Category: Sports

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Baseball’s Unlikely Regular Season Finish

A great piece by Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight on how unlikely the events of the last day of the Major League Baseball season actually were. Below is just a sample:

The following is not mathematically rigorous, since the events of yesterday evening were contingent upon one another in various ways. But just for fun, let’s put all of them together in sequence:

  • The Red Sox had just a 0.3 percent chance of failing to make the playoffs on Sept. 3.
  • The Rays had just a 0.3 percent chance of coming back after trailing 7-0 with two innings to play.
  • The Red Sox had only about a 2 percent chance of losing their game against Baltimore, when the Orioles were down to their last strike.
  • The Rays had about a 2 percent chance of winning in the bottom of the 9th, with Johnson also down to his last strike.

Multiply those four probabilities together, and you get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way.

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Bucket List: Visiting All Sporting Venues

I was putting together a bucket list earlier which I will post once it is fully developed later on this summer and someone mentioned to me that going to all the sports arenas and stadiums should be one of the items on that list. That got me into thinking exactly how many of those places I have seen myself.

The list is a little bit longer than I would have originally thought it to be although it includes not only the places I have actually seen a game (indicated in bold) but also the stadiums/arenas that I have seen in person but didn’t necessarily watch a game there. The current list stands at 39 sporting venues, which includes repeats such as Air Canada Centre and Madison Square Garden as they play host to multiple professional teams, or 32 unique ones. Those venues span over 9 states, 1 province and two different countries.

A few rules to counting the sporting venues:

  1. It counts as long as you physically saw it in person whether for a few seconds or were actually inside the stadium.
  2. Repeats count but just have a separate unique list
  3. Old Stadiums still count as long as they were playing host to the professional team at the time of your visit.
  4. Venues of professional teams only, College and Minor League stadiums/arenas do NOT count.
  5. Venues must be located in North America.

I have attended events in 12 of those venues which comprise of 5 baseball stadiums, 3 hockey arenas, 2 basketball stadiums, 1 soccer field and boxing match.

I’m hoping to add a couple when I am in Dallas this summer with the Mavericks, Rangers, Cowboys and Stars but I’m not sure how much time I will actually have but that is definitely on the to-do list.

I’m sure there are plenty of you out there with a longer list than me, let me see them or if you have done more in a single sport, let me know!

Sport (Physically Seen – Attended Game)

Major League Baseball (13 – 5):

–         Rogers Centre (Blue Jays)
–         Yankee Stadium (Yankees)
–         New Yankee Stadium (Yankees)
–         Fenway Park (Red Sox)
–         Camden Yards (Orioles)
–         Wrigley Field (Cubs)
–         Comiskey Park (White Sox)
–         Citizens Bank Ballpark (Phillies)
–         Nationals Park (Nationals)
–         Citi Field (Mets)
–         Shea Stadium (Mets)
–         Three Rivers Stadium (Pirates)
–         Jacobs Field (Indians)

National Hockey League (9 – 3):

–         Air Canada Centre (Leafs)
–         Maple Leafs Garden (Leafs)
–         Madison Square Garden (Rangers)
–         Prudential Center (Devils)
–         Wells Fargo Center (Flyers)
–         TD Garden (Bruins)
–         Verizon Center (Capitals)
–         United Center (Blackhawks)
–         HSBC Arena (Sabers)

National Football League (7 – 0):

–         Giants Stadium (Jets / Giants)
–         Soldiers Field (Bears)
–         Lincoln Financial Field (Eagles)
–         M&T Bank Stadium (Ravens)
–         EverBank Field (Jaguars)
–         Ralph Wilson Stadium (Bills)
–         Three Rivers Stadium (Steelers)

National Basketball Association (6 – 2):

–         Air Canada Centre (Raptors)
–         Madison Square Garden (Knicks)
–         IZOD Center (Nets)
–         Wells Fargo Center (76ers)
–         TD Garden (Celtics)
–         United Center (Bulls)

Major League Soccer (2 – 1):

–         BMO Field (Toronto FC)
–         Red Bull Arena (Red Bull)

Boxing (1 – 1):

–         Prudential Center (Welterweight)

Horse Racing (1 – 0):

–         Belmont Park (Triple Crown, 3rd Leg)

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Updates: My Domain and My Book

I wrote my CFA Level I exam last weekend which was by far the trickiest exam I have taken but I feel like I was prepared enough to do well on it. Since the results do not come out for approximately another seven weeks, I needed to figure out what I am going to do for the next two months. I decided that over at my new domain http://farazhyder.com I will begin to start posting updates on the current status and progress of the book I thought of publishing a few years back. I think I am going to devote that domain primarily to my book and more specific matters which would require less updates and continue to maintain ABG with the more frequent posts.

It is going to need plenty of revisions but if I can devote a solid chunk of the next four or five weeks to it, I can get back on pace to have something out by the end of the year. I know I have said this before but hopefully this time I will be able to produce something.

I am going to be looking for help from some people who want to read/edit through it. I would prefer that you have some interest in the game of baseball if you want to read it and would be willing to provide some valuable feedback. The following topics are covered in the book: Steroids, Media and the Digital Age, Shortstops, Barry Bonds, and the New York Yankees. If you have a specific interest in one of the topics, let me know and I can send you relevant parts from the book.

Also if you are of the artistic kind, I have a few very specific ideas for the front and back cover so if you want to help me out, that would be awesome.

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Well Done, Miami.

Call it what you want. It was unnecessary, stupid, down right cocky and it definitely was celebratory. This is something I would have expected from LeBron, not Wade but teammate tendencies certainly have ways of rubbing off on you. They had seen what Dallas had already done in the playoffs before against huge deficits with time left on the clock but I guess you have to witness it yourself to believe it.

With the next 3 games in Dallas now, the series may never even come back to Miami for a Game 6. I think it will, just so Dallas can win it on the road. Mavs in 6.

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Starting To Run Again

It will be 11 months next week since I moved north of the border and I have really gotten out of shape in that time. I used to be able to run a 6:30 mile during my best days but now I can barely pull off a 6:30 kilometer. Not bad for a 11-month layoff but I am slowly starting to get myself back into this.

Take a look at the incline, all the way at the bottom of the attached picture. The run begins with an immediately down hill run and hits rock bottom about a kilometer in which also happens to be where my non-stop running hits a wall. The huge 13 meter climb a little before half way into my run is a real killer but that’s something I’m gonna use to get myself back in shape again.

Hopefully towards the latter half of this year, I’ll participate in a 5 or 10k run either here or back in the States.

Anyone else here on RunKeeper.com? If you are, get me on your street team and let’s run one of these races later in the year.

Also I was shown this video yesterday and maybe it is correct, maybe it is not but I raises valid points about how you run and how it may end up hurting you. Take a quick look and let me know what you think.

On a completely unrelated note with the Stanley Cup Finals starting tomorrow, watch this clip. Skip to around the 0:30 mark: