"Fall" has two meanings

"Minnesotans have a high tolerance for playoff pain. That comes from watching the Vikings lose four consecutive Super Bowls and six straight NFC championship games.

And from witnessing 29 seasons without a Timberwolves championship, as well as 46 years of North Stars and Wild hockey without a Stanley Cup.

The Twins added to this ignominious history on Friday night by breaking baseball’s record for most consecutive postseason losses. Their 10-4 loss to the New York Yankees extended their playoff losing streak to fourteen — eleven of them coming at the hands of their Bronx tormentors.

The Twins have not won a playoff game since taking the opener of the 2004 American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium. New York took the next three games to clinch that series."

That article was written before they lost game 2.  So now it's fifteen in a row - a record unlikely to ever be broken.

Addendum:  The Twins lost game 3.  So they now hold the all-time never-to-be-beaten world record of 16 playoff losses in a row.

Cartoon modified for the entertainment of my friends and family by altering the final speech bubble.  The original is at Real Life Adventures.

Canine frisbee

Via the oddlysatisfying subreddit.

A bold prediction about Big Ten football

Posted for family and a few friends with an interest in collegiate football.

Other readers can just scroll past to more interesting stuff.

Tomorrow the Big Ten football season starts with the first preseason games.  The pundits and national analysts have published their predictions; the list embedded at the top is from USA Today.   Of the Big Ten teams, Ohio State (predicted 5th), Michigan (7th), Penn State (14th), Wisconsin (17th), Iowa (19th), Michigan State (20th), and Northwestern (25th) are all expected to be in the top 25 nationally.  Minnesota received 1 measly point, out of 21,000 awarded by 65 headcoaches around the country.  Reporters covering the Big Ten are similarly dismissive; they collectively predicted Minnesota to finish sixth in the 7-team West division.

TYWKIWDBI hereby predicts Minnesota to finish in the top 25 nationally and second in their division.  You heard it here first.

Last Year
The Gophers closed out the 2017 season two years ago with two losses by a combined score of 70-0, and in the past two years under their new coach P.J. Fleck their record against Big Ten teams has been 5-13.  The problem last year was that the team lost both of their premier running backs to injuries in September, and they lost Antoine Winfield, their star defensive safety after just four games.  So they struggled; after a change in the assistant coaching staff, the defense went from giving up 500 yards/game to 300 and from 43 pts/game to 15, and the team's offense compensated and managed to finish the year by beating ranked Wisconsin at Wisconsin and then blowing away Georgia Tech in a bowl game.

Personnel
Last year they fielded a team that was the youngest in U.S. collegiate football; at times the entire backfield was composed of freshmen right out of high school.  This year the team returns 78% of its offensive production.   Their injured star running backs (Rodney Smith, Shannon Brooks) are back for their senior seasons, as is last year's star sophomore Mo Ibrahim; the three have combined for 6,000 rushing yards.

The only major players lost to graduation were the placekicker and center, two defensive tackles, and the best linebacker.  The team has 17 returning starters: the Gophers return an amazing 100% of passing yards, 99% of rushing yards, and 99% of receiving yards. None of the Big Ten teams they play can say as much; most of the opposing teams in the division lost key players from last year to graduation or transfer. 

The offensive line has four returning starters, and pound-for-pound is bigger than the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line. The four average 6-foot-6 and 340 pounds (the Vikings’ line averages 6-foot-4, 302)  Sophomore Daniel Faalele is 6-foot-9 and 400#. The wide receivers include all-Big-Ten senior Tyler Johnson, who could have turned pro last year but elected to stay with the team.

Schedule
The Gophers have one difficult preseason game in week two, against Fresno State, which went 12-2 last year, beat Boise State for the Mountain West championship, and then beat Arizona State in a bowl game.  The game is at Fresno State in the second of a home-and-home pairing.  But.. of those two losses last year, one was to Minnesota in the preseason, and Fresno State lost to graduation their star quarterback, and will play this year with an inexperienced one.

A little-known fact:  the Gophers have won 15 straight nonconference games.  That is the longest streak in the nation, dating back to when they lost to #2 TCU in 2015.  I expect the Gophers to repeat as winners against Fresno State and thus enter the conference schedule 3-0 after wins against South Dakota State and Georgia Southern..

