An Essay / Bill Shirley : The Computer Already Has Been Honored as the Man of the Year; Next, It May Be the Sportsman of the ‘80s : High Fives, High Tech

Computers have helped humans reach the moon, photograph Mars and Jupiter, fight wars, smooth the flow of traffic and cure the sick. Time magazine has even honored a computer as its “Man of the Year.”

And now, for the first time, one of these remarkable machines has left its mark on the sport of boxing. In February in Reno, a printout of statistics on a prize fight was released to a troubled world.

Livingstone Bramble, a computer showed, is the lightweight champion of the World Boxing Assn. instead of Ray Mancini because he is a better hitter. Like most baseball players, Mancini swings and misses too often. Bramble outhit him, .552 to .282.

While computers have been used in sports in increasing numbers since the early 1970s, none had ever been used to analyze a live fight until HBO Sports put one at ringside in Reno and counted the punches. The score:

Bramble threw 1,220 punches and hit Mancini with 674, or about 55%. Mancini threw more, 1,349, but connected with only 381, or 28%. For the 15 rounds, Bramble averaged 81 punches a round and Mancini 90. Bramble also connected on more jabs, hitting on 255 of 495 while Mancini made contact with only 152 of 644.

Before the fight, HBO used a computer to analyze a film of the first Bramble-Mancini bout, last June, in which Bramble won the championship in 14 rounds. Incredibly, Mancini averaged 108.31 punches a round for the 13 rounds but wasted most of them, connecting on only 336 of 1,408. Bramble went 464 for 880. Their hitting averages in that one: Bramble .527, Mancini .239.

Two operators run the two-keyboard computer at ringside, one for each fighter. The computer records a cumulative total of the types of punches and the times they are thrown. The operators determine whether the blows hit or miss.

The software system, developed by Sports Information Data Base of Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., is not sophisticated enough to judge a fight, in case you were wondering. “It is definitely not a scoring tool,” HBO producer Ross Greenburg said. “It can’t measure the effectiveness of a blow.”

Maybe not. But in virtually all sports today, there is little computer programmers can’t do to make life easier and better for teams, coaches, managers, athletes, yachtsmen and even race horses. The silicon chip is doing for games what it has done for the military and industry. Little used by sportsmen in the ‘70s, it is fast becoming the star of the ‘80s.

Computers rank tennis players, help coach, manage and scout teams of all kinds, improve the health, diet and performance of athletes, design sails and other sports equipment, help race yachts, keep track of tickets, statistics and payrolls, produce instant box scores, reduce injuries to humans and horses and run a dating service for thoroughbreds. This story was written, edited and printed on computers.

The use of computers to run games is so widespread, in fact, that one wonders how sports ever got along without them. Decisions once left exclusively to humans are now being shaped by machines. Samples:

--The Oakland A’s, looking for a designated hitter to replace Jeff Burroughs in a series at Boston, found in a computer printout that Mitchell Page was a .330 hitter in Fenway Park and used him there successfully.

--After studying computer-generated statistics, the Chicago White Sox moved home plate up eight feet at Comiskey Park to get an edge over their opponents in home runs.

--Oakland Manager Steve Boros was about to drop a slumping Dwayne Murphy from the cleanup position for a game against Detroit and pitcher Dan Petry when he consulted his computer and learned that Murphy had batted .555 against Petry the year before. Murphy, still batting fourth, hit a grand-slam home run to win the game.

--Based on an assessment of hundreds of defensive alignments by the Kansas City Chiefs, a computer once showed San Diego Coach Don Coryell that inside the 20-yard line, the Chiefs had been using the same formation 70% of the time. Using that information, Coryell twice ordered tight end Kellen Winslow to run a play called 372 F Shoot Pump. Winslow scored twice on passes of 15 and 16 yards.

--U.S. coaches altered the technique of their cross-country skiers after a University of Illinois researcher, Charles Dillman, curious to know why Soviet Union skiers were superior, analyzed the Soviet style with the aid of a computer that spewed out 6 million calculations on a single stride. The Soviets, Dillman found, continued to push on their poles until a stride was completed while the U.S. skiers stopped midway through it.

--Needing a touchdown to beat Atlanta, Tampa Bay, on second and 14, had the ball on its own 29-yard line with fewer than four minutes to play. Doug Williams, the Tampa Bay quarterback at the time, knew what to do. He sent wide receiver Kevin House deep and threw a pass to him for the winning score. Atlanta’s free safety, a computer analysis had shown, usually moved in to cover the tight end in such situations. He did it again, leaving House open.

--A thoroughbred trainer, Darrell Vienna, put blinkers on some of his horses for races at Santa Anita and Hollywood Park after studying their history on a computer.

