voluntaryXchange

WFT: Tiger Woods

What else can you say?

Technorati Tags: tiger,woods

What If It Was Rockies vs. Yankees?

They’re forecasting 18 inches of snow in Denver. It’s been snowing here (500 miles to the southwest) for 24 hours, so this seems plausible.

About 3 weeks ago vX posted about the problem with having a baseball team in Denver now that the season runs into November. That was in response to a small amount of snow in Denver postponing one game: 18 inches in Denver this time of year could postpone a game for 4-5 days.

Technorati Tags: snow,denver,baseball,world,series

Baseball Expansion

A bunch of cities competed for MLB expansion franchises: on the morning of July 5, 1991, Buffalo thought it had one locked up.

Denver was probably the top candidate, so I’m not claiming they edged out Buffalo when the announcement was made later in the day.*

What I will claim is that one of the well-known knocks on locating a team in Denver was the length of the snow season. Now we have a playoff game in Denver being snowed out, and the World Series may not end for another 3 weeks.

Just saying …

* From a 1989 The New York Times piece:

…Buffalo ranks second to none under criteria established by Peter Ueberroth: it has a baseball-only, open-air, natural grass stadium; state and local government support, well-endowed local ownership and demonstrated fan commitment.

Technorati Tags: colorado,rockies,baseball,buffalo,bisons,mlb,expansion

Extreme Kayaking

Kayakers are going over really big waterfalls – 3 world records this year, topping out at 198 feet.

Check out this piece from The Wall Street Journal (with video) entitled “Kayaking Goes Over the Edge”.

Nineteen years ago a guy tried to kayak over Niagara Falls – which is about that height, but a bit … um … bigger than the typical kayak water. They still haven’t found his body. Photos here.

Posted for Sage.

Technorati Tags: kayak,waterfall

Best Optical Illusions

The applet showing how a curveball appears to “break” is tremendous.

Technorati Tags: optical,illusions,curveball,curve,ball

SUU Makes the New York Times!

Our basketball team (which isn’t doing that well) made the first page of today’s sports section in The New York Times.

The piece is entitled “For Free Throws, 50 Years of Experience Is No Help”.

Our team may not be good at everything, but apparently they are the best team this year at shooting free throws.

N.B. In a bizarre twist, this is the second time in a month that Summit League basketball has gotten written up in The New York Times: last month the women’s team from South Dakota State University was written up because of their high ranking and good performance against more prestigious schools.

Technorati Tags: basketball,free,throw,summit,league

Idle Wondering - Incarcerated Football Players Edition

I wonder if there is a link between sports championships and doing time in prison after retirement: basically, dirty person = dirty/effective player.

A lot of this is sour grapes: I grew up in Buffalo, and a little part of me died on 4 January days in the 90s.

And, it just seems to me that there are quite a few players from those champions who've done time.

But ... maybe not. Try this out in Google:

• 108K hits for the search +"Buffalo Bills" +prison
• 123K hits for the search +"Washington Redskins" +prison
• 302K hits for the search +"New York Giants" +prison
• 649K hits for the search +"Dallas Cowboys" +prison

Of course, some teams are more popular. But, I looked a this, and the percentage of a teams overall hits with the keyword prison present was 2, 4, 2, and 6%.

It gets worse: almost half of the hits for Buffalo go away when you tell Google to drop them if they include the word "simpson".

The names on Google's front page will make you do a double take as well: Mark Ingram and Dave Meggett for the Giants, and Tim Smith for the Redskins were all Super Bowl heroes. And who could forget about the Cowboys - although, interestingly, those guys don't make the top page at Google because of all the other more recent problems in Dallas.

