A student sends me this piece by Dani Rodrik.
How does globalization reshape wealth and opportunity around the world? Is it mainly a force for good, enabling poor nations to lift themselves up from poverty by taking part in global markets? Or does it create vast opportunities only for a small minority?
To answer these questions, look no farther than soccer. Ever since European clubs loosened restrictions on the number of foreign players, the game has become truly global.
Read the whole thing.
This blog is mostly dedicated to economics, but it can be hard to resist an occasional digression into the world of sports. In that vein, a couple of things caught my eye today.
First, the WIU women's basketball team is waiting to see if they will be the #1 or #2 seed in the conference tournament. Their regular season is finished. They missed the opportunity to decide their own fate with a win this weekend. So now it's up to Southern Utah. (Incidentally, SUU is the academic home of David Tufte of the voluntaryXchange blog.) With a win over the other contender for the #1 seed, Oakland University, SUU could propel WIU into the top spot. If Oakland wins, they and WIU would have identical conference records, but Oakland swept the regular season series and would win the tiebreaker. Let's hope that SUU can pull off the upset.
The other women's basketball story getting my attention is the retirement of NDSU coach Amy Ruley (registration may be required for the article). Ruley has coached the Bison since 1979 and led the team to five Division II national championships--four of them consecutive from 1993 to 1996. Tonight will be her last regular season game. Bison basketball will just not seem the same for many fans of the game. Nearly 30 years at one school is an incredible run--that just doesn't happen anymore. She's a graduate of Purdue and has her master's degree from Western Illinois. (The latter I only found out recently after coming to WIU myself.) After coaching, she's expected to do some fundraising for NDSU athletics. As someone who grew up and went to college near Fargo in the '80s and '90s when she and the Bison were making their way to the pinnacle of D-II, I'd love to see her go out with a win. Go Bison!
Here are the two games that will be programmed into my DVR:
North Dakota State (#1 FCS Coaches Poll) at Minnesota (TV: Big Ten Network 11am CDT)
Northern Iowa (#2 FCS Coaches Poll) at Western Illinois (#17 FCS Coaches Poll) (TV: Fox Sports Midwest 6:30pm CDT)
Unfortunately another obligation tomorrow night will prevent me from attending the WIU game. The UNI vs WIU game features the only two teams unbeaten in conference play. In the Sports Network poll, NDSU is #2 and UNI #1.
UPDATE: NDSU and UNI both won. I recorded both and watched them later. It is truly unfortunate that NDSU is not yet eligible for post-season play after their transition to the FCS (formerly Division I-AA). In my opinion, the best two teams at this level are NDSU and UNI. Having seen both play, I'd give the edge to UNI, but not by much. Yes, the Bison did beat a Big Ten opponent (Minnesota), but Minnesota has been having so much trouble lately, I'm not sure what weight to put on that. It is a shame that NDSU and UNI will not play this year. Next year, however, they will be in the same conference.
Our playoff hopes are circling the drain after the loss to UNI, but next year our redshirt freshman QB will be a year older and a year wiser having played the #1 and #2 teams in the FCS.
Do not be surprised if UNI wins it all this year. Do not be surprised if the Bison win it all next year.
The NY Times visits my old stompin' grounds (or close, anyway).
Nine-man football is the province of small towns in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. “It’s simple,” said Nic Thompson, the Storm’s defensive back coach. “Nine-man just doesn’t have tackles.”
In Minnesota, it began in the mid-1960s after teams evolved from six- and eight-man football. Now, with 81 teams, it represents the state’s largest class. To qualify, high schools need to have fewer than 165 students. Stephen/Argyle Central has 111, 68 of whom are boys.
The article discusses how life has changed on the prairie on and off the football field. My town was not that small, and our football team had tackles. Even so, parts of the article sounded familiar. Read the article and catch a glimpse of the small town experience.
Things like this are good to hear. From the WIU Athletic Department:
Half of Western’s sport programs and 50 percent of the approximately 400 student-athletes earned grade point averages of at least 3.00 last semester. Thirty-one students recorded a perfect 4.00 GPA, leading to an overall student-athlete semester GPA of 2.83 - just below the overall University semester GPA of 2.87.
...
Western Illinois placed 58 student-athletes on the Fall 2006 Mid-Continent Academic All-Conference Team earlier this week, just one shy of Valparaiso which had a league-high 59 honorees. To be placed on the list, student-athletes must have a 3.00 or better GPA in the semester in which they compete. A total of 356 Mid-Con student-athletes from the sports of men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s soccer and volleyball were honored.
