With Logic Like This, Who Needs Pretzels?

Among my many life duties, I teach college students how to write. But before they can write, they have to know how to think. This is a problem for most people, as the presidential nomination process has amply demonstrated.

In the course of my class, I have learned that I must reconnoiter and teach logic. Most humans lack the ability to follow basic logic principles.

Every sportswriter and broadcaster should take a logic course. One can regularly see and hear spewed out on broadcast media and splayed across print media the irrational rumblings of supposedly learned persons.

With Chris Sale suspended for his sartorial critique, the White Sox went on a four-game victory binge. During an interview with a national baseball reporter, a national talk show host asked whether it's possible that the incident "galvanized" the team. The questioner's tone suggested that he understood how utterly ludicrous this notion was.

I won't belabor the point. You don't need it explained to you that even horrible teams have four-game win streaks in Major League Baseball, and that no incident can "galvanize" a team into four straight wins, particularly one where a popular teammate is reasonably suspended for cause.

In the great universe of random events, this is a mere twinkle. Correlation isn't causation. There's not a shred of evidence to support a "galvanized" clubhouse. And all that.

So here's the nameless national sportswriter's answer: he asked a teammate that very question and the teammate denied any connection between the suspension and the winning streak. "But you're right, it has sort of galvanized them. They're playing very good ball since then."

So to recap:
1. There's no evidence of a connection.
2. It's illogical that there would be one.
3. Four games doesn't mean anything in the first place. (It doesn't even necessarily mean they're playing well.)
4. A teammate denied there's a connection.
5. Conclusion from sportswriter: There must be a connection!

Keep in mind next time you hear the gospel according to some "analyst," "guru" or "insider extraordinaire" that those words are often substitutes for "person who thinks logically."