When the conference schedule starts in late September, the first five games will be winnable (at Purdue, home against Illinois and Nebraska, at Rutgers, and then Maryland at home).  By then they could be 8-0 and ready to roll against the big boys, because the season ends against presumably ranked teams: home against Penn State, away to play Iowa and Northwestern, and then the season-ending traditional game against Wisconsin (at home).

This year the Gophers are not scheduled to play Ohio State, Michigan, or Michigan State.   The West division's toughest schedule may go to Wisconsin, which must face Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State. And Iowa will play against Michigan and Penn State.

Prediction
I predict the Gophers to finish 6-3 in the West division, behind only Iowa, and thus 9-3 overall and ranked in the top-25 nationally. The one thing that could derail my prediction would be unexpected injuries to key players.  Already in the preseason one of the team's two experienced quarterbacks has been declared out for the season with a foot injury.

Update Oct 1:
After five weeks of the season (4 games and a bye), the Gophers are 4-0, with the three nonconference wins and a Big Ten opening win at Purdue (in that game Gopher QB Tanner Morgan was 21 for 22 (!!) for 396 yards and four touchdowns).  In the national poll, the "others receiving votes" now looks like this:

California 125; Southern Methodist 118; Arizona State 96; Army 47; Minnesota 34; Baylor 34; Appalachian State 28; Colorado 18; Duke 17; Tulane 16; Utah State 15; Kansas State 13; Hawaii 10; Southern California 9; Texas Christian 6; Washington State 3; Mississippi State 3; Air Force 3; Wyoming 2.

Effectively tied for 30th.  Home games vs. Illinois and Nebraska coming next.

Update Oct 8:
One week after a record-setting passing performance, the Gophers coped with cool drizzly weather this past weekend by reverting to a dominating ground game, with one back exceeding 100 yards and the other exceeding 200.  Now ranked 25th in this poll (and 26th in the other national one):

Nebraska next week.  Can't wait...

Update Oct 22:
Two more weeks, two more victories -- a 34-7 drubbing of Nebraska followed by a 42-7 win over hapless Rutgers.  In the national rankings the Gophers moved up last week from 25th to 20th, and this week to 17th (AP) or 16th (Coaches poll):

This week's game will be against Maryland, at home.  ESPN gives them a 17-point spread with an 83% probability of winning the game.  That would put them at 8-0 for the first time since forever. Then a bye week to get ready for a November 9 showdown against #6-ranked Penn State. 

I'll have more to say after this next game.

Hockey drills

YouTube link.

Cup stacking as a competitive sport

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.

Pesäpallo

YouTube link

This was totally new to me.  You learn something every day.

Pesäpallo (Finnish pronunciation: [pesæpɑlːo]; Swedish: boboll, both names literally meaning "nest ball", colloquially known as Pesis, also referred to as "Finnish baseball") is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland and has some presence in other countries including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and Canada's northern Ontario (the latter two countries have significant Nordic populations). The game is similar to brännboll, rounders, and lapta, as well as baseball.

The basic idea of pesäpallo is similar to that of baseball: the offense tries to score by hitting the ball successfully and running through the bases, while the defense tries to put the batter and runners out. One of the most important difference between pesäpallo and baseball is that the ball is pitched vertically, which makes hitting the ball, as well as controlling the power and direction of the hit, much easier. This gives the offensive game more variety, speed, and tactical aspects compared to baseball. The fielding team is forced to counter the batter’s choices with defensive schemes and anticipation; Pesäpallo becomes a mental exercise. 

A more detailed video presentation without the snide comments is here.

Youth sports: Norway vs. U.S.

Excerpts from an interesting read at The New York Times:

How did the United States become the world’s sports superpower while producing such a physically inactive population? What contribution, if any, did our sports ecosystem play in producing these seemingly opposite outcomes? And, has any nation figured out a more effective model?..

[Norway's] Children’s Rights in Sport is a document unlike any other in the world, a declaration that underpins its whole sports ecosystem. Introduced in 1987 and updated in 2007 by the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports, the eight-page statement describes the type of experience that every child in the country must be provided, from safe training environments to activities that facilitate friendships.