...
Athletically, Western Illinois is following its most successful year as more teams earned Mid-Con titles in 2005-06 than any of the past 10 years and more teams advanced to NCAA postseason tournaments than any year in Western’s Division I history.
Already this year, men’s soccer won the Mid-Con title, volleyball finished as the runner-up, and women’s soccer advanced to the title game of the Mid-Con Tournament. Baseball, men’s tennis and softball were ranked either first or second in the 2006 Mid-Con preseason polls.
Not to mention that the men's golf team was named one of the top 10 stories of the 2005-2006 season by Golfweek.
I've had a number of student athletes in my classes, and have nothing but good things to say. The college athletics system is far from perfect, but there are thousands of students across the country who play sports that don't get a lot of attention. They play simply for the love of the game. You won't see them on ESPN on Saturday afternoon, but you wouldn't know it from the effort they put forth. They tend to put forth the same effort in the classroom as well. Way to go!
For all you football fans out there, Skip Sauer describes a recent study of field goal attempts that shows that icing the kicker (i.e. when the defense takes a time out before a field goal being attempted under pressure) may actually work. He would like to see the study repeated with more data.
I'm almost as much of a college soccer fan as I am a college football fan. So it pleases me to say that the Western Illinois soccer team is going to the NCAA tournament for the 3rd straight year. They will play the University of Illinois-Chicago on Friday. WIU is 15-7-0 and is 2nd in the nation in goals scored at 50 (Winthrop has 51). UIC is 12-2-5 and has the 2nd best goals against average in the country. The strength of the UIC defense is going to be tough to beat, but maybe they can pull it off. The winner advances to meet #12 seed Notre Dame next week. Go Leathernecks!
The Wall Street Journal's Carl Bialik examines the promotions that offer huge prizes to someone who can fill out a perfect NCAA bracket.
A look at the odds of winning shows why companies are willing to risk such valuable loot. Filling out a perfect bracket means predicting the outcome of 63 games. If each game were a true toss-up, that would mean your chance of perfection is a mere one in two to the 63rd power, or one in nine million trillion (yes, million trillion -- there are no tidy terms for numbers this large). Put another way, you are about 60 billion times more likely to win the multistate Powerball lottery.
The rest of the article goes on to describe some of the strategies for improving your odds (1 vs 16 games really aren't toss-ups). If you like college basketball and probability, you'll like this article.
My take on the situation is that there is usually one game (sometimes more than one) that almost nobody would have picked. The Iowa/Northwestern State contest would fit the bill. Or, how about Bradley over Pitt? George Mason over NC? Wichita State over Tennessee? Take your pick. Now suppose that 100 million people correctly picked the first round games involving Bradley, Pitt, George Mason, NC, Wichita State, and Tennessee. They regard the 4 games above as toss ups and choose them randomly. The expected number of contestants who would still be in the running for a perfect bracket would be 6.25 million. And there are still 53 games to pick!
So in other words, start with 100 million people who have already picked a couple of upsets, give them the courage to give a 50/50 chance to a clear underdog in 4 other games and you'll still cull the herd by about 94% in just 10 games out of 63.
My secret to filling out the bracket is to always have a couple of 10 seeds win in the first round, put one high seed in the Sweet 16, put Duke in the Final Four, and never ever go against Gonzaga in the first round no matter what their seed. That should improve your odds to one in several billion.
By Friday afternoon my bracket was in shambles, by the way (Duke and Gonzaga notwithstanding).
UPDATE: Katie Newmark (A Constrained Vision) also cites the article.
I don't think I will ever forget the sound of the Metrodome announcer (Bob Casey, who passed away almost a year ago) calling out his name, "Kiiiiirrrrbyyyyy Puckett!" If the Twins were in need of a hit, there were few things that sounded sweeter. Perhaps the only sweeter sound was radio announcer John Gordon saying, "Touch 'em all, Kirby Puckett!" after a home run.
My Dad became a Twins fan in the days of Tony Oliva and Harmon Killebrew. I never saw them play. But we shared Kirby.
Puckett was short, stocky, and played for a small market team. Looking at him in the outfield, you wouldn't suspect him of being able to make leaping catches at the wall the way he did. But inside that 5'8" package was one of the hardest working players around. He made it look easy. Talent and hard work made him a great player. But what made him beloved by Twins fans was that he played the game like he really enjoyed it. How could you not smile when you saw him grinning from ear-to-ear? When Kirby stepped to the plate, anything was possible. He made it exciting. He made it fun to be a fan.
