What do the Brewers need? How bout a Wizard!

[jjgott]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dodgers-psychic-20100610,0,5226932,full.story

 

Frank and Jamie McCourt quietly hired a Russian emigre who calls himself a scientist and healer to 'think blue' and channel his thoughts toward the team's success as he watched them play on TV.

 

Vladimir Shpunt, 71, lived most of his life in Russia. He has three degrees in physics and a letter of reference from a Nobel Prize winner.

 

Frank and Jamie McCourt paid him to help the team win by sending positive energy over great distances.

 

Shpunt says he is a scientist and a healer, not a magician. His method could not guarantee the Dodgers would win, he says, but it could make a difference.

 

"Maybe it is just a little," he said. "Maybe it can help."

 

In the five years he worked for the Dodgers, he attended just one game. Instead, he watched them on television in his home more than 3,000 miles from Dodger Stadium, channeling his thoughts toward the team's success.

 

Shpunt's work was one of the best-kept secrets of the McCourt era. The couple kept it hidden even from the team's top executives. But from e-mails and interviews, a picture emerges of how the emigre physicist tried to use his long-distance energy to give the Dodgers an edge.

 

The McCourts, who are embroiled in a contentious divorce, declined to be interviewed about Shpunt. Through their representatives, Frank said it was Jamie's idea to hire him and Jamie said it was Frank's.

[CheezWizHed]

Hmmm.... Get paid to watch baseball, won't guarantee a win, "could" make a difference, no way to prove if its helping or not....

 

I'm available for this position!

[WV Brew]

I thought they had signed Caron Butler. I guess he's not a Wizard anymore anyhow.

[mothershipconnection]

Goes to show you once again that some people who've made a lot of money (McCourt) are still gullible idiots. Also, Soviet "scientists" were often a bunch of hacks (e.g., Lysenkoism and banning genetics by labeling it "bourgeois" fakery) whose main job was to make it look like the Soviets were smart by making claims nobody could replicate, often because they wouldn't disclose methods, which is obviously not how science works.

[Point Beer Is Best]

Willing your team to win by channeling your energy towards the TV? I've been doing this for years without compensation, and I have four collegiate degrees. Sounds like a case for Gloria Allred.

Of course, I haven't been that successful with my efforts.

[Flood Pants]

Since I've started watching the Brewers during their fanchise-worst season, they've never been that bad again. I think that's proof that my positive energy has made a difference.

[CheezWizHed]

Of course, I haven't been that successful with my efforts.

 

No, no, you have to know how to sell it.... Its: "Imagine how bad they would have been without all the effort and concentration I put into it!"

[hawing]

There are games when I leave the park convinced that I willed (or helped will) the Brewers to victory. The last time I clearly remember feeling that way was the 82nd win in 2007 (TGJ shames Hoffman). The Brewers had been eliminated from the playoffs the night before and bf.net was all gloomy, but I'd been saying for years that if the Brewers had a chance at win 82, I would be there for a home game, or be at the next available home game if it happened on the road.

 

So we went, and they won, and I was just spent after that game. I hadn't even realized (until afterward) how near a miss that was for the Padres, I was so focused on the Brewers. Like Point Beer is Best, I wouldn't mind a little Brewers compensation, or at least recognition, for my efforts. It's not rational, but when it works it's one of the satisfying parts of being a fan.

[NYChez]

Ozzie Smith as manager?

[Funketown]

Ozzie Smith as manager?

How dare you blaspheme!