The Countdown to 10,000

By now, many of you have probably already seen the NY Times piece about the hapless Phils. It is a rehashing of a story everyone has heard 1,000 times about how bad the organization is and has been. But the “first pro sports team to 10,000” mark, while fun to celebrate, is completely meaningless. Baseball plays 10 times as many games in a season as football, and twice as many as the NHL and NBA. Not to mention that the NBA, NFL, and NHL were all started at least 40 years after Major League baseball kicked off. So the only teams you can compare them to are the teams that came into the league around the same time as they did (1883). The Braves (1876) are second in losses with 9,668. But they have 17 pennants, compared to our five. The hapless Cubs came in the league seven years earlier than us and still have a lot less losses, with 9,416. Fighting for 4th losingest of all time are the Pirates (1882) with 9,328 losses and the Reds (1882) with 9,325. Pretty fascinating that two teams that came into the league in the same year have essentially the same number of losses. Strangely, the Reds have 43 more wins. (All time records courtesy of baseball-reference.com)

And least we have a World Series win. That’s something that fans of the Rockies, Astros, Padres, Mariners, Devils Rays, Rangers, and Expos/Nationals can’t say. And there are other teams who, by a more fair measure, are less succesfull. The Rangers (.467), the Rockies (.466), the Padres (.462), and the Devil Rays (.400) all have lower winning percentages than us.
RELATED: Fascinating facts about Phillie futility.

Quizzo for the Cause

I am raising money again for my basketball league. We had a second half of the longest Little League basketball season ever (we started in October. The NBA starts in November. We’re both finishing up now.) Anyways, we’re getting trophies for the 2nd half of the season, so I’m asking everyone who plays to donate a dollar towards the trophies. Also, our all-star games are friday, starting at 5:30 p.m. It would be AWESOME if any of you guys could make it. I’d love for these kids to get to play in front of a nice sized crowd. Plus, as an added bonus, you get me doing the PA for the games, and I have to admit, I’m freaking phenomenal as a PA announcer and B-ball DJ. It sounds like the Wachovia Center in there, I swear. Anyways, it’s gonna be at the Christian Street YMCA (17th and Christian) on friday at 5:30 p.m. There are two games, and the 2nd one will be a little higher quality, since it’s the older kids (11-12). Tip off for that one should be around 6:15 p.m. Hope some of you guys can make it.

Question of the week

The Olsen Twins turn 21 this week. What hilarious and heartwarming 1995 movie starred not only the twins, but Kirstie Alley and comic genius Steve Guttenberg?

Jams Win

Wallace D. Fard founded this religious group in 1930, then disappeared in 1934 after being taken into custody by the Chicago police department.

Dork Sided Wins at O’Neals

When John White returned to Roanoke island, the entire settlement had disappeared. The only evidence he found was the name of a nearby Indian tribe carved into a fort. What tribe was it?

Photos of Winners

Alright, I’ve been having some major computer problems, but i think I can finally post these photos. So I’ll post questions underneath them about people who have disappeared. One guess per person.

Running a little behind

Yeah, so, uh, I didn’t get those photos up yet, and now I gotta right my Metro column. I ran late shooting a porno last night. Details forthcoming. But I promise to get the photos up later today.

Yo

Been spending all day tooling around with Hopalong Art. Watching V or Vendetta and trying to figure out how to use to use my new videocamera. Working on a film tonight. More details forthcoming. Also, I think the pics are working again, so I’ll be posting the photos of last weeks winners tonight. Holla atcha soon.

Ever heard of this guy?

His name was John O’Neill, and I was tooling around on the internet yesterday when I came across him. He was the head of the FBI’s terrorism division that was following Bin Laden. He got so frustrated at the incompetence of the FBI and the Bush administration that he quit, and took a job as head of security at the World Trade Center. September 11, 2001 was his 2nd day on the job. He was killed. Here is an excellent Frontline on him. Of course conspiracy theorists have ha a field day with this.

Technical difficulties

I’m having some trouble getting the photos to come up for some reason. I’ll have Trivia Art look at it and try to post photos this afternoon. It is important that I get those photos to show, b/c the Rock paper Scissors photos are in there to and the RPS tourney was a classic.