Technorati Tags: buffalo,bils,new york,giants,dallas,cowboys,washington,redskins,prison

Team Loyalty and City Loyalty

Fantastic point raised by Jerry Bowyer:

When the Steelers were in the Super Bowl in 2006 I was the host of a radio show in Pittsburgh. I argued that the franchise was an exercise in leadership excellence in a city whose politicians were anything but. Numerous callers hammered me. They said there are a lot of "Steelers" bars across the country, and that proved the city still had some national respect. Indeed, there are hundreds of watering holes dispersed across America loaded with fanatical devotes of the Pittsburgh Steelers. "Where are the Seahawks bars?" the callers asked.

In Seattle, of course. That city has gained population while Pittsburgh lost it. Steelers bars are the visible cultural artifact of a kind of economic diaspora. People in those bars are the refugees who looked at high taxes, union dominance and lousy schools and voted with their feet. They can still root for their favorite team -- from Raleigh, North Carolina. You go South or West to get your bread. The circuses can be watched on cable. [emphasis added]

Read the whole thing for information on why people like me have left their northeastern homes in spite of the lack of waterfront parks and convention centers in our new ones.

Technorati Tags: sports,city,team,loyalty

Sports Franchise Mobility and Recessions

Here's a piece from The New York Times about how professional baseball teams fared during the Great Depression.

As time passes, a rough gage of the actual severity of the current downturn will be the number of sports teams that fail or move. This site lists the current locations of sports teams with their previous locations, and there is a business cycle pattern (although note that failure of sports teams appears to be a lagging indicator).

In football:

• The Raiders moved from Oakland to Los Angeles during the 1981-2 recession.
• The Redskins moved from Boston to Washington during the Great Depression.
• The Colts moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis just after the 1981-2 recession.

In baseball:

• The Athletics moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City (yes, that's right), after the 1953-4 recession.
• The St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles during the 1953-4 recession.
• The Giants and Dodgers moved west from the New York area during the 1957-8 recession.
• The (old, old) Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins during the 1960-1 recession. The (new then old) Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers shortly after the 1969-70 recession.
• The (old) Baltimore Orioles became the New York Highlanders during the 1902-4 recession, and then the New York Yankees during the 1913-4 recession.
• The Seattle Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers during the 1969-70 recession.

In basketball:

• The Buffalo Braves became the San Diego Clippers after the 1973-5 recession, who in turn moved to Los Angeles after the 1981-2 downturn.
• Ever wonder how the Los Angeles Lakers got their weird name? It's because they moved from Minneapolis during the 1960-1 recession.
• The Warriors moved from Philadelphia to the bay area after the 1960-1 recession.
• How about the Royals, who moved from Rochester to Cincinnati during the 1957-8 recession, then became the Kansas City/Omaha Kings just between the 1969-70 and 1973-5 recessions, only to move to Sacramento after the 1981-2 recession?
• How about the Packers/Zephyrs who left Chicago after the 1960-1 recession to become the Baltimore Bullets, only to move down the road to Washington during the 1973-5 recession (where they were given a more politically-correct name in 1997).
• The Hawks moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta after the 1953-4 recession.
• The Hornets moved from Charlotte to New Orleans after the 2000-1 recession.
• The Nationals moved from Syracuse and became the Philadelphia 76ers after the 1960-1 recession.
• The Rockets moved from San Diego to Houston after the 1969-70 recession.

Hockey is a bit different, because of the small market problem, but it's interesting to note the team failures that took place around the recessions of the 1970's: the Barons in 1978, and the Seals (4 times between 1967 and 1976 in what was then a depressed bay area).

Technorati Tags: sports,team,failures,recession

UB's 1958 Tangerine Bowl Decision

My alma mater, the University at Buffalo, SUNY, has been invited to one bowl game in its history.

They declined the invitation.

It was 1958, and Orlando was hosting its annual Tangerine Bowl. The invitation stipulated that black members of the UB Bulls team would not be allowed on the field.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to former student Cam Findlay who spotted this piece as a "Must Read" in the College Football section on ESPN.

Technorati Tags: tangerine,bowl,1958,orlando,buffalo,ub,bulls