition, especially in the playoffs when the sample becomes smaller and the chance of upset is higher.