The statement places a high value on the voices of youth. Children “must be granted opportunities to participate in planning and execution of their own sport activities,” according to the document. They may “decide for themselves how much they would like to train,” and can even opt out of games if they just want to practice.

Want to transfer clubs in midseason? Go ahead, no penalty. Suit up with a rival club next week, if you wish.

Woah...  But there's more...

No national championships before age 13. No regional championships before age 11, or even publication of game scores or rankings...

But in the anything-goes world of youth sports, [the United States has] second-grade AAU national championships, $3,000-a-year club fees and hordes of unlicensed trainers ready to assist in the chase for playing time. Youth sports are now a $16 billion industry bankrolled by parents..

[In Norway] families don’t need to chase athletic scholarships because college, like health care for youth, is free.

Via Neatorama.

Introducing LeBron James and his "I Promise" school - updated

Most Americans don't need an introduction to LeBron James, but I suspect many readers of this blog do not follow sports carefully, and I know that in the past month there have been readers here from over a hundred countries*, so a few words of explanation are in order.

LeBron James is arguably the best basketball player ever to play the sport.  He went directly to the pros from high school without playing in college.  Those interested can browse his biography for the sports statistics - I want to focus on some other aspects of his life.

His exceptional athletic skills have not surprisingly resulted in huge salaries and lucrative endorsement contracts (he was signed by Nike - when he left high school - for $90 million).  In 2016 he was the third-highest earning athlete in the world (after Ronaldo and Messi).

That fame and fortune is not blogworthy, in my view; there are lots of extremely wealthy professional athletes.  I'm writing this post because of what he has done with some of that money.  NBC Nightly News featured the story this week:

YouTube link.

For those speed-reading the post and without time for a minute-long video, here are the key points about the school as described in Time:

The most unique feature of the school may be the most ordinary: it’s a traditional public school. Celebrities often back charter schools... Or they open unorthodox private schools... James made a point of giving Akron a new public school. “It’s not a charter school, it’s not a private school, it’s a real-life school in my hometown.”

That said, the school is far from traditional. Its lengthy school day runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., along with an extended school year that runs from July through May. During a seven-week summer session, the school will provide STEM-based camps. Students will spend time each day on social-emotional learning, and participate in a “supportive circle” after lunch aimed at helping them refocus on work, Cleveland.com reports.

Nutrition is also central to the school’s mission. Every day students will receive free breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks. They will have access to a fitness trainer. James says that, as a kid, he used his bicycle to explore different neighborhoods of Akron — so he gave one to every incoming student...

Since the school considers education to be not just for the pupil but for the whole family, it will offer GED classes and job placement assistance for parents and guardians...

The school selected area students from among those who trail their peers by a year or two in academic performance...  The school is launching with third- and fourth-graders, but plans to add grades each year until it houses first through eighth grade in 2022.

Students get one other notable benefit: If they successfully complete the school program and graduate from high school, James will cover their full tuition at the local public college, University of Akron.

This is a comprehensive approach to education that is way different from the typical charitable gift 
that just funds a building with someone's name on it.  James grew up in poverty in Akron, born to a 16-year-old mother and an absent father.  He understands that a modern school building and curriculum will not lead to success unless the students also have adequate nutrition and an improved home environment.  Also note the rigorous schedule: the school day is eight hours long and the academic year is 10 months long.  And note they chose students not based on prior success, but on prior failure - those trailing their peers in performance.

The next point to make.  LeBron James is the man to whom Laura Ingraham famously said "Shut up and dribble," when he had the effrontery to criticize Trump in an ESPN video.

The above is a screencap; the 2-minute commentary is embedded at this NPR site.  She gives viewers a "dumb jock" alert before showing a clip of James "talking politics again," which she describes as "barely intelligible not to mention ungrammatical."  "Unfortunately a lot of kids and some adults take these ignorant comments seriously.... This is what happens when you leave high school early to join the NBA... Lebron and Kevin, you're great players, but nobody voted for you; millions elected Trump to be their coach.  So keep the political commentary to yourself, or as someone once said, 'shut up and dribble.'"

