Football Fun #5

After four weeks of careful study and investment, I'm 3 under break even. If I did this for a living, I'd be asking Washington for a slice of the $700 billion sugar cookie they're baking up right now. Hmm...maybe I should call my Congresspersons...let's play!

Pitt -16 @ Syracuse

Syracuse finally won a game last week, and Pitt squeaked one out by a point over Iowa. Wannstedt's boys are pretty good, and 'Cuse is pretty bad. The Panthers will run it up.
Michigan State -8.5 @ Indiana

The Hoosiers are 2-1, but both their wins came against cupcake opponents. Michigan State is 3-1, with their loss coming at the hands of California in their first game. After last week, I think MSU is a pretty good football team. I also think Indiana is, again, not a pretty good football team. MSU by 17.

Northwestern @ Iowa -8

I may be forbidden from flying the Purple Flag on Saturday after this. I will root for the 'Cats. I will bet on evil Iowa.

Minnesota @ Ohio State -18

Minnesota is sporting 4-0 record coming into Columbus. Ohio State is still sporting a shiner from two weeks ago against USC. I think that Ohio State makes a point of running it up on the Gophers.

Tennessee @ Auburn -6

The Rocky Top gang looks kind of blah this year, and Auburn is one of those teams that's hard to predict. Auburn's at home and they're going to be pumped. Take the Tigers.

TCU @ Oklahoma -18

Big point spreads can make you shudder. The Horned Frogs (I gotta look up how they got their name!) are gonna be road kill as that little Sooner wagon they drive around gets a workout. Sooners with a big win at home.

There's six for this week. But wait...there's another one that's too interesting to pass up.

Illinois @ Penn State -14

The Illini are schizophrenic, witness the pain they caused in their showing against the Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana Lafayette. Penn State has been tuning up on lesser opponents, but they haven't missed an opportunity, hammering every one by a big score. Happy Valley will be happy this week, it's going to be Penn State...by a little more than 14.

NEW Yankee Stadium and Pink Floyd

Listening to George Bush last night makes today's topic seem insignificant. Today's post, researched several days ago, will go on as scheduled, as this info is pretty sobering in its own right. So if f you're angry and insulted about the big picture that the president dumped on the country last night, you're not alone. We'll talk about him another day.

The new Yankee Stadium will open across the street from the old one in spring of 2009. It’s all about numbers.

• Cost: $1.3 Billion. That is a “B” for Billion. It is the most expensive stadium ever built—in the USA. Wembley in London cost more for the world title, but they have soccer hooligans to accommodate. Wembley cost 798 million pounds in 2007. That's around $1.43 billion US. There are about 104 Japanese Yen to the dollar, so Wembley would be about 150 billion Yen. Likewise, there's about 11 Mexican pesos to the dollar, which is about .9 Pounds, but they went to the Euro, so let's call it even.
• Luxury Seats: There are 1,800 Luxury Suite seats. Prices start at $500 per game per seat. The most expensive are $2,500 apiece, for the front row, and they are sold out. There are 74 Club Suite seats at $250 apiece. Who the hell is paying this?
• Construction began: August 2006
• Seats: 51,600
• Financing: $220 million from New York City, $1.1 Billion from the New York Yankees, but stay tuned for this part, it's pretty wild.
• Site Planning: NYC gave the NYYankees $3 million back in 1998 for “site planning”. Chump change, barely get you a decent relief pitcher today.
• Public Transportation: there will be a new $91 million transit station built to accommodate fans. If you can afford a ticket to this Taj Ma Baseball, are you likely to use public transportation? Or did you have to sell your car to get a ticket?
• Public Park: how nice! No, how much. The old stadium site will be turned into a park. Renovation of existing parkland, $20 million. Building new park, $150 million. Why so much? Building the new park will happen on the site of the old stadium. T’aint cheap to tear down that old stadium. Oh, there will be some trees included in the price, too, planted in the shape of the old stadium. They ought to plant them in the shape of a big dollar sign.
• Everybody pays: Whaddaya mean? Under baseball’s collective bargaining act, the cost of a new stadium can be deducted in part from the amount a team pays into revenue sharing. Revenue sharing is the deal where the rich teams have to share their bounty with the poor teams, or viewed another way, the way the big powerful guys pay the little not so powerful guys in order to assure that the little guys will continue to put cupcake teams on the field for the big guys to kick the crap out of every year. So some of the little guys won’t be getting as much loot because the biggest big guy built a new playpen. Yeah, sounds fair, no?
• Are we done yet? Almost. The Yankees didn't suck up all the money. They share the Jablko Duzy (that's approximately "Big Apple" in Polish) with the Mets, who have played since 1964 in Shea Stadium. Shea Stadium is also disappearing this fall, since while all this Yankee Stadium stuff is going on there is ANOTHER playpen going up at the same time: the Mets’ new Citi Field. It’s costing a measley 800 million bucks. I’m sure there’s another goldmine of numbers there, but I cannot do any more of this.

