Super Bowl Quiz: Admittedly, most of these are rather difficult.
1) In Super Bowl II, Green Bay – Oakland, who was Green
Bay’s leading rusher with 17 carries for 62 yards? [Hint: It
wasn’t Donny Anderson.] 2) In Super Bowl VI, Dallas – Miami,
who was Dallas’ leading rusher with 95 yards on 19 carries? 3)
In Super Bowl XII, Dallas – Denver, who were Denver’s two
QBs? 4) In Super Bowl XVI, San Francisco – Cincinnati, who
led the 49ers with 55 yards on 17 carries? Answers below.
Blaise Pascal
[The following is more esoteric than our normal fare, and it gets
a little heavy at the end…so consider this ‘bar chat’ for the finer
salons.]
A bunch of us were playing poker the other night, trying out
Texas Hold ‘Em like everyone else in the country is these days
now that the game is prominently featured on television, and
then while perusing magazines in an airport afterwards I picked up
Casino Player. Hey, this had some good stuff in it, including an
article by Basil Nestor on Blaise Pascal.
Now any gambler should know that Monsieur Pascal (1623-
1662) is really the patron saint of casino-type games and that he
developed the first machine for calculating odds (what some
would say was also the first computer).
Pascal was born in France, developing a love of math and
philosophy. Then, according to Nestor, in Paris 1654, a
Chevalier by the name of Antoine Gombaud was losing his shirt
playing dice games when he asked the question, “How may rolls
would it take to give a player a greater than 50% chance of
rolling double sixes?”
Nestor writes, “Oddly enough, nobody in the history of the world
up to that time had correctly and comprehensively answered the
basic question.” The Chevalier sought Pascal’s advice.
Nestor: “Consider how often a six appears when rolling a single
die. On average, it shows up once every six times. Right? So
logically, the probability of seeing a six is greater than 50 percent
when rolling four times. Indeed, this is true, but not for reasons
that the Chevalier entirely understood. In any case, (he) knew
that two dice can produce 36 unique combinations, so he figured
that four is to six (one die) as 24 is to 36 (two dice). He simply
multiplied by six. His arithmetic was correct but his reasoning
was flawed because dice are random. An accurate calculation
required something more than just assigning a static value of six
to the second cube.”
Blaise wrote to a lawyer in Toulouse, Pierre de Fermat. “This
(error) was for him (the Chevalier) a great scandal which made
him say haughtily that the propositions are not constant and that
arithmetic contradicts itself….(The Chevalier) has a good
intelligence, but he isn’t a geometer and this, as you realize, is a
bad fault.”
Well, the bottom line is that double sixes have a 50.6 percent
chance of appearing after 25 rolls. And so Blaise Pascal was on
his way to developing the mathematical theory of probability,
along with Fermat.
But it was in the same year, 1654, that shortly after writing his
letter to the Chevalier, Pascal had a brush with death. Nestor:
“He was riding in a carriage over a bridge when his horses
bolted. The force of the sudden pull broke the traces (straps)
holding the horses to the carriage, and the animals plunged off
the bridge. Blaise would have gone with them if the traces had
held. It seemed to the mathematician as if God had intervened.”
Blaise then had a vision and moved into a monastery, where he
spent much of his time on religious discourse. It was during this
period that he came up with Pascal’s Wager, published
posthumously as part of “Pensees,” wherein he mused, “God is,
or He is not. But to which side shall we incline?” Pascal then
viewed the issue from a probability standpoint.
“There’s no downside to being a believer even if God doesn’t
exist, but there is a risk of eternal damnation if one is an
unbeliever and God ‘does’ exist. So the ‘good bet’ is on God.”
[Basil Nestor]
Well, after reading this article I couldn’t help but look up Pascal
in Norman Davies’ “Europe: A History” to find other gems from
the Blaister. Such as:
“Le Coeur a ses raisons, que la Raison ne connait point.”
The heart has its reasons which Reason cannot know.
And, “People are neither angels nor beasts. Yet bad luck would
have it that anyone who tries to create an angel creates a beast.”
But wait, there’s more. Pascal is responsible for this one.
“Had Cleopatra’s nose been shorter, the whole face of the world
would have changed.”
Well then, we’ve just fulfilled our annual philosophy
requirement under the rules of the International Web Site
Association, thus enabling me to retain my license.
We now resume our regularly scheduled programming.
—
“Sperm Whale Explodes in Tainan City”!!!!