History will remember his game ending home run in game 6 of the 1991 World Series. Minnesota will remember seeing #34 mature over the years into an integral part of a team that would win it all--twice. I will remember all of that and so much more. So much more because Kirby Puckett and the Twins were always on AM radio and cable TV in our house (and car) on those warm summer nights and cool autumn evenings. It was as if he provided the background music for the memories of my teenage and college years. Thanks, Kirby. Touch 'em all.
Kirby Puckett's Hall of Fame Page
Stanford is making its football stadium smaller to try to sell more season tickets. The reason: If people think they will not be able to get a ticket for the big rivalry games, they will shell out the money for season tickets to make sure they do. (NY Times)
Consultants who advise sports teams say there is method to the Stanford plan. Reducing capacity can increase sales, said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp Ltd., a Chicago sports consulting firm.
"When people feel like they wouldn't be able to get a ticket to any game they want to go to, they tend to get season tickets," he said, adding that it improves attendance over all.
There are a number of economic concepts at work here. Elasticity, bundling (pricing season tickets vs. individual tickets), supply and demand under uncertainty. Explaining the economics behind this would make a nice little undergraduate research paper.
Roger Noll is quoted in the article, but not about the factors mentioned above. Rather, he is quoted on the lack of concern about the money spent.
But several faculty members said graduates who donate to athletics would not have given money to rebuild any other part of the university, and so there was no downside to spending so much on the stadium.
"These people, their connection to the university is much more through athletics than through the academic" side, said Roger G. Noll, an economics professor at the university, referring to the graduates whose donations were financing the stadium project. He said he had heard few complaints from colleagues about the project, while he had heard concerns about the school's business endeavors, including real estate and intellectual property holdings.
While under the right circumstances, the plan could work, it is not a sure thing...
At least one other school, Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., is weighing a similar plan to reduce stadium size. But for Dartmouth and Stanford, the example of Princeton, which reduced the size of its stadium to 27,800 from 45,000 in the 1990's, may offer a cautionary tale.
In the first seasons after the construction project in New Jersey, and after the price of a ticket was cut to $5, attendance soared, rising to more than 20,000 people a game from fewer than 10,000 a game in the old stadium, said Jerry Price, associate athletic director at the school.
By last season, attendance had fallen nearly to its old levels, he said.
"We had bad weather for a couple of games," he said.
Write your own conclusion.
Did I mention that I like curling?
Well, I got my chance to try it at the Waltham Curling Club's open house this past Saturday.
The club is in the tiny town of Triumph, Illinois. I'm not sure what the population is. But I am a pretty good judge of small town population, and I'd put it at about 100. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive (and that is the closest curling club to us that I know of). So, my wife and I packed the kids into the minivan and set out for Triumph. What a wonderful afternoon! Here I am "in the hack" listening to the advice of one of the club members before getting down and delivering the rock. (The blurry figures behind the glass are our kids watching Dad's moment of glory.)
After delivering a couple of warm-up rocks, visitors to the open house formed up teams and played three ends of a match. My wife didn't intend to try it, but after coming out to take a picture of me, one of the club members asked if she wanted to give it a shot. She did, and that was all it took. When we formed up teams, I was the skip of my team. My wife was the lead. Two others played second and third. Here I am in my role as skip, pointing out to my teammate where to aim and which way to try to curl the rock.
I did manage a couple of take-outs (I admit that one was by accident when I was trying to draw--that take-out did not materially help us). I also swept a couple rocks out of the house, preventing a score. Our team scored a point in each of the first two ends, and the other teams scored in the third. But most importantly we all had a great time.
I know there are those out there who think curling is boring or say that it is just shuffleboard on ice. Get out there and try it. It is not easy. In fact, it poses a challenge similar to golf. Many golfers, myself included, keep coming back because you never achieve perfection. At the end of every round you remember that shot that could have been better--the missed birdie putt, the sliced tee shot, etc. Even after this one experience, I can see curling having that same appeal. You can't help but want to try again and do better. Just ask my wife, who once cringed every time I turned the TV to curling during the Olympics. All it took was one throw and she was hooked. It is fun, challenging game that values sportsmanship and fair play as much as strategy and skill.
We would like to thank the wonderful folks at the Waltham Curling Club for their hospitality in putting on the open house and letting a bunch of newcomers try their hand at the game. If they do it again next year, we'll be back.
