Jonathan gives a utilitarian argument for the Fonz:
Naismith is, by a wide margin, the more interesting fellow.
But whoever wins is running into a buzzsaw in the next round. My wife went to drama school with Winkler and says he is the nicest person she has ever known, even though she doesn’t use it as a compliment. I think Winkler will accept defeat much more stoically in the next round than Naismith. So to lower the total amount of heartbreak in the world, I choose Winkler.
What with all this “effective altruism” in the news, I think we gotta go with Jonathan’s reasoning. My only regret is in not obtaining a couple million dollars in funding for this competition last year, back when the money taps were freely flowing.
Kind of a bummer to lose the chance to hear a lecture by the inventor of a major sport, indeed the originator of college basketball, which was the model for this entire tournament—but we gotta follow the rules. Crypto all around, dudes!
Today’s matchup
Roald Dahl would probably argue against Ethel Rosenberg based on her religion, then again she might just nuke him. What I’m saying is, this one could get violent, along the way to deciding who gets to be the “buzzsaw in the next round,” in Jonathan’s words.
What do you think?
I don’t know who should win. I just know that whomever does win will be formidable, and that I never know when to use “whomever.”
If pressed, I think it’ll be Dahl: Rosenberg will be like a lamb to the slaughter (for the second time, no less): https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lamb.html
I recently read an interesting review of a biography of Dahl, but I was disappointed that the review didn’t mention John Collier at all, as he seems like a clear predecessor to Dahl’s themes and style. More generally, I often feel disappointed when reviewers miss connections to formerly popular but now more obscure authors; see for example here.
I vote for Dahl. He is an interesting character with a wide range of experiences and abilities. Inventor, fighter pilot, spy (sort-of), author, screenwriter, etc. He would be many things but unlikely to be boring. See the video clip at https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/roald-dahl-on-wogan/z7b8rj6
Bob76
“Kind of a bummer to lose the chance to hear a lecture by the inventor of a major sport, indeed the originator of college basketball…”
This is sapping my enthusiasm to finish “The Basketball Man.” I’m only 11 pages in, the start of Chapter 3: “High School Dropout and Lumberjack.”
I’m applying the superposition principle. Dahl could give a great lecture on Rosenberg but not vice versa. So I’m with Buzzsaw Dahl. (Hmm, that might stick…)