Geezuz, can’t say I’ve ever heard this one before, but according
to Taiwan News (and the Drudge Report), this 17-meter, 50-ton
sperm whale washed up on shore on Saturday and officials
decided to transport it to a university where an autopsy was to
take place before preserving the beast. But security guards said,
“No way. You can’t bring that whale on campus unless it’s a
legacy case,” and so the researchers were towing it to another
location when disaster struck.
The truck carrying the whale was going through Tainan City when
the carcas suddenly exploded. Marine biologist Wang Chien-ping
explained. “Because of the natural decomposing process, a lot of
gases accumulated, and when the pressure buildup was too great,
the whale’s belly just exploded and spilled blood and the innards
on the street.”
“What a stinking mess! This blood and other stuff that blew out
on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful,” said one
resident.
Bet you’re glad you weren’t there.
—
Let’s see if we can get this back on track, shall we?
Jack Paar died at age 85. He was the original late-night talk
show pioneer, hosting “The Tonight Show” from 1957-62 before
Johnny Carson took over. Paar was a complex, mercurial
character and his show was loaded with interesting guests.
Among those he gave a start to were Jonathan Winters, Bob
Newhart, Carol Burnett, Woody Allen, the Smothers Brothers,
Charley Weaver (Cliff Arquette), Hugh Downs (who was the
announcer) and Bill Cosby. During the 1960 presidential
campaign, both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon went on and
the brief clips you may have seen show just how relaxed both
were. Kennedy’s appearance was a real triumph, in particular, so
much so that a few days before the election, papa Joseph P.
Kennedy wrote Paar a letter.
“I don’t know anybody who did more, indirectly, to have Jack
elected than your own good self.”
But an example of Paar’s prickly demeanor, Newsweek having
described “The Tonight Show” as “Russian roulette with
commercials,” is the incident in February 1960 when he walked
off the program. Here is an account by Dennis McLellan in the
Los Angeles Times.
“(An) NBC censor cut Paar’s humorous story dealing with a
British couple who wanted to rent a cottage and the Swedish real
estate agent’s confusion over the letters W.C. – the common
British abbreviation for a water closet, which the agent assumed
to mean wayside chapel.
“By then, the show was being taped earlier in the evening and the
network censor cut the nearly five-minute story without
informing Paar.
“Paar, concerned that the censored joke made viewers think he
had committed a ‘terrible obscenity,’ stunned his audience – and
announcer Hugh Downs – the next night by walking off the
show.
“‘I’m leaving the ‘The Tonight Show,’’ an emotional Paar told
them. ‘There must be a better way to make a living.’
“About four weeks later, after making peace with NBC, Paar was
back in front of the cameras: ‘As I was saying before I was
interrupted…’”
Stuff
–Joe Namath’s guarantee in Super Bowl III.
The Thursday night before the game, Namath attended an outing
for the Miami Touchdown Club. From the time the Jets had hit
town, Coach Weeb Ewbank wanted his players to accept their
huge underdog role. But Namath told this particular gathering,
“We’re going to win Sunday, I’ll guarantee you.”
Namath: “A fella in the back of the room came up with the same
stuff we’d been hearing for 10 days: ‘You guys don’t have a
chance.’ Well, when you have a group of guys work together and
try hard and have success, when someone comes in and tells
them they can’t do something, there’s a level of anger that gets
going. That’s all it was. I was angry to hear that B.S. again. It
wasn’t planned.” [Source: “Going Long” by Jeff Miller]
The next day the pledge was splashed across the Miami Herald,
though Namath didn’t think he had done anything wrong. Then
Coach Ewbank confronted him at practice.
“What have you done? Look what…Joe, how could you do this?
That team was so overconfident! Now you’ve given them
something to get fired up about.” [Namath / Miller]
No problemo, Weeb, as Namath proved two days later.
–This just in…from Dan L. and the AP…“The number of shark
attacks worldwide has dropped 30 percent over the past three
years, good news for surfers but possibly bad news for sharks.”
There were 79 in 2000, but that number has been sliding every
year since then with just 55 in 2003. Four of these were fatal last
year, compared to 11 in 2000.
But while some feel the reduction in attacks is a result of
significantly lower populations of our favorite cartilaginous fish,
others are suggesting that there are fewer people on beach
vacations due to the economy. However, if you buy the fact that
despite rising GDP #’s the global economy is still in a bit of a
funk (not saying I personally do), I guess you could build the
case that loan sharks are doing a thriving business in deeper
waters and have no need to move closer to shore for loose
change in wetsuits. That’s just my opinion…I could be wrong.
–Comedian David Brenner, now playing Vegas 44 weeks a year,
was asked, “Are there any aspects of Las Vegas that you still
have a hard time getting used to?”
