Blog blast past: But will the computer know what Stan the Man hit?

There is overlap between sports nuts and trivia nuts, so some of you lot probably heard about Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings challenging a computer.

The notion of a computer trying to buzz in and answer questions before Jennings has already been Gawkered — "But what if they only ask abstract, soul-searching questions?" Levity aside, there is a serious issue about how well the computer will handle any sports question.

The sports trivia nut is a breed apart from one of your church-picnic trivia buffs, but not a superior breed. It is a joy for them to meet up with one of the similarly afflicted who gets why your PIN for your bank card is 4256 or understands why Bob Costas once left a $3.31 tip when he ate at St. Louis restaurant owned by baseball legend Stan Musial.

However, the kicker is that it takes no ability or creativity to be sports trivia nut, just a real good memory. They can't forget this stuff even if they tried, so there is no pride in knowing it, and no desire to share that gift/curse with the world, since it is the only thing people will associate with you for the rest of your days (especially if you show up for an event that's for teams of four with only three people and still win going away, like someone associated with this site most definitely did not do at The Toucan in Kingston one night in late 2002).

This sense of shame can manifest itself in jealously lashing out at Ken Jennings, as it did back in the wild and nutty days of late 2004. Read on.

JENNINGS A GENIUS? ASK HIM A SPORTS QUESTION
(Simcoe Reformer, Dec. 3, 2004)

This soft-spoken software engineer pulled off one of the most overrated feats in recent memory.

Who is Ken Jennings?

As you probably heard, Jennings' record run of 74 days as Jeopardy! champion ended Tuesday. By all indications, Jennings captured the public imagination. Ratings for Jeopardy! were up. As the wins mounted, rumours and reports percolated across the Internet about when Jennings would be defeated. On Wednesday, Jennings was the top Hot Search on Netscape, a pretty impressive feat for someone who has never publicly exposed a nipple.

Yes, Kenny is a smart cookie, if not a smart dresser. Before he came along, who knew there were so many possible bland shirt-and-tie combos?

But as a 19th-century British prime minister — who was Benjamin Disraeli? — said, there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

So what if Ken Jennings was on Jeopardy! for 74 days? Until recently, the show limited contestants to five appearances. Given the chance, wouldn't a few of those know-it-alls and lucky guessers have kept winning and winning?

Sure, he won $2.5 million. That's a lot of cabbage, even after the IRS takes its half out of the middle.

Of course, Jeopardy! doubled the dollar values for each question a while back. Does anyone claim Mike Weir is a better golfer than Jack Nicklaus since Weir is 15th on the PGA's all-time money list and Nicklaus isn't in the top 100?

The most damning indictment against Ken Jennings, though, is that he handled sports questions like a live cobra. Around Day 25 or 30, Alex Trebek lobbed up this softball: "This team won four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980 to 1983."

You could hear crickets chirping as the contestants groped for an answer.

Jennings: "Who is New York?"

Trebek: "Be more specific."

Jennings: "The Rangers?"

If that's correct, what were the decades of "Nineteen-forty!" chants and the guy back in 1994 waving the "Now I can die in peace" sign about?

Thus the curtain was pulled back, revealing the wizard was just a man. Jennings had a lot going for him, namely his DSL-fast buzzer-thumb and producers who fed him cupcake contestants to keep the streak going. By Day 60, some of his opponents seemed straight from Saturday Night Live's Celebrity Jeopardy sketch.

He knew his potent potables, but on all things sporting, Jennings didn't know his elbow from second base. Put in a room full of sports nuts who can rhyme off Ernie Whitt's birthdate (June 13, 1952), jersey number (12), given name (Leo), the year he played in the All-Star Game (1985) and his career high in RBI (75), the dude would have been eaten alive.

Many of these same sports nuts can't pick their member of Parliament out of a police lineup, but that's neither here nor there.

Is Jennings the genius he was hyped up to be? No, he's just a guy who cashed in on his knack for buzzing in quickly on questions which aren't all that hard.

Those of us who are steeped in sports and other essentially unhistoric trivia — like knowing the same guy played the sportswriter in Slapshot and the diving coach in Back To School — knew it all along. (Who is M. Emmet Walsh?)

