Bracketology Can Change Your Life
Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Geist discovered that using brackets can narrow down all sorts of choices. It's actually a very useful decision-making tool beyond navigating college basketball matchups.
During March Madness, all the talk is about "brackets," which are really the structural backbone of the NCAA basketball tournament — not to mention thousands of office pools. Brackets determine who plays who, when, where, and why. It's all mulled over in excruciating detail in the inexact science of "bracketology."
And there's a new book that says the science of bracketology applies to a lot more than just basketball.
Richard Sandomir is co-editor of "The Enlightened Bracketologist," which he says is really just a "clean, concise way to make decisions."
"It's better than a Top-10 list," he said. "If you make a list of your vacation spots you want to go on, or the names you want to name your baby, or the universities that your child might be going to, if you put one against the other, then your choice is definitely improved."
The subtitle is "The Final Four of Everything" — and they do mean everything. Writers bracket 101 subjects from best beer to best bald guys. [Sandomir, who has a shaved head, did the bald guys bracket himself.]
Richard Sandomir on being "Geisted"
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"If you really want to know who the Best Bald Guys are, you're gonna have to figure out who's a better bald guy: Andre Agassi or Benito Mussolini," Sandomir said. "It's very tough! Yul Brynner and Telly Savalas in the first round; We have Curly Howard, one of the Three Stooges, who after beating Tupac Shakur in the first round, has to go up against Mahatma Gandhi. Tough."
Competition in these brackets is keen and quite odd. The final game is Gandhi vs. Homer Simpson. In the end, Gandhi wins.
"It makes up for the fact he didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize," Sandomir said.
Best Film Deaths is a hotly contested bracket: Sonny Corleone's untimely demise in "The Godfather" goes up against Darth Vader striking down Obi-Wan Kenobi in "Star Wars."
"And then, you know, Bambi's mom getting shot by hunters versus the Titanic sinking and (Leonardo Di) Caprio freezing to death," Sandomir said. "You know, that's a tough matchup."
In the final match, two classics battle to the death: "Bonnie and Clyde" goes up against "Psycho" — and "Psycho" wins.
There's even a competition for Best Shakespearean Insults: "Thou crusty botch of nature" goes up against "Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy, tallow-catch." And "There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune" vs. "Thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up, and howl'st to find it."
Wow! I thought Shakespeare was all "To be or not to be." "Vomit" wins! In an upset.
Sandomir urges everyone to draw up their own brackets. Mine is "Most Annoying Love Song," which I ran by the experts.
CBS Sports' Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg, and Seth Davis are some of the world's premiere bracketologists.
"The first matchup is No. 1 seed, 'Yummy, Yummy Yummy' by The 1910 Fruitgum Company vs. 'Torn Between Two Lovers' by Mary MacGregor," Greg said.
The experts listened carefully.
"Now that's annoying," Seth said.
"I don't like either one of them but I like least 'Yummy Yummy Yummy,'" Clark said.
"Yummy Yummy Yummy" advances.
"Feelings" soundly defeats "We've Only Just Begun" and becomes a favorite of Greg's to win the tourney.
"It moves all the way to the championship game in my opinion," he said.
But it won't be easy in this highly-irritating field, where even Barney can't get a win! His theme song was trounced by The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You."
"Three times through that song, you're in an asylum," Greg said.
"I always thought the Partridge Family was lip-synching, I never really believed they were actually singing," Seth said.
And of course, the lip-synching makes it even more annoying.
Seth thinks this is the year for Air Supply and their hit "I'm All Out of Love."
"I don't know how Air Supply got stuck as a seven seed, I just think they're a powerhouse when you talk about 'annoying,'" Seth said.
But first they have to get past Paul Anka's "You're Havin' My Baby" — no small task.
"First of all we're really safe in classifying this as a love song," Greg said.
"Without question," Clark added.
"It actually sounds like a deposition to me, Seth said. "I think Air Supply's gotta move on."
"It's a strong Final Four for Most Annoying, no doubt," Clark commented.
"'Feelings' has to be the most annoying thing I've ever heard in my life," Greg argued.
"We may not even need to limit it to love songs when you're talking about 'Feelings.' I mean, that's just an annoying song period," Seth said.
"So you guys move 'Feelings' on?" Clark asked.
"I think 'Feelings' deserves at least a chance to play for the championship," Seth said.
"I'm All Out of Love" and "Feelings" power their way to the title game.
"This is just a tough champion matchup," Greg said. "One of those things where you just don't know which way it's going to go."
They listened intently again. Finally after some debate, Clark said that he had to go with "Feelings."
"They'll hoist the championship trophy," he said.
"I'm going with 'Feelings,' too. I can't think of anything more annoying," Greg said. "We have a winner."
"Feelings" wins, becoming the Most Annoying Love Song! We sort of thought that already — but until bracketology, who really knew for sure?