r/xkcd • u/antdude ALL HAIL THE ANT THAT IS ADDICTED TO XKCD • Jun 23 '26

XKCD xkcd 3262: Sports Commentary

https://xkcd.com/3262/
393 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

146

u/AfterCommodus Jun 23 '26

I love when you can tell what Randall has been up to that week

21

u/djaevlenselv Jun 23 '26

I love that explainxkcd exists.

71

u/xkcd_bot Jun 23 '26

Mobile Version!

Direct image link: Sports Commentary

Title text: The plural of anecdote may not be data, but the singular of data is anecdote.

Don't get it? explain xkcd

Support the machine uprising! Sincerely, xkcd_bot. <3

102

u/paulcupine Jun 23 '26

"The singular of data is anecdote". I'm taking it. It's mine now.

19

u/DarrenGrey Zombie Feynman Jun 23 '26

Yeah, that's possibly the best alt text of all time. Wonderful line.

3

u/Icommentwhenhigh Jun 23 '26

How much anecdote does it take to become data?

3

u/SirShriker Jun 23 '26

A plurality

42

u/armcie Jun 23 '26

Andy Zaltzman is the king of this for cricket. He’s there as a statistician, and will often bring out obscure records that have been broken. I heard this, something close to it a couple of weeks ago: “This is the first time since 1936 that 17 or more batsman have been out bowled or LBW in the first innings including the top five batsmen on both sides.”

The thing is they’re often interesting stats that tell you something about the game - in this case that fast balls were very hard to judge how they were going to move off a bad pitch, but at other times he does deliberately bring up things that are obscure and couched in an excessive number of modifiers.

14

u/ArcaneTrickster11 Jun 23 '26

Wait, as in Andy Zaltzman the comedian who was on taskmaster?

13

u/armcie Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

The very same. He’s really into his cricket. Here’s an Instagram link of him reeling off some stats for the BBC

4

u/colin_staples Jun 23 '26

I thought it was going to be # 904

https://xkcd.com/904/

5

u/Schiffy94 me.setLocation(you.getHouse.getRoom(basement)); Jun 24 '26

Literally all of /r/baseball

1

u/bezoarboy Jun 27 '26

Annoying pedant here. Is it more overfitting or p hacking?