Brenner: “People dressing like slobs in the casinos, the
restaurants and, mostly in the showrooms.” [Casino Player]
I have a friend Mark R. who would say the same thing about the
way many of us Catholics dress for church each Sunday.
–Nice going New York Yankees third baseman Aaron Boone,
hero of last fall’s ALCS. Even though his $5.75 million contract
explicitly forbids playing basketball, Boone tore his ACL playing
in a pickup game back on January 16 (word just hit this week)
and he’s undoubtedly out for the season. The Yankees shouldn’t
be responsible for a dime, but the Players Union will raise a stink
about it.
–Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis got into it with a
season ticket holder the other night. 20-year-old Jason Hammer
was leading a chant mocking Leonsis for the Capitals’ poor play
as well as the owner’s hand in sending Jaromir Jagr to the
Rangers, along with holding a sign belittling Leonsis. So the
owner confronted the kid in the corridor and first put his hands
on him before shoving him against a wall, by one account.
Leonsis later apologized and invited Hammer (no relation to
M.C. Hammer, that I’m aware of) to the owner’s suite for the
next game. Hammer accepted the apology and opted not to press
charges. [Washington Post]
**Update: Leonsis was suspended by the NHL for a week and
fined $100,000.
–The New Jersey Nets’ Jason Kidd is one helluva player, when
he feels like it, and a real pain in the ass otherwise. He has
personally destroyed a number of coaches in his career and so he
did the same to Head Coach Byron Scott, recently fired despite
leading the Nets to the NBA Finals the past two seasons. But
Jason denied any involvement.
“All the blame is going to be put on me, but the big thing is I feel
very comfortable that I had nothing to do with it. But everybody
is going to speculate. So I can’t fight that war.”
Mitch Lawrence of the Daily News had this comment,
responding to Kidd’s further statement “I have no pull here. I
have no say.”
“Kidd sounded ridiculous in proclaiming his innocence. More
than once he used the world ‘employee’ to describe his station in
life, as if he’s the guy who sweeps the floor after practice.”
And the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro had this take.
“The Nets gave Kidd and his merry band of henchmen what
they’d wanted for more than a year, Byron Scott’s bloodied head
on a stake. (General Manager) Rod Thorn gives them Lawrence
Frank now, the sunlight-starved, Van Gundian front-man for
what (from here on)…is a Jason Kidd operation, through and
through.
“Kidd can deny this. He can say, ‘Coach Frank is my coach,’ all
he wants. That’s fine, and it’s a front. The Corleone family was
in the ‘olive oil business,’ too.”
There was a time when I couldn’t stand the composition of the
New York Knicks because they were nothing more than a band
of thugs, but this Nets team is equally despicable in many
respects, particularly the back-stabbing trio of Kidd, Richard
Jefferson and Kenyon Martin. They’re like little snitches, the
kind of folks you hated growing up.
But for a different take, including the pending move to Brooklyn,
I had to turn to the #1 Nets fan in the area, Anna S., season ticket
holder along with her husband.
“While we are definitely not opposed to Brooklyn, we are also
not wedded to the Nets if they can’t provide a quality basketball
experience. First, the new owner is a real estate developer with
absolutely no interest in sports. Second, will we have to pay
exorbitant prices in the new stadium for mediocre seats? If so,
both Steve and I would consider jumping ship to MSG
depending on the state of basketball-related affairs there.
“We thought the Nets missed the boat by not firing Scott in the
summer when the players’ choice (Eddie Jordan) was still
available as well as a plethora of proven and respected NBA
coaches. We fully expect the Nets to ride Frank and then make a
push for Doc Rivers this summer.
“To most it sounds ludicrous to fire Byron after he took the team
to two straight Finals, but as someone who follows the Nets more
regularly than casual observers, I think not. The two of us
witnessed Scott’s poor substitution patterns and poor play calling
(particularly at end of game situations) on a nightly basis. The
talent masked his weaknesses and the team simply outgrew him,
aside from losing respect for the man.”
And as most of you know, that’s about all we’ll do on the Nets
the remainder of the regular season, until Kidd steps in it again.
By the way, when you see all those empty seats in the
Meadowlands, just understand that the only fans the team has in
the entire area are those who show up, or about 10,000 Nets fans
in the whole country. Me? I watch the games just because I’m
loyal to former Wake Forest hoopster Rodney Rogers; hoping to
hook onto his NASCAR dreams when he retires.
–Here are some facts on the making of major league baseballs,
as noted in a story by Tim Weiner in the New York Times.