Have you ever heard Frank Sinatra sing "There Used to Be a Ballpark There"? Don't get so emotional, there's a new song for this switcheroo. How about a little Pink Floyd "Money"?

Old Yankee Stadium

Yankee Stadium, the House that Ruth Built (Babe Ruth, not some muscular construction worker babe), is reaching the end of its life. Again and finally. Come next spring, the Yankees will get a new playpen. Facts and figures on that tomorrow. Today, the (mostly) original Yankee Stadium.

The park opened in 1923 and was closed in 1973 for remodeling. The 1923 building cost $2.5 million. The remodeling cost $48 million, maybe more, a lot more, with interest expense. With reconfigurations over the years, seating capacity has ranged from 54,000 to nearly 72,000. No telling if bathroom counts went up and down with seating counts.

The field dimensions have changed like crazy, fences in, fences out, fences high, fences low, it's a jumble of numbers. They're proudly saying that the new park will have the same dimensions as the old. They mean the old measurements from right now, I think.
The city of New York has owned the place since 1973.

Some of the baseball legends who performed here include the Babe (Mr. Baseball), Lou Gehrig (Mr. Endurance), Joe DiMaggio (Mr. Coffee), Yogi Berra (Mr. AFLAC), Mickey Mantle (maybe the best baseball player ever) and Roger Maris (Mr. Asterisk).

The Yankees have won 26 championships while frolic-ing in Yankee Stadium. I inserted the hyphen there because I don't like the look of the word "frolicing". Just looks weird...

There's plenty of monuments in and around Yankee Stadium, honoring Yankee greats...and 2 Cardinals. Who are the Cardinals? Stick around.

The All Star game was played in Yankee Stadium in 1939, 1960, 1977 and this year. Smallest crowd to ever watch a Yankee game was September 25, 1966, when 413 people saw the White Sox beat the Yankees 4-1.

The stadium has been the site of some historic boxing matches: Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling in 1938, Tony Zale v. Rocky Graziano in 1945, and Muhammed Ali v. Ken Norton in 1976. Many famed college football games were held here, and the NY football Giants played in Yankee Stadium from 1956 to 1973. They played pro soccer here, too, but I don't care and neither do you.

In 1950, the stadium began as the site of conventions of the Jehovah's Witnesses, with nearly 124,000 people showing up at the inaugural event. I still don't know about the bathroom count, but I don't think they guzzled a lot of beer at this event, so maybe it wasn't an issue.

Two popes celebrated mass in Yankee Stadium, and those are the Cardinals that are memorialized in Monument Park with the Yankees. Yeah, trick question.

There is a 138 foot tall baseball bat out in front; you've seen it on Seinfeld reruns.

The curtain came down Sunday, reruns are the only place to see this American monument.

Tomorrow, New Yankee $tadium.

Time in a Bottle, 35 Years Later

September 20th was the 35th anniversary of the death of Jim Croce, the singer/songwriter who did a bunch of hits, most notably "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" (which, for years, every crappy wedding band seemed bound and determined to perform, crappily) and "Operator" (which I don't think anybody has covered, thank heaven, 'cause it was done about perfect the first time) and "Time in a Bottle" (ditto the "Operator"). Croce and his performing partner were killed in a small plane crash after performing in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

I have steadfastly avoided listening to Jim Croce recordings for pretty much all of this time, since his death.