James responded to her: "We will definitely not shut up and dribble. ... I mean too much to society, too much to the youth, too much to so many kids who feel like they don't have a way out...

That was background.  Here's what came next...

Two days ago, after LeBron's school was publicized, Donald Trump mocked LeBron's intelligence and education:

(The "Mike" he is referring to is basketball player Michael Jordan).  Trump was responding to a public statement by LeBron James that Trump is "dividing America":

“We’re in a position right now in America where this whole race thing is taking over. One, because I believe our president is trying to divide us. He’s dividing us, and what I’ve noticed over the last few months is that he’s kind of used sport to kind of divide us. That’s something that I can’t relate to, because I know that sport was the first time I ever was around someone white. I got an opportunity to see them and learn about them, and they got an opportunity to learn about me, and we became very good friends. I was like this is all because of sports. And sports has never been something that divided people. It’s always been something that brings someone together.”

Blogger's note:  I've spent a couple hours today researching and composing this post, so this will be all my blogging for a day or two.  I would prefer that any comments about this post focus on LeBron James and/or on public education etc.  I plan to delete any comments about Trump/Ingraham etc because at the moment I just don't have time to wade through a shitstorm of political bickering.  I'm due to write another q3monthly "Trump clump" in another couple weeks; save those comments for then.

Addendum:  A tip of the hat to reader Bulletholes for locating an article from Cleveland that provides some details regarding the expenditures by LeBron James vs. those of the school district in developing and maintaining this school and its curriculum.

*click map in right sidebar and scroll down

Top photo via Sports Illustrated.

Reposted from 2018 to add excerpts from a April 2019 update from the New York Times:

The academic results are early, and at 240, the sample size of students is small, but the inaugural classes of third and fourth graders at I Promise posted extraordinary results in their first set of district assessments. Ninety percent met or exceeded individual growth goals in reading and math, outpacing their peers across the district.

“These kids are doing an unbelievable job, better than we all expected,” Mr. James said in a telephone interview hours before a game in Los Angeles for the Lakers. “When we first started, people knew I was opening a school for kids. Now people are going to really understand the lack of education they had before they came to our school. People are going to finally understand what goes on behind our doors.”

Unlike other schools connected to celebrities, I Promise is not a charter school run by a private operator but a public school operated by the district. Its population is 60 percent black, 15 percent English-language learners and 29 percent special education students. Three-quarters of its families meet the low-income threshold to receive help from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

The school’s $2 million budget is funded by the district, roughly the same amount per pupil that it spends in other schools. But Mr. James’s foundation has provided about $600,000 in financial support for additional teaching staff to help reduce class sizes, and an additional hour of after-school programming and tutors. 

The school is unusual in the resources and attention it devotes to parents, which educators consider a key to its success. Mr. James’s foundation covers the cost of all expenses in the school’s family resource center, which provides parents with G.E.D. preparation, work advice, health and legal services, and even a quarterly barbershop...

A food pantry inside the school. At any time, parents can grab a shopping bin and take what they need. CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times

The students’ scores reflect their performance on the Measures of Academic Progress assessment, a nationally recognized test administered by NWEA, an evaluation association. In reading, where both classes had scored in the lowest, or first, percentile, third graders moved to the ninth percentile, and fourth graders to the 16th. In math, third graders jumped from the lowest percentile to the 18th, while fourth graders moved from the second percentile to the 30th...

The students have a long way to go to even join the middle of the pack. And time will tell whether the gains are sustainable and how they stack up against rigorous state standardized tests at the end of the year.

Betting on the Superbowl

A former roommate of mine from the 1970s sensibly moved west to Colorado and Nevada while I headed to the polar vortex north.  This week he sent me a clipping from his local Las Vegas newspaper detailing the incredible variety of bets that can be placed on this weekend's Superbowl.

The Westgate released its popular Super Bowl prop bets — 442 two-way props on the Patriots-Rams game and more than 1,000 betting options — and sharp bettors quickly pounced on any number they deemed off.

A steady stream of bettors — 90 percent of them sharp, according to Westgate sportsbook vice president Jay Kornegay — waited in line to place up to two $2,000 wagers apiece before going to the back of the line to do it again...

