Saturday, May 23, 2015

Lose is a four letter word

The title of the post refers to a song by a group called Power Salad which is about Cleveland sports futility as well as people who make spelling errors. http://www.thefump.com/fump.php?id=1423

Since the Cleveland Browns won the last title for the city in 1964 and with the Cleveland Cavs in the conference finals, I figured now or never to figure the mathematical odds of the three Cleveland sports teams in the top level of the sport not winning a championship for 50 years.

As in the past, I figured out the odds of the team not winning in a specific year and multiplied them. When divisions and conferences or leagues had equal number of teams, it was easy. When that wasn't the case, it was more difficult like when the Cleveland Browns were in a four team division in a 13 or 14 team American Football Conference from 1970-1981 and from 1983-1994.

When conferences had an unequal number of teams, I figured out the chance of winning the conference and multiplied by 2 like the Indians from 1977-1992 who played in a 14 team American League while there was a 12 team National League.

Cleveland Cavs

1971-1974 -  16-1
1975-1977 -  18-1
1978-1988 -  22-1
1989             24-1
1990-1991 -  26-1
1992-1995 -  28-1
1996-2014 -  30-1

Total odds - 6.64-1

Cleveland Indians

1965-1968 -  20-1
1969-1976 -  24-1
1977-1993 -  28-1
1995-2012 -  88-3
2013-2014 -  30-1

Total odds - 6.40-1

Cleveland Browns

1965             14-1
1966-1969 -  32-1
1970-1975 -  320-13
1976-1981 -  176-7
1982             28-1
1983-1994 -  176-7
1995             30-1
1999-2001 -  312-9
2002-2014 -  32-1

Total odds - 6.36-1

Complete odds 270-1

I was surprised that the Cavs who started playing 5 years later had the highest odds of the three teams of going without a title but the NBA expanding a few years later than MLB of the NFL along with no MLB champ in 1994 and no NFL in Cleveland from 1996-1998 was the difference.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

No Canada

Yesterday, the Montreal Canadians lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning and became the last Canadian team eliminated from the playoffs. The Canadians were the last team to win the Stanley Cup in 1993. I decided to figure out the mathematical odds of that happening like I have did in the past with the Cubs, Lions and Blackhawks.(Cubs now at 237-1 with no title since 1908)

As the makeup of the NHL changed over the past 22 years, so has the yearly chance of a Canadian team winning the title.

1994, 95 -                8 out of 26
1996 -                      7 out of 26
1997, 98 -                6 out of 26
1999 -                      6 out of 27
2000 -                      6 out of 28
2001 through 2004 - 6 out of 30
2006 through 2011 - 6 out of 30
2012 through 2015 - 7 out of 30

Doing the math, it comes out to 214-1. I was surprised it was so high.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Logan analysis

The seven nine jurors have made their selections and the top five in each category have been announced and I have thoughts about them so I am writing this to get those thoughts out of my head.

For music video they are:

CBS Follies - Bitch in Business
Epic Rap Battles of History - Sir Issac Netwon vs. Bill Nye
Rhett and Link - I'm on Vacation
Weird Al - Tacky
Weird Al - Word Crimes

The ERB and Tacky videos I have seen and would have not been considered if I had a vote. There were only a couple of ERB vidoes over the years that I would have condsiered and this one is nowhere close to either of them even with Weird Al playing the Newton part. I found the Tacky video the 5th best of the 8 that Weird Al released last year. I did watch the CBS and Rhett and Link videos having not seen them before and found neither of them funny at all.

I was initially surprised Paul and Storm's video This Song was not a finalist and even more so when I was told Paul Saborin was added late to the juror list making all their 2014 work ineligible for the award.

Though Weird Al only appears in a drawing in the video, I found Word Crimes superior to the other nominees as well as any video made last year.

For original song they are:

the great Luke Ski — Fake Adult
Mikey Mason — Last Day at Work
Mikey Mason — Settle
Power Salad — Ama­zon Drone
Worm Quar­tet — Fueled by Angst

I was surprised that Dr. Demento's #2 song of the year, Monty Python's Silly Walks Song was not a finalist. I like all 5 songs but only Luke's and Worm Quartet's were in my top 5. Over the past couple of years, this has become the category with the most songs one would find worthy of winning.

Luke's song finished #1 on Dr. Demento in 2014 and I am hoping that like the previous year it ends up winning a Logan Award as well.

For parody song they are:

The Boobles - Have Natural Es
Carrie Dahlby featuring Wyngarde - Almost Parent Time
Devo Spice (feat. Power Salad) - Snack Bar
Kyle Kalligren and Tony Goldmark - Kill the Mouse
Weird Al - Word Crimes

When I first heard Carrie perform Almost Parent Time at Marscon 2014, I said the robot cat statue might as well be painted pink for the 2015 awards even knowing Weird Al was releasing an album in the summer. Then I saw the video for Word Crimes. Even without the video the song is far and away better than any parody I heard from 2014 including Carrie's song which I found better than any individual parody released in 2012 or 2013.

Having three out of the nine jurors being female left me surprised only 1 1/2 of the 15 finalists are female unlike last year where an all male panel (including me) produced 5 female finalists out of 15.