The Sports Economist links to this NY Times story. Apparently when early sales were lagging, sponsors and national Olympic committees began buying up blocks of tickets to Olympic events. The problem is that those tickets are not being used, and the sponsors are trying to sell them for whatever they can get.
"The tickets have been sold, but maybe the spectators have preferred to go somewhere else," said Mario Pescante, an Italian under secretary of state who is the top government representative to the Games and a member of the International Olympic Committee.
...
Still the problem remains, and it touches on the interests of the sponsors, potential spectators, the scalpers and, ultimately, the organizers of the Games, who are eager for Turin to be seen as a grand success.
The sponsors, looking to recuperate some percentage of the money they have spent for tickets, have unloaded them on ticket brokers and scalpers through connections made over years and multiple Olympics. And starting in the early days of the Games, scalpers spread out around town with their business cards, cellphones and bricks of tickets, some even setting up temporary offices.
But their interests conflicted with two other powerful ones. First, the Turin organizers were having trouble selling tickets, and every one sold by a scalper would in theory subtract from revenue made by sales through the official box office. Second, ticket scalping is, plainly, against the law.
...
But the scalpers say they are providing a public service. Many Italians cannot afford the high prices of the official tickets — figure skating prices, for example, run from about 75 euros to about 293 euros (nearly $90 to more than $350) — and scalpers say they are selling, in most cases, far below the official prices.
In the U.S. selling at below face value is usually allowed except in certain locations (e.g. state property or at the event venue). See this Cato paper for a summary. When economists talk about the potential efficiency gains from allowing scalping, it is usually in the context of allowing the price to rise to eliminate non-economic forms of rationing, like queueing.
Here we have a case where tickets have already been sold once and the organizers want to prevent them from being sold again at below face value to protect their monopoly on selling them at face value (which is above the equilibrium price).
The inefficiency is in the form of excess supply instead of excess demand. Instead of not being able to find a ticket that you can afford, you can't afford a ticket that you can find.
And on another Olympic note, I was right about the U.S./Canada curling outcome. I didn't want to be right, but the U.S. just could not finesse the shots the way Canada could. They will meet again in the medal round. The U.S. proved they can stay with the Canadians, but they have to do more. I don't think you're going to beat Canada by blanking ends and trying to stay even. Canada's only losses have been when they are down in the 8th end. You're not going to beat them in the last two ends.
When the winter Olympics come around, there are certain sports that I really like to watch. I'll watch just about anything where people are rocketing down a hill at 80mph.
And I will stay glued to the TV for hours watching people slide rocks on a sheet of ice. I love watching curling.
John Palmer (EclectEcon) reminds me of my New Year's prediction where I predicted that Canada would defeat the U.S. in curling. Mind you, I make that prediction absolutely hoping that it does not come true. Most of the U.S. team is from my home state of Minnesota. I would love to see them win. But Canada put on an impressive show (at least from the line score) today against Germany. (Alas, I could not find it on American television.) The U.S. capitalized on a lot of mistakes by Norway (and made some mistakes) in the first match, then blew it on the last rock against Finland. From what I have been able to gather about the Canadian team, I don't think either performance by the U.S. today would have matched up to Canada. I fear my prediction may come true.
We'll see what happens on the women's side soon. According to the schedule, they should start playing in a few hours. Both teams lost today. They will be eager for a win. It should be competitive. Again, I root for our Minnesota curlers but give the edge to Canada.
If you've never watched it, just give it a chance. You might get hooked.
Yeah, I like college soccer. WIU plays Notre Dame in the first round. The winner has the pleasure of playing #3 Indiana. Maryland has the top seed. Good luck, Leathernecks!
Noted sports economist Brad Humphreys is blogging at The Sports Economist. He writes:
Claiming that a playoff game generates positive economic impact is similar to claiming that weekends generate positive economic impact. Imagine the headline in the business section: Bar, Restaurant Sales Surge on Friday and Saturday Night! Postseason appearances generate civic pride and contribute to fans and city residents feeling good about themselves and their home. They also give cities national and international media exposure that would not have taken place in the absence of postseason appearances. But a large body of evidence indicates that postseason play generates no significant economic impact on the local economy.
Together with Dennis Coates, he authored a paper on the subject (subscription required). This link to another paper by Victor Matheson and Robert Baade which comes to a similar conclusion is free. Check out the tables at the end.
Also on the subject of the World Series, John Palmer, Phil Miller, and King Banaian did a podcast on Radioeconomics. I'm listening to it now.