--An Olympic shooter altered his stance after a computer detected a movement not visible to the human eye.

--U.S. kayakers, long coached to simultaneously push their doubled-bladed paddles with the high hand and pull with the low hand to get maximum force, learned by computer that the best kayakers first pushed and then pulled.

Trying to find out what an opponent is up to is not a new idea, of course. Football coaches have long charted the tendencies of their opponents as well as their own team’s. They once did it by hand, however, and it took a lot longer.

Working long hours, a staff usually had the information by midweek. Using a computer, they get a printout on Monday, not only of an opponent’s tendencies in Sunday’s game but of their habits in the last three or four games. Game plans then can be prepared faster and easier.

“We use a computer basically as a time-saver,” said John Otten, who heads the Los Angeles Raider computer operations. “A computer is quicker and more accurate.”

Tom Flores and his staff start work on Otten’s computer printout on Mondays and usually complete their game plan by Tuesday night. The coaches use all that time they save to look at films longer.

All coaches are looking for the same things. They want to know what their opponent will do on offense and defense in any given situation, which receivers are catching the ball, the type of patterns they are running and the idiosyncrasies of passers, kickers and defensive backs. Every play of an opponent is broken down for at least three games.

“On first and 10, for example, we want to know what defenses they are in,” Otten said.

The Rams’ John Robinson needs to know what kind of defense and offense the Detroit Lions use on third-down, short-yardage plays inside and outside the 20-yard lines. He can find out what they usually do by consulting a computer printout on the sideline.

At the same time, coaches need to take a hard look at the habits of their own team. If the Rams have a tendency to use a particular play in a particular situation, the 49ers or Chargers have it in their computers, too.

Jack Faulkner’s scouting reports are also programmed into the Ram computer. If the team needs a new cornerback in a hurry, the computer can find one instantly. The histories of about 2,000 players are stored in the machine.

Players, active and inactive, can be called up by team or position. The printout lists their statistics, injury and trade history and the owner of their rights.

If a reporter wants up-to-date statistics on, say, Eric Dickerson, Ram publicist Pete Donovan can pull out instantly the running back’s record in his last game, for the season and his career numbers. In a play-by-play account of a game punched into the computer, 29-4 middle translates to Dickerson gains four yards up the middle.

Chuck Knox first put a computer to use for the Rams in the late ‘70s, and Flores introduced one to the Raiders when he became coach in 1979.

“We don’t seem to be able to live without one now,” Raider assistant coach John Kingdon said. Otten agrees. “It would be too much work without one,” he said.

“Computering the game plan has become a necessity,” former Patriot Coach Ron Meyer told the Boston Globe. “It’s not so much what happens when we use it; it’s more a case of what happens when we don’t. Things jump out at you because the computer points them out. You could still find these things by hand, but it might not be until Thursday or Friday. By then it’s too late.”

Football and baseball teams draft with the help of a computer today, keeping track of thousands of high school, college and minor league players. The Dallas Cowboys, for example, have the names of about 3,000 players in their computer. In about 10 seconds, Cowboy executive Gil Brandt can get a printout of all the offensive linemen 6 feet, 5 inches or taller, a chore that would take several hours by hand. To avoid using gut feelings, Brandt says, the Cowboys put numerical values on various skills.

By all accounts, the Cowboys pioneered the use of computers in football, and virtually all 28 teams in the National Football League use them extensively today. But computers can analyze only what humans put into it, and not all coaches are sold on them. The Steelers’ Chuck Noll, for example, believes he and his staff learn more when they chart an opponent’s tendencies by hand.

While the Raiders believe they can form a pretty good opinion of what an opponent will do after analyzing its last three games in a computer, Otten said: “We also use what the coaches have seen on film. We don’t depend entirely on a computer. You can’t; you’d be fooling yourself.”

When Dick Vermeil coached the Philadelphia Eagles, he relied heavily on a computer until he decided his gut reaction was more dependable. “You can be zeroed in and programmed to your game plan a little too much,” he once said. “It can hurt you.”

“The computer is a magnificent tool,” said Hugh Campbell, former Los Angeles Express coach who now coaches the Houston Oilers. “But if you live and die by the computer, you can lose your feel for the game. Computers won’t replace scouts and coaches; they’ll simply make them more effective.”

“The coaches still get fired, so the coaches still make the decisions,” Meyer told the Globe.

At least one baseball manager became disenchanted with computers. After using one extensively in 1983, Oakland Manager Steve Boros announced last year that the A’s would discontinue the daily use of computer information. Only 5% or 10% of Boros’ decisions were based on the printouts, he said, “and they really weren’t cost-effective.” Most of the time the computer merely confirmed Boros’ own views about player tendencies--at a cost of about $100,000.