Here are some of the possibilities you can place bets on:

Coin toss heads or tails
Which team receives opening kickoff
First play from scrimmage run vs. pass
First turnover of game fumble vs interception
Will TD passes outnumber field goals
Which team uses coaches challenge first
Will there be at least one scoreless quarter
Will either team score in the final 2 minutes of the first half
Will there be a missed extra point kick
Shortest field goal will be over/under 26.5 yards...

Word for the day "prop bet" :

In gambling, a "proposition bet" (prop bet, prop, novelty, or a side bet) is a bet made regarding the occurrence or non-occurrence during a game (usually a gambling game) of an event not directly affecting the game's final outcome.

Proposition bets in sports are differentiated from the general bets for or against a particular team or regarding the total number of points scored. Traditionally, proposition bets can be made on outcomes such as the number of strikeouts a pitcher will accumulate in a baseball game, whether a non-offensive player will score in an American football game, which team will score the first points of the game, the discipline record of teams in a match, the timing of certain events, the number of specific events per team or in the entire match, realistically any statistically discrete event contained in a match or game could be bet on.

Fixing part of a match for a certain result in a proposition bet is called Spot-fixing.

Prop betting is coming to professional golf.  I'll be blogging that later this week or next.

The childhood of Garrett McNamara

"He had seen a great deal in his life. The kindest way to describe his upbringing is improvisational: His mother on her frenzied journey as a searcher spent years falling by the wayside, hoping for answers to life’s questions. She fled with the infant Garrett from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to Berkeley, California, where her marriage ended; she was just in time to hop aboard any vehicle—real or imaginary, or dabble in substances, legal or illegal, to help her in her quest. What her quest was, in Garrett’s telling, and in the pages of his 2016 memoir, Hound of the Sea, was never quite clear, but it seemed random and risky, her following one kook after another, settling for periods of time in communes and cults. Her searching extended as far as Central America, where, his mother later told him, 5-year-old Garrett witnessed his mother being kicked in the head by her enraged partner until she was bloody and unconscious. Her abuser was Luis, whom Garrett’s mother met on a road trip to Honduras. Every so often his mother abandoned Garrett, leaving him with strangers. In Guatemala a peasant farmer, recognizing the neglect, begged to adopt him. Garrett was willing and might have grown up tending a maize field, raising chickens and living on tamales. But his mother brought him back on the road.

After that, another fit of inspiration, another piquant memory. “My mother found God,” Garrett says. “That is, she joined a strange Christian cult, the Christ Family. They were dominated by a guy who called himself ‘Jesus Christ Lightning Amen’ and they were committed to getting rid of all material things—no killing, no money, no possessions, no meat.”

Garrett’s mother made a bonfire, in one sudden auto-da-fé in Berkeley, and tossed in all the combustible money they had, and all their clothes, their shoes, their beat-up appliances, until they were left with—what? Some bedsheets. And these bedsheets became their “robes”—one sheet wrapped like a toga, the other in a bundle over the shoulder.

“And there we were, my mother and my brother, Liam, and me, walking up Emerson Street in Berkeley, wearing these white robes—a rope for a belt—and we were barefoot. I ducked into the alleys so that none of my school friends would see me. I tried to hide. But they saw me in my robes. One of the worst humiliations of my life.”

He was 7. They slept rough and begged for food. “We ate out of trash cans and dumpsters from Mount Shasta to Berkeley, for six months or more.”

He is now a world-record-holding athlete.  The rest of the story is at Smithsonian.

Changes to the rules of golf for 2019

Selections from a longer list at Outtabounds:

1. Search time - Reduced from 5 minutes to 3 minutes
2. Ball moved during search - Replace, no penalty
3. Embedded ball - Free relief anywhere through the course
7. Ball unintentionally hits player or equipment - No penalty
9. Touching sand in bunker incidentally is permitted
10. Loose impediments can be removed anywhere including hazards
11. Dropping a ball out of bunker - 2 penalty strokes
13. Touching ground in penalty area - No penalty
14. Ball moves on green after being marked - Replace without penalty
15. Ball accidentally moved on putting green - Replace without penalty
19. Putting with flag stick in hole is now permitted.
20. Ball wedged between flag stick and side of hole is deemed holed

Still waiting for "Moving ball out from behind tree - no penalty."