Oh, and apparently scalping is now legal in Illinois. (Hat tip: John Palmer)
Never thought I'd write a post with that title. Let's face it. Curling not as big as, say, the NBA. In case you don't know what it is, it's a sport in which players throw (slide, really) heavy rocks on a sheet of ice with the goal of getting the most rocks near the center and knocking the opposing team's rocks farther away.
If you want to know more about the sport, check this site.
If you want to see the blog about curling, check this out. One of the co-bloggers is The Eclectic Econoclast, aka John Palmer, an economist at the University of Western Ontario. Palmer also blogs at The Sports Economist.
I've never tried curling, but I think it would be fun. Must be the Minnesotan in me.
Still licking my wounds after Iowa's loss in the "Big Dance" imagine my reaction to this:
A number of national media outlets have slated Ferentz's Hawkeyes to be among the top 10 teams in the country - some even predict Iowa to play in the 2006 Rose Bowl for the BCS national championship.
Most recently, a CBS analyst ranked Iowa second on the website's pre-spring top 25, facing Southern California in the national-title game.
Oh, I would love it. You know I would. Of course...
Ferentz isn't convinced - or at least he says he's not.
Nor am I. But I look forward to the season. Number 2 or not, I think they'll be pretty good.
I am not in any basketball pools. These are for entertainment purposes only. My picks are as follows:
Chicago region--UW-Milwaukee (12) over Alabama (5), no other upsets
Albuquerque region--Creighton (10) over WVU (7), Gonzaga (3) over Wake Forest (2) in semifinal, no other upsets
Syracuse region--NC State (10) over Charlotte (7), Kansas (3) wins the region, no other upsets
Austin region--Iowa (10) over Cincinnati (7), no other upsets
Do I have a thing for #10 seeds? Yes, I do. I always pick at least one. Upsets will be hard to come by, however. For example, I like UNI (11), but I don't see them having much of a chance against Wisconsin. I always pick a (12), UW-Mil. has the best chance of the four. The other 5/12 games should be good, with the (5) winning.
I would pick Winthrop (a 14 seed with the longest active winning streak in the NCAA) in the first round except for one thing--I never go against Gonzaga in the first round. Never.
I can see a lot of these games going down to the wire, and that's all that really matters to me.
In the finals, I'll take Illinois over Duke.
But remember, your picks are as good as mine until noon tomorrow! We now return to your regularly scheduled econoblogging.
25 years ago today, a bunch of kids mostly from Minnesota and Massachussetts up-ended the world of Olympic hockey and became a piece of American history. Read here.
Because the madness of March is coming soon.
Conference schedules have made the turn, at least for the most part. Bradley and ISU meet on Saturday for the first time this season. ISU is looking good. If they keep winning, they could see an NIT berth. Bradley, on the other hand, lost the two games immediately preceeding the Bracket Buster pairings. They will play on Bracket Buster Saturday two weeks from now at Western Kentucky, but it will not be on national, regional, or pay-per-view television.
Oh well.
I'm still putting my Missouri Valley hopes on Wichita State, SIU, UNI, and maybe ISU. No, I'm afraid the Valley commissioner was wrong when he thought we would get three in the Big Dance and three in the NIT. Two in each is still possible though.
Sentimental favorite: WSU. It's been a while for them (1988 if I'm not mistaken).
Here are the Bracket Buster pairings, at least those that are televised.
And in other basketball related news, Bill Self shows himself to be a class act.
...I checked Yoni Cohen's blog and found this:
All the games, all live, all March.
With apologies to Howard Dean... YEEAAAHHH!!!
The WSU Shockers, who are quickly becoming the big story of the Missouri Valley Conference, won again. 65-57 over Northern Iowa. There is presently a log-jam in the middle of the conference, making the upcoming Creighton/Bradley game fairly important.
Could the Valley place three teams in the NCAA and three in the NIT? Commissioner Doug Elgin thinks its possible,
"I think we have a legitimate shot at three (in the NCAA) and possibly six teams in the postseason," said Elgin, referring to the NIT.
Hat tip: yoco
Surprisingly, I could see a scenario where SIU and WSU both make it. Then, if a team like Illinois State, Bradley, Creighton, or UNI could nearly run the table from this point, they would have a chance... but those four will have to sort themselves out to see who has what it takes.
But getting the three in the NIT (presumably three of the four mentioned above, plus maybe Evansville)... that is harder to see.