Baseball entered the computer age a lot later than football, about a decade later, in fact, after the Cowboys put computers to work. The Dodgers used one for the first time last season, and the Angels are just now getting interested. Other major league teams using them to help plan strategy include the Atlanta Braves, Chicago White Sox, Texas Rangers, Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland A’s. Others use them for ticket lists and statistics.

Dodger publicist Steve Brener operates a computer, punching a play-by-play account of every game into the system. He takes a portable terminal on the road.

Manager Tom Lasorda and his coaches get printouts that show how each Dodger and every other player in the league fare in all situations. If Lasorda wants to know how effective a batter or pitcher is with men in scoring position, he consults the computer, which provides him records of batter vs. pitcher or pitcher vs. batter. If he trusts the statistics, he juggles his lineup and plans his strategy accordingly, not allowing, for example, Jerry Reuss to pitch to the Phillies’ Mike Schmidt with the winning run on base. Schmidt usually hits Reuss well.

Some managers trust the computers, some don’t. Most still play the percentages; a few rely on instinct or hunches. “Computers are not going to revolutionize baseball,” said Wes Britt, who operates the Atlanta Braves’ computer. “They just make the information easier to accumulate.”

Britt punches in a pitch-by-pitch, play-by-play account of each game. “I know where every player on both teams have hit the ball,” he said. “I can tell our manager what Dale Murphy has done against Bob Welch and what our hitters have done against the Dodgers.”

Some managerial decisions are based on computer information, Britt said, but the system is so new and the Braves have so little valid data that they do not yet rely on the machine to position their outfielders.

Some managers still compile by hand much of the same information others store in a computer, but it takes about three hours a day and a dozen or so colored pencils to do what the machine does instantly. The computer easily digests how far a ball is hit and in what direction, who fields it and the result of the play.

Minicomputers are standard equipment today on 12-meter yachts racing in the America’s Cup. The equipment computes instantly the yacht’s precise position at all times, its speed to one one-hundredth of a knot, the bearing and distance to the next mark, the wind direction and the true wind speed to one-tenth of a knot. It tells the skipper the best head sail to use in an 8-knot breeze, which trim of a No. 2 genoa should be on a reach at 80% apparent and the best downwind angle in a 3-knot-drifter.

During some trans-ocean races, position reports from yachts are radioed to computers on land and analyzed to calculate the boats’ standings in a complex handicap formula. With this information in hand, yachtsmen can adjust their strategy.

The Assn. of Tennis Professionals began ranking its players by computer in 1973. Produced today by Hewlett-Packard, the rankings are the basis of seedings in all major tournaments, including the U.S. Open and Wimbledon.

Leading tennis instructors, such as Vic Braden, now use computers to analyze the form of their pupils. Braden, in fact, has used them since the early ‘70s. Golf swings can be analyzed in much the same fashion as a tennis player’s serve or backhand.

Tennis star Martina Navratilova has trained with a computer for a couple of years. Even her diet, which she has said will make her capable of winning at Wimbledon when she is 40, is planned on a computer that is programmed to monitor daily changes in her condition. “She is programmed to get the most out of her body,” says her nutritionist, Dr. Robert Haas. “She is a new breed of athlete.”

Navratilova apparently leaves nothing to chance. Using a computer like a football coach, she programs the tendencies of her opponents for major tournaments.

Using a computer to analyze high-speed photography, George Pratt, who teaches computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that the length of a thoroughbred horse’s stride separates winners from also-rans. “Without the proper stride, energy can be wasted,” he said after some 1983 experiments. Great horses such as Secretariat and Man o’ War, he said, have a stride of about 24 feet, compared to the average horse’s 20.

To get a statistical profile on horses, Pratt shoots them at 400 frames a second. Each stride of a horse running a furlong in 12 seconds produces 170 pictures. Presumably, someone with a printout of this information would be able to predict the inherent ability of a yearling and stock his stable with champions.

Some trainers and owners program X-ray, drug, vaccination, dental and shoeing records of their horses into a computer, and others store each horse’s sex life, parentage, age, daily exercise routine, earnings and, the bottom line: Is it making money?

A computer may not be a better bookkeeper than a human, but it sure is faster. An owner can learn instantly, for example, that Horse A, a 5-year-old bay gelding, was bought at a claiming race for $12,500 last June, has won three times, finished second twice, won $27,000 and is making more than his expenses.

U.S. horse farmers have invested millions of dollars in computers and computer services to keep their books and store such information as stallion sales averages and stud fees. “Computer dating services,” which analyze information on thousands of horses, match winners for breeding.