The joy of the bronze medalist

It has been known for years that athletes who win bronze medals are happier than those who win silver.  When I encountered the photo above, I decided to look up the source.  Found this in Scientific American:

To scientifically investigate this question, the researchers took video footage of the 1992 summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Specifically, they recorded the medal ceremonies and showed them to undergraduate students, as well as footage from the athletic competitions immediately following announcements of the winners. They asked them to rate the happiness displayed by each of the medalists on a 10-point scale, with 1 being “agony” and 10 being “ecstasy.”

On average, the silver medalists scored a 4.8, and the bronze medalists scored a 7.1 immediately following the announcement. Later in the day, at the medal ceremony, the silver medalists scored a 4.3 on the happiness scale, while the bronze medalists scored 5.7. Statistical analyses proved that both immediately after winning, as well as later at the medal ceremony, bronze medalists were visibly happier than the silver medalists...

Altogether, they found that thirteen of the fourteen gold medal winners smiled immediately after they completed their winning match, while eighteen of the twenty-six bronze medalists smiled. However, none of the silver medalists smiled immediately after their match ended. More interestingly, the facial expression that were recorded among silver medal winners ranged from sadness (43%) to contempt (14%) to nothing (29%). This means that it wasn't just that the silver medal winners were less happy than gold medalists; instead, as Matsumoto and Willingham write, "those who displayed something displayed discrete, negative emotions."

Photo via.

Here's that controversial Nike ad with Colin Kaepernick

YouTube link.  

I saw the "Just Do It" ad while watching the opening game of the NFL season last night (the one that aired was slightly different from the embed above).  It's incredible to me to see how much controversy this ad has generated.  For those unfamiliar with the backstory, you can read details at The Guardian or CBS News or a hundred other sites today.

It is, after all, an ad for shoes.  AFAIK, nothing in the images or dialogue is otherwise offensive to anybody.  All of the other context is layered upon the video by the biases and preconceptions of viewers.

Despite Donald Trump's assertion that Nike stock is crashing (it has plunged from $82 to $80 since the ad was announced), there are reports of millenials eagerly buying the shoes, and analysts in the business world indicate that athletes love this ad, so Nike should achieve its goals of selling shoes, plus attracting future endorsers among the world of elite athletes.

Addendum:  Here's the business world's view, as reported by MarketWatch

Aerobic tic-tac-toe

YouTube link.

Quantifying what golfers already know

The USGA is conducting a major study involving pros and amateurs regarding the effect of increasing distance on the nature of the game.

Increases in distance can contribute to demands for longer, tougher and more resource - intensive golf courses at all levels of the game. These trends can impact the costs to operate golf courses and put additional pressures on golf courses in their local environmental landscape . The effect of increasing distance on the balance between skill and technology is also a key consideration. Maintaining this balance is paramount to preserving the integrity of golf...

Longread with more graphs.

The fate of golf balls in the ocean

About 1.2 billion golf balls are manufactured every year, according to a 2017 report in Chemical & Engineering News, and more than half may be lost in the environment. A New York Times story in 2010 reported that an estimated 300 million disappear each year in the United States alone. With many of the planet’s approximately 32,000 golf courses located beside the ocean, countless golf balls find their way into the water, where they sink and accumulate more rapidly than anyone is cleaning them up.

Weber, a grade 12 student, is doing her best, but is barely putting a dent in the collection of drowned balls. Just two weeks earlier, Weber and her father spent several hours snorkeling in the same cove and cleared the seafloor of about 2,000 balls.

Now, the ocean bottom is again awash with golf balls. “Big waves come through and uncover them,” says Weber, who started collecting golf balls here in 2016. “It can sometimes make what we’re doing feel futile.”..

They don’t just sit inertly on the seafloor, either. As Weber has documented, they corrode.