You have to admit though, it has been a good year so far, no matter whether we get two or three teams into the tournament (and at this point, it's hard to imagine only getting one).
The Shockers are for real. Believe it.
Yoni Cohen dug up the reason the battle for the top of the MVC was not on TV.
He also posts a 40 point college basketball week in review. Look at points 4 and 13 for the MVC. Illinois is mentioned several times, including number 1 on his list.
Here are the scores of the games I mentioned in last night's post:
ISU 82
Creighton 77 (OT)
UNI 65
Bradley 71
And...
SIU 56
WSU 58
Unfortunately, this was the one game of the three that was NOT televised in Peoria.
In college hoops this weekend, Southern Illinois travels to Wichita. The two schools have one loss between them. WSU has really improved in the last few years. Sadly, I don't think the game is on TV.
Practically the rest of the conference is on TV though. UNI travels to Bradley for what might be a decent game. UNI is right behind SIU and WSU in 3rd place. The home team is further back, but always tough at home. Creighton and Illinois State are in 4th and 5th place, respectively.
All of this makes Saturday perhaps the hottest competition that the MVC will see in a single day all season. Any of these could be conference tournament matchups.
Yoni Cohen asked his readers what team could be first round spoiler this March. UNI was a popular choice. If they make the tournament (which would require winning the conference tourney), I would agree. SIU has a good chance of making it even if they don't win the conference tournament, but I don't think it would be an upset if they won in the first round either. WSU has a tough week ahead. They travel to UNI in a few days in what by then could be a battle for 2nd place. A good showing both days and I'd say that WSU could be the spoiler. We'll see.
That was quite an ending. After the defense showed its fatigue on the last LSU scoring drive, you had to figure they would try for a couple of first downs to set up a field goal. Then, I nearly thought it was over when Iowa was called for a false start and then the team apparently forgot that the clock starts running when the refs put the ball in play. A time out would have been called for at that point, but things probably turned out better the way it happened. The game winning pass was one of the best endings I've seen in some time. My teams usually lose to this sort of ending. It's nice to win one once in a while.
Only a few teams will begin their next season being 1-0 in 2005. Go Hawkeyes!
You might remember I poked fun at the Peoria Mutineers a few days ago. Well, they are looking for a new name. Now's your chance to name a football team. Go for it!
The indoor football team in Peoria used to be called the Pirates. Now that's a name. But alas, the team left the af2 league and the league had the rights to the name, so Peoria had to come up with a new one.
Peoria's football team is going to be the Muntineers.
So, the question is, who would want to be the coach of a team called the Mutineers? Sounds dangerous, doesn't it?
Floyd is back home in Iowa tonight. Floyd is, of course, the bronze pig statue that is the prize of the annual Minnesota vs. Iowa football game. In 1935, the Iowa fans were upset about the way that Minnesota had roughed up one of their players the year before. The game that year was in Iowa and there was a lot of what modern sports types would call "trash talk" leading up to the game. Even the governor of Iowa got into the act. To calm the fans, Minnesota's governor Floyd B. Olson proposed a friendly bet which the Iowa governor accepted. Minnesota won the game; there was no violence. Iowa presented Minnesota with a champion pig, which was then named after the Minnesota governor. The pig was a brother of the pig in the movie "State Fair." From then on, they played for a bronze statue of the pig rather than the real thing. Read more about Floyd of Rosedale here for the Minnesota perspective, here for the Iowa perspective. This is the fourth year in a row that Floyd has come home to Iowa.
Aren't college football rivalries great? Paul Bunyan's Axe, the Old Oaken Bucket, the Little Brown Jug, Floyd of Rosedale--of this list, only the Old Oaken Bucket doesn't involve Minnesota. They must have one of the largest number of prizes up for grabs each year. I wonder when (or if) they ever had the Axe, the Jug, and Floyd all in one year.
Half hour to go in the central time zone. NCAA sanctioned basketball practices are about to begin. However, this might be the last year for midnight madness. Read here. Yes, it would be fun to have that first practice at Duke covered live in prime time. But I like the idea of getting all the real die hard fans to come play games, eat pizza, and have fun all through the wee hours as the team gets their official debut. I even attended one of these midnight madness events once.
7 o'clock madness just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Barry Bonds joins Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth in the baseball stratosphere. As this article shows, he did it in fewer at-bats than Aaron, but more than Ruth. He did, however, take a lot more walks than either one, and that includes a record 105 intentional free passes. Frustrating as it must be to get so many walks, I wouldn't want to pitch to him!
