The Stranger

But parents all tell themselves a lot of things. The Croatian hunchback, right?

When the game ended, Corinne took Ryan home in her car. She was going to get dinner ready. Adam waited for Thomas in the Cedarfield High School parking lot. It would, of course, have been much easier to simply take him home right after the game, but there were rules about the kids taking the team bus for insurance purposes. So Adam, along with a bunch of other parents, followed the bus back to Cedarfield and waited for their sons to disembark. He got out of his car and made his way toward the school’s back entrance.

“Hey, Adam.”

Cal Gottesman walked toward him. Adam said hey back. The two fathers shook hands.

“Great win,” Cal said.

“Yes indeed.”

“Thomas played a hell of a game.”

“So did Eric.”

Cal’s glasses never seemed to fit right. They kept slipping down his nose, forcing him to push them back up with his index finger, only to have them immediately start their nasal descent again. “You, uh, you seemed distracted.”

“Pardon?”

“At the game,” Cal said. He had one of those voices where everything sounded like a whine. “You seemed, I don’t know, bothered.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.” He pushed the glasses up his nose. “I also couldn’t help but notice your look of, shall we say, disgust.”

“I’m not sure what—”

“When I was correcting the referees.”

Correcting, Adam thought. But he didn’t want to get into that. “I didn’t even notice.”

“You should have. The ref was going to call a cross-check on Thomas when he got the ball at X.”

Adam made a face. “I’m not following.”

“I ride the refs,” Cal said in a conspiratorial tone, “with purpose. You should appreciate that. It benefited your son tonight.”

“Right,” Adam said. Then, because who the hell was this guy to approach him like this, he added, “And why do we sign that sportsmanship waiver at the beginning of the season?”

“Which one?”

“The one where we promise not to verbally abuse any players, coaches, or referees,” Adam said. “That one.”

“You’re being naïve,” Cal said. “Do you know who Moskowitz is?”

“Does he live on Spenser Place? Trades bonds?”

“No, no,” Cal replied with an impatient snap. “Professor Tobias Moskowitz at the University of Chicago.”

“Uh, no.”

“Fifty-seven percent.”

“What?”

“Studies show that fifty-seven percent of the time the home team wins a sporting event—what we call a home-field advantage.”

“So?”

“So the home-field advantage is real. It exists. It exists across all sports, during all time periods, in all geographies. Professor Moskowitz noted that it is remarkably consistent.”

Adam said, “So?” again.

“Now, you’ve probably heard many of the normal reasons given to explain this advantage. Travel fatigue—the away team has to go on a bus or a plane or what have you. Or maybe you’ve heard that it’s familiarity with the playing field. Or that some teams are used to cold weather or warm weather—”

“We live in neighboring towns,” Adam said.

“Right, exactly, which just strengthens my point.”

Boy, was Adam not in the mood. Where the heck was Thomas?

“So,” Cal continued, “what do you think Moskowitz found?”

“Excuse me?”

“What do you think explains home-field advantage, Adam?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “Crowd support maybe.”

Cal Gottesman clearly liked that answer. “Yes. And no.”

Adam tried not to sigh.

“Professor Moskowitz and others like him have run studies on home-field advantage. They aren’t saying things like travel fatigue aren’t a factor, but there is pretty much no data supporting those theories—just some anecdotal evidence. No, the fact is, only one reason for the home-field advantage is supported by hard, cold data.” He held up his index finger in case Adam didn’t know what one meant. Then, just in case he was being too subtle, he said, “Just one.”

“And that is?”

Cal lowered the finger into a fist. “Referee bias. That’s it. The home team gets more of the calls.”

“So you’re saying the refs are throwing the game?”

“No, no. See, that’s the key to the study. It isn’t as though the referees are purposely favoring the home team. The bias is completely unintentional. It’s not conscious. It’s all related to social conformity.” Cal’s scientist hat was strapped down tightly now. “In short, we all want to be liked. The refs, like all humans, are all social creatures and assimilate the emotions of the crowd. Every once in a while, a referee will subconsciously make a call that will make the crowd happier. Ever watch a basketball game? All coaches work the refs because they understand human nature better than anyone. Do you see?”

Adam nodded slowly. “I do.”

“So that’s it, Adam.” Cal spread his hands. “That’s the whole home-field advantage in a nutshell—the human desire to conform and be liked.”

“And so you yell at the referees—”

“At away games,” he interrupted. “I mean, we need to keep our advantage at home. But at away games, sure, scientifically speaking, you need it for balance. Staying quiet could actually hurt you.”

Adam looked away.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, I want to hear it. You’re an attorney, right? You work in an adversarial business.”

“I do.”

“And you do what you can to influence the judge or opposing counsel.”

“I do.”

“So?”

“Nothing. I got your point.”

“But you don’t agree with it.”

“I don’t really want to get into it.”

“But the data is pretty clear.”

“Right.”

“So what’s your issue?”

Adam hesitated and then figured, why not. “It’s just a game, Cal. Home-field advantage is part of it. It’s why we play half of the games home, half away. So it balances out. In my view—and hey, it’s only mine—you’re justifying bad behavior. Let it just play out, bad calls and all. It’s a better example to the boys than screaming at referees. And if we lose an extra game or two a year, which I doubt, it’s a small price to pay for decorum and dignity, don’t you think?”