(Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg)
If you’re unfamiliar with the sporting phenomenon “Scorigami,” it describes a situation in which teams establish a final score that has never happened before in the history of the sport. For example, has an NFL game ever ended in a 40-40 tie? The answer is yes, and it happened for the first time last year when Green Bay and Dallas tied on September 28.
There were four final scores in the NFL last year, which has never happened before.
There is now a Twitter account follow SCOTUSgami – this is the first time that a decision presents a particular group of judges. And it happened this week.
The guidelines for SCOTUSgami are a little different than the sports version. The author does not take into account all votes, which means that Kagan’s dissent alone here has no bearing on the SCOTUSgami. But a deal written by Sotomayor and joined only by Kavanaugh counts. A little more about the process…
It would be interesting to extend the -gami to complete alignments, for example by recognizing the 6-3 of a Sotomayor, joined by the Kavanaugh agreement. with Kagan’s dissent as opposed to a simple Sotomayor, joined by the sole contest of Kavanaugh. This would certainly create a lot more SCOTUSgami results early on – and the narrative is clear: “they shouldn’t be too frequent“, but the problem with any -gami is that there will be a lot of them at first, then they will gradually disappear.
Anyway, a fun new distraction for nerds watching the institution fall.
Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Think like a lawyer. Please feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter Or Blue sky if you’re interested in law, politics and a healthy dose of college sports news.