The baseballs are made in Costa Rica, with Rawlings running the
factory. The core of the baseball is from Muscle Shoals Rubber
Company in Batesville, Mississippi, the yarn from D&T
Spinning in Ludlow, Vermont, and the cowhide from Tennessee
Tanning in Tullahoma, Tennessee. [Maybe someday I’ll take a
rather convoluted road trip to visit all 3. Then again, maybe I
won’t.]
Unfortunately, for those Costa Ricans putting the material
together it’s a lousy position, though any job is tough to come by
in these parts. The workers generally make about $2,750 a year,
after putting in many years, with the hours being 6:00 AM – 5:00
PM, sometimes 7 days a week. They make about 4 baseballs an
hour, each one having 108 stitches. You can imagine the
horrible problems they have with repetitive stress syndrome and
the fingers tend to get deformed. But a machine can’t make a
perfect baseball like a human can.
–Follow-up on the East German steroid situation involving
athletes in the sports programs during the Communist era.
Anywhere from 500-2,000 are experiencing significant health
problems these days, including “liver tumors, heart disease,
testicular and breast cancer, gynecological problems, infertility,
depression and eating disorders.” [Jere Longman / New York
Times]
I have written in the past on the doping trials that took place back
in 2000 and two years later a fund was set up by the government
to provide a maximum payout of $12,500 for those athletes who
wanted to come forward, but due mainly to perceived threats
only 311 have filed claims.
Longman writes of the case of Heidi Krieger, the 1986 European
women’s shot-put champion. As a 16-year-old, Heidi put the
shot 46 feet. 3 years later she was at 65’ 6”. Medical records
today show that she was receiving 2,590 milligrams of Oral-
Turinabol, or 1,000 milligrams more than Canadian sprinter Ben
Johnson took in 1988 when he had his gold in the 100 meters
stripped at the Seoul Olympics due to his own use.
Heidi became so screwed up later, suffering from extreme bouts
of depression, that she didn’t know who she really was, so now
Heidi is Andreas Krieger, having had a sex-change operation.
Recently, my friend Trader George heard Olympic gold medallist
Janet Evans discuss her own experiences facing the East German
swimmers. The comparison in body types, as most of you recall,
was unbelievable. Not only is it amazing that a few women such
as Evans nonetheless prevailed, it really makes a mockery of the
records that any E. German garnered during this era. It’s also
why some of us are super ticked off at many of today’s major
league baseball players. They’re ruining the history of the game.
But then you already knew that.
–A program note…I saw that “Biography” was doing a show on
Superman, George Reeves, this coming Wednesday, February 4.
Reeves’ story is an interesting one. Try and catch this.
Top 3 songs for the week of 1/29/77: #1 “Car Wash” (Rose
Royce) #2 “I Wish” (Stevie Wonder) #3 “Dazz” (Brick…. This
was a bad year to be a freshman in college. The music sucked.
Beer was tasty, however).
Super Bowl Quiz Answers: 1) Fullback Ben Wilson led the
Packers in rushing in Super Bowl II. He had rushed for 453
yards in the regular season. I just can’t place this guy. 2) Duane
Thomas led Dallas in rushing in Super Bowl VI. Walt Garrison
rushed for 74 yards, compared to Thomas’ 95. 3) Super Bowl
XII was a disaster for Denver, losing to Dallas 27-10. Starting
QB and former Cowboy, Craig Morton, threw four first half
interceptions and was 4 of 15 overall for 39 yards. Then Norris
Weese came in and went 4 of 10 for 22 yards. Great job, guys.
4) Ricky Patton led the 49ers ground game in their Super Bowl
XVI win over Cincinnati.
Super Bowl Tidbits:
–Great ‘team’ ground efforts: Super Bowl VIII, Miami rushed
53 times for 196 yards in defeating Minnesota 24-7. Larry
Csonka ran for 145 on 33 carries; Mercury Morris and Jim Kiick
also contributed. [Bob Griese threw just 7 passes in the game!]
In Super Bowl IX, Pittsburgh rushed 57 times for 249 yards in
dismantling the Vikings, 16-6. Franco Harris had 34 carries for
158 yards.
–Super Bowl XVI, San Fran 26 Cincinnati 21, was the first time
the team that gained the most yards from scrimmage lost the
game.
–Normally, 40-45% of households tune in to the Super Bowl, or
about 85 million people.
–Last year’s game in San Diego brought in $267 million to local
coffers. This year Houston is expecting about $300 million.
–Ticket brokers are charging $2,000 for a basic seat, $7,750 for
50-yard-line ones. The face value is $400-$600.
–Finally, if 53 million folks spent 10 minutes talking about the
game at work, the cost to employers would be $137 million each
day. [Hubert Herring / New York Times]
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday.
