Subtlety
Sometimes a team can appear to have a mathematical chance to win even though they have actually been eliminated already, due to scheduling. In this Major League Baseball scenario, there are three games remaining in the season. Teams A, B and C are assumed to be eligible only for the division championship; teams with better records in other divisions have already clinched the two available "wild card" spots:
| Team | Wins | Losses |
| A | 87 | 72 |
| B | 87 | 72 |
| C | 85 | 74 |
If Team C were to win all three remaining games, it would finish at 88-74, and if both Teams A and B were to lose their three remaining games, they would finish at 87-75, which would make Team C the division winner. However if Teams A and B are playing against each other in the final weekend (in a 3 game series), it would be impossible for both teams to lose the three remaining games. One of them will win at least two games and thereby clinch the division title with a record of either 90-72 or 89-73. The more direct consequence of this situation is that it is also not possible for Teams A and B to finish in a tie with each other, and Team C can't win the division.
Read more about this topic: Magic Number (sports)
Famous quotes containing the word subtlety:
“You’ve got the subtlety of a bullfrog.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)
“The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“Parents are led to believe that they must be consistent, that is, always respond to the same issue the same way. Consistency is good up to a point but your child also needs to understand context and subtlety . . . much of adult life is governed by context: what is appropriate in one setting is not appropriate in another; the way something is said may be more important than what is said. . . .”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)