As sophisticated as computers are today--some have even been programed to win chess matches--they have not been universally accepted as a tool to handicap horse races or beat the odds on National Football League games. Some existing programs are said to offer the bettor an edge--but only if he knows what information to feed the computer.

On the other hand, fishermen can consult one that will analyze the season, hour of day and water depth and suggest the proper lure to catch a trout or bass. The National Hockey League uses one to balance its books and keep track of insurance, pensions, expenses, statistics and airline schedules.

Since it installed a salary cap on team payrolls, the National Basketball Assn. monitors it by computer, keeping an eye on the shifts in salaries on 23 teams. The league knows instantly if the Lakers and Warriors or SuperSonics can make a trade. The Milwaukee Bucks program assists, turnovers, steals and rebounds of every player and every game on a custom-made keyboard. Team and individual cumulative statistics can be instantly transmitted to reporters via monitors.

The biggest sports record-keeper in the country is the Elias Sports Bureau’s computer, which processes millions of numbers and roster changes for the NFL, the NBA, the American and National Leagues and many independent subscribers. The computer operates 19 hours a day, seven days a week.

“We’re really a computer company today,” said Elias director Seymour Siwolf, who uses two expensive computers to pump out almost as many numbers as the Census Bureau.

Every day at the Forum, the Lakers receive 11 pages of statistics from the Elias computers, and another printer at the Sports Arena spews out the same amount for the Clippers in about six minutes. “I often wonder how we operated without computers,” Siwolf said. The bureau paid $47,000 for its first one 10 years ago.

At health clubs, computers analyze members’ fitness and design their exercise programs by reading treadmill scores and strength and flexibility tests, then comparing them with marks of others of the same age and sex. The computer will also monitor members’ diets and calorie expenditures. Want to lose a pound or two a week? Consult the computer.

Computers have tabulated the standings at the Indianapolis 500 since the early ‘70s, and today a more sophisticated one can measure a driver’s stress and predict potential fitness problems. At the New York Marathon, an elaborate system keeps track of about 20,000 runners, timing them and determining the winners of each age group. Inexpensive computers small enough to attach to a bicycle’s handlebars, can monitor a cyclist’s heartbeat and help him maintain the proper speed to stay on schedule during races.

Sports scientists have learned that computers can give them information their eyes can’t see. Making the most of this new technology are the scientists who explore athletic motion, biomechanists such as Dr. Gideon Ariel. They diagram and measure the forces generated by athletes in motion, and in the past three or four years they have improved athletic performance markedly, particularly in Olympic sports.

Using high-speed film to create frame-by-frame stick figures of athletes on a computer screen, they detect movements and flaws a coach can’t see. The biomechanists have learned, for example, that cyclists seldom apply equal force to each leg when they pedal; race walkers may increase their speed by increasing their hip roll and decreasing the energy expended by their arms; a discus thrower may improve his distance by slowing his speed in one sequence of his spin, and a shotputter may get extra power if he places more weight on his left heel at the beginning of his motion.

Ever wonder how a hockey player generates so much force behind a slap shot? A biomechanic analysis showed that the player digs his stick into the ice just before he hits the puck, bending it like a bow and releasing it with uncommon force.

Today, however, computers and biomechanists are researching something more worthwhile than the mystery of the slap shot, the design of a better running shoe or the techniques of shotputters and discus throwers. They are studying ways to reduce football injuries. Specifically, they are trying to find out how much force a player can absorb safely and whether equipment can be designed to protect him.

After programming such information as heights and weights of ballcarriers and tacklers, the speed of the runner and the angle of the tackle, scientists can determine how the force of a collision is affected by a change in position and thickness of the padding in a helmet.

Using computer simulations, a team of Illinois Institute of Technology researchers found that if a 5-11, 175-pound tackler running 14 feet a second rams his head into a 5-10, 160-pound ballcarrier going 16 feet a second, their combined speed at impact is 30 feet a second, or about 20 m.p.h. This is a collision so severe, the tackler takes about 5,000 pounds of force on his neck vertebrae. Tests have shown that about 1,280 pounds of force can break a neck.

Traditionalists who lament the loss of purity in sports through the use of high technology need not worry. Computers and scientists may help some athletes--they may even help some coaches or managers use the right play at the right time--but no amount of hardware, software, digitizing or biomechanics is going make another human run and jump like Carl Lewis, run the hurdles like Edwin Moses, throw a fastball like Nolan Ryan or a curve like Sandy Koufax, hit like Ted Williams or shoot in the clutch like Jerry West.

Besides, no matter what comes out of the computer, managers like Tom Lasorda probably will still listen to their heart and play hunches. Jerry Reuss will pitch to Mike Schmidt until he gets it right.

FO