When Croce died, he was 30 years old and just beginning to taste commercial success. He and his wife, Ingrid, who was his co-writer and former performing partner, had an infant son named A.J., who is now a musician. Jim and Ingrid had worked for a few years in the late 60's touring , driving their VW bus across the USA, playing small clubs, colleges and coffee houses. They moved to NYC for a while, tired of it and then moved to Pennsylvania, where Croce worked ordinary, real jobs to pay the bills.

In 1970, Croce teamed with Terry Muehleisen, a classical guitar player who also sang background. Croce's career began to get some traction. He signed a deal with ABC in 1972 for three records. Those records would eventually make a pile of money.

Then Jim got dead.

After her husband's death, Ingrid Croce took her young son and headed south, eventually ending up Costa Rica, where she stayed for several years. She had to launch extended litigation to obtain the music royalties owed to her late husband--Jim and Ingrid were broke at the time of his death. When her young son was 4, he faced a life threatening medical situation, which , though he survived, compromised his eyesight.

In 1985 Ingrid opened the first Croce's, a restaurant/club in what was then rundown downtown San Diego. There are now 5 very successful Croce's locations. Ingrid is an author and motivational speaker, too.

And I listened to some Jim Croce songs again, and they're really pretty good. I had some very acceptable excuses for avoiding his music, but the truth of the matter is that I had a problem with a good guy getting dead early. Some people, bigger, more impactful talents, disappeared, but that wasn't a problem.

Case in point, Jim Morrison of The Doors, legendary performer, Morrison annihilated himself; I was OK with that. Janis Joplin, same, she was a train wreck just waiting for her turn. There were others like that, over time, e.g. John Belushi, broke my heart when I heard he'd croaked, but when I read his story, well, still sad, but ultimately unavoidable and therefore something to be accepted.

But this Croce guy, just a guitar player from Jersey with a wife and a kid and chasing his dream when bam, hegone! Not supposed to happen this way. So I partitioned it off, and left if there, where it stayed for a really long time. Not that hard, really; the songs aren't earth shattering in their importance or impact. They're nice music, just nice.

So, why the epiphany now? Best I can come up with is that you eventually need to conquer your fears. No matter how irrational ,or minor, or how long they've had the upper hand.

Week IV Roundup

Week IV (I think the Roman numeral classes it up a little, eh?) pretty much sucked (so much for classing it up).

Ohio +11@ Northwestern
NU 16, Ohio 8
The 'Cats go to 4-0 and I got it right, but this was not a happy win. NU star running back Tyrell Sutton got hurt, so did WR Andrew Brewer, QB CJ Bacher threw 4 interceptions and they didn't score in the second half. Yuck. But they still go to 4-0.
"W"
Wyoming @ BYU -28.5
Brigham Young 44, Wyoming -0-
BYU has a winning streak that dates back to the last game of the '06 season. Wyoming has a sore spot from the whippin' they took
"W"
Rutgers @ Navy +6
Navy 23, Rutgers 21
A field goal by the Middies put them ahead with 2 minutes to go. Then a Middie linebacker stepped up and intercepted a pass to seal the deal for the Navy...and still, no one sheds a tear for dear old Rutgers.
"W"
Iowa +1 @ Pittsburgh
Pitt 21, Iowa 20.
This is a kiss-yer-sister tie. Great handicapping by the oddsmakers, no blood.
"T"
Boise State @ Oregon Ducks -11
Boise State 37, Oregon 32
The highlight clips looked like they were looping the same play : TD passes by Boise while the Ducks watched in amazement. It wasn't the lack of a quarterback for the Ducks. It was "no D in ucks".
"L"
Central Michigan @ Purdue -10.5
Purdue 32, CMU 25
Purdue couldn't shake the Chippewas, who had this game won when they went for and made a 2 point conversion with a minute to go, taking a 25-24 lead. Purdue then shook loose a 50 yard TD run and made a 2 pointer of their own, but no cover here, and a loss for me.
"L"
South Florida -28 @ Florida International
South Florida 17, FIU 9
Say goodbye to that #12 rating, SoFL. FIU gave a big FU to SFU and in the process, handed yours truly another loser.
"L"

Craptacular week. Started 10-13, now 13-16-1. I'm depressed