Collectively, we're on guard to keep the word "genius" from being abused. As ESPN's Joe Theismann once said, "The word genius isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."

The story behind Theismann's oft-quoted malaprop is the ex-Washington QB had a high school classmate named Norman Einstein.

If you actually knew that, chances are you might end up on Jeopardy! as the answer to this:

"Who needs to get a life?"

(Writing this today, mocking Ken Jennings' wardrobe would be out of bounds. Other than that, every single word stands.)



Related:
Jeopardy! Smackdown (The Atlantic)
A Computer That Answers Questions! What Will They Think of Next? (Gawker)

On Easter Sunday, CBC resurrects lame trivia show

Did anyone else have this experience on Sunday when you were looking for something, anything to make the hours go by quicker before hopping in the car or on a train after a visit home for Easter?

You start channel-flipping and across a special all-sports edition of the CBC quiz show Test The Nation thinking, "Hey, this was really fun when it aired May 25, 2008, and it will take my mind off all this crippling emotional baggage that resurfaces when I visit my family." Then you noticed the questions seemed awfully familiar. Suffice to say, the people's network, according to Amrit Ahluwalia over at There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog, advertised for weeks that it would air April 12 at 7 p.m., without saying it was a rerun.

It took a few minutes for A-squared to clue in, "I remembered some of the jokes at the start, but decided that I'd watched enough Hockey Night in Canada that I've come to predict Ron MacLean's jokes."

Then, well, like many a Leafs fan on a Saturday night, he was ready to jump out of his seat and start yelling, "Jesus! Jesus!"

"The fact that the CBC couldn't even be bothered to come up with 50 more questions was pathetic, and really rubbed in the point that they couldn't care less about the sports-watching Canadian public.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again — the CBC isn't accountable for the programming decisions they make and, as such, can cut and pay for whatever they please. This while Canadians are forced to pay for it through their taxes. Make the CBC opt-outable, and I tell you what they'll figure it out really quickly."

Be that as it may, times are tough all over (except at Augusta National), so maybe the CBC couldn't afford to do another taping. It still seems like a bit of a rip, especially since it was advertised — it's mashed potatoes, with no gravy, in the parlance of our time.

The celebrity sightings were cool, since there is probably no other time in human history when former TV star Alan Thicke, Sean McCormick from Rogers Sportsnet and Jennifer Hedger from TSN got to be in the same room with Andy Grabia and Matt Fenwick of Battle of Alberta.

This is good a time as any to note a bona fide sports geek worth his Baseball-Reference.com bookmarks (little reason to type "her/his") would steer clear of such shenanigans.

1. The sports questions on trivia shows such as Jeopardy! are usually pretty rudimentary, like a wordy version of, "What's the name of the football team in Chicago?"
   
   It's seared into memory that even Jeopardy! juggernaut Ken Jennings handled sports questions like a feisty porcupine. ("This team won four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980 to '83?" ... "Who is New York?" ... "Be more specific." ... "The Rangers?")
   
   
2. The opposite is true for shows such as Stump the Schwab. The rule of thumb there is that you don't turn on the TV to be directly reminded how pitiful you are for knowing what round Thurman Thomas was taken in during the NFL draft — or to be reminded that if you have such a talent, that's the only thing people will associate with you for the rest of the days.
   
   
3. It is beyond the pale to hire out such a small, unnecessary talent, when it can be better put to use winning small trinkets in bars.
   

Boo to the CBC for that. Some of Test The Nation's questions weren't even accurate. For instance, one question was, "On Sept. 20, 1998, Cal Ripken Jr. broke this man's record consecutive-game streak." Of course, on Sept. 20, 1998, Ripken and the Baltimore Orioles decided to call an end to his streak. He passed Lou Gehrig on Sept. 8, 1995, and of course, broke the record Sept. 19, 1998, since he was breaking his own mark. Of course, show someone who knows that and we'll know who the real winner ain't.

As for young Ahluwalia, it could always be worse. You could have spent Easter Sunday evening watching a Seth Rogen movie on DVD with your parents.

Related:
Why does the CBC insist on sucking? (There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog)