Interesting article in the Weekend Wall Street Journal:  Baseball Confronts The Luck Factor; Is That Team Good — or Just Lucky? Using Research on Randomness That’s Shaking Up Other Fields, Number-Crunchers Say They Can Answer the Question, by Russell Adams:

Even in the numbers-obsessed world of sports, baseball has stood out for its efforts to track all aspects of the game. Now its fanatic record-keepers are on a quest to quantify something seemingly beyond measurement: the ethereal quality of luck. They’re using insights into randomness that are shaking up other fields, from cancer research to weapons testing — and that may even help you pick a good mutual fund.

My beloved Red Sox dominate the luck rankings: according to the stats mavens, the team should be in third place rather than in first place, Willy Mo Pena and Trot Nixon are two of the AL’s luckiest hitters, and Matt Clement is the unluckiest pitcher in the league (his ERA should be 4.04, not 6.61).  (Trevor Hoffman of my adopted Padres is the NL’s luckiest pitcher, with an ERA of 1.38 rather than 2.84.)

With careers turning on editorial decisions by third-year law students, the Tax Prof world seems ripe for similar studies — who are the luckiest (and unluckiest) Tax Profs?!?