In fact, golf balls have been found in the stomachs of at least two gray whales found dead in Washington State—one in 2010, the other in 2012—though the balls were not identified as the cause of either death. Golf balls also appear in bird stomachs on occasion—something Steiner says he has seen scores of times while inspecting decayed albatross carcasses in the northwestern Hawai‘ian Islands. Golf balls may even find their way into birds’ reproductive tracts—in one documented case, a golf ball encased in shell was laid by a Canada goose.

More at Hakai Magazine.

TMI about wedges

This post will be of interest only to golfers.  I researched it after receiving this message in an email from a local public golf course advertising a preseason sale:

These $100 wedges are simply phenomenal and retailed in 2017 for $150. This is a great deal but stock is limited and includes:

50 degree F grind
52 degree F grind
54 degree S grind
56 degree S grind
56 degree F grind
56 degree M grind
58 degree M grind
60 degree K grind
60 degree S grind
60 degree M grind

I was gobsmacked by both the price and the degree of specialization.  I started playing golf 60 years ago using a set of clubs from Montgomery Ward comprised of a driver, 3-wood, putter, sand wedge, and 3- 5- 7- and 9-irons.  I later added and mastered an 8-iron for greenside play.   Wedges became a growth industry several decades later:

Since the mid-80s the number of wedges available to players has grown from 2 (pitching and sand) to 5 (adding gap, lob and ultra lob), most of which are now available in a wide array of lofts and bounces to allow a player to "fine-tune" their short game with the wedges that best meet their needs. In some cases, with the high degree of customization, companies have done away with the traditional names for each club, and instead simply label each club with its loft and bounce angles. A 52-8 wedge, for example, would have 52 degrees of loft and 8 degrees of bounce, generally placing it in the "gap wedge" class. Most players carry three or four wedges on the course, and sometimes more, usually sacrificing one or two of their long irons and/or higher-lofted fairway woods to meet the 14-club limit.

The degree of loft is relatively easy to understand, as per the graph embedded at the top showing relative trajectories for a Lob wedge (60-64 degrees), Sand wedge (54-58), Gap wedge (50-53), and Pitching wedge (40-48).

The "bounce" factor is more complex:

Bounce is the group name for the elements involved in sole design: the bounce angle, sole width, leading edge, rocker and camber of a wedge. Bounce, and specifically the bounce angle, is added to prevent a wedge from digging into sand or turf, stopping the momentum of the club through the ball. Wedges with minimal bounce will be better suited to players who sweep the ball, taking a shallower divot, firmer turf conditions (i.e. links courses)...

For "links courses" read "public golf courses where the turf bakes into concrete in the summer."

Only the most fanatic golfers will move onward to read about "grinds" in this article about Vokey wedges.  More at this interview with Bob Vokey at the Titleist website.

(The fonts got all mixed up in this post and I can't seem to fix the problem.  Moving on...)

Triple axel explained

YouTube link.

The axel is a figure skating jump with a forward take off. It is named after Norwegian figure skater Axel Paulsen who, in 1882, was the first skater to perform the jump [cruciverbalists will long ago have learned that this is why it's not spelled "axle."]

The axel jump is considered the most technically difficult jump among six types of jumps in single figure skating. According to ISU judging system, a triple axel jump has a base value of 8.5 points, while a double axel has that of 3.3 points. This makes a triple axel the highest base-valued triple jump, above other triple jumps such as the triple lutz (6 points), triple flip (5.3 points), triple loop (5.1 points), triple salchow (4.2 points), and triple toe loop (4.1 points).

More at Wikipedia (and daily during coverage of the Olympics) 

Images via here and here.

Two skiing videos

YouTube link.

The top one features Candide Thovex.

Candide Thovex (born 22 May 1982) is a French professional skier, filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is notable for his creative movies to the sport of freestyle skiing, and professionally has won numerous contests and accolades... He is widely considered to be one of the best freeskiers in the history of the sport.

It's artificial in the sense that several downhill runs have been stitched into one sequence, but my  understanding is that all of the tricks are real, not CGI.

The second is more conventional and arguably more enticing.  Kudos re the choice of Claire de Lune for the musical background.

Pow Surf 101 from Kurtis Jackson on Vimeo. Vimeo link.

via Boing Boing.

I recommend clicking the fullscreen icon to view both videos.