Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2007 August 3

= August 3 =

Manchester United
BBC News reported that this team now has a contract with a 9-year old Australian boy. I don't understand, do they have a junior league ? Surely they can't have a 9-year old play with adults. StuRat 03:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The boy's name is Rhain Davis and someone else asked about him over on the misc ref desk. He would not be playing in competitive football, he would be attending their "academy" i.e. young players' training club, to try and nurture his talent from a young age.  As our article points out, the hoo-hah over this is ridiculous since the club do the same with 30 nine-year-olds every year. --Richardrj talkemail 05:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm guessing that most of them aren't sent halfway around the world, away from their mother. StuRat 05:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Its the silly season - nearing the end of the football off-season when the sports departments are desperately trying to find something to fill their soccer pages with. Rockpock  e  t  05:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

High and low scoring in Baseball
Not sure if this should go on the Misc desk, but sport is a kind of entertainment, so here goes.

I'm English, so know next to nothing about Baseball. I was curious about high and low scoring matches - what influences them?

Two examples: In cricket, (a bat and ball game featuring scoring of runs) huge factors are the pitch (ie the turf underfoot) conditions and the weather (sometimes a melange) which may be overcome by superlative performances by batsmen or bowlers, but largely speaking when conditions favour the bowlers, the match will be low-scoring and vice-versa.

In football, the main influence on high and low scoring seem to me to be how attacking/defensive the teams are. This again can be overcome by overperforming strikers or goalkeepers. In a sport where even a high-scoring game means just (say) 10 goals, rather than (say) 1,000 runs in cricket, luck is statistically bound to be very important; there's always the day when speculative shots creep in, rather than bouncing away off the woodwork.

So, to baseball. Do atmospherics assist pitchers? I presume the pitch (diamond?) is not a factor, but am I wrong? Like football, it's a game of few scores, so luck will also statistically have a greater say. And of course, there's the good/bad day for the pitcher/batter. Is that a fair summary?

Apologies for the lengthy question. --Dweller 08:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Leave it to NASA to have the answer. :-)  152.16.188.107 10:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a partial answer, in that it corroborates my guess that atmospherics help/hinder the pitchers. What other factors are there? Do conditions underfoot make any impact? --Dweller 10:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Certain baseball fields in the MLB (complete list of stadiums can be found here) are associated with an increased or decreased likelihood of home runs, which can be an important factor in the final score. A number of factors (including the stadium's dimensions, the climate, etc.) govern this variance in probablility from stadium to stadium (as well as from season to season).  Here's an informative (if dauntingly technical) article about this phenomenon; I believe it answers much of your question in detail.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 11:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Note however, that this article only appears to covers home runs, not other means of scoring runs.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 11:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Very interesting. Yes, I can see that having an impact (it happens in cricket too, but probably to a lesser extent - Southgate is a notoriously small ground, for example). Thanks. Does wet turf (or dry) give any advantage/disadvantage, say a rainstorm over a ground an hour before play begins? --Dweller 12:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Baseball is normally not played on wet grounds. If it rains, they stop play and cover the field.  If it doesn't stop raining, they delay the game until a different date. -- Kainaw (what?) 17:51, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Coors Field, the home field of the Colorado Rockies, has long been criticized because of the elevation of the city making home runs happen more often. For years, the Rockies led the major leagues in home runs because they played half of their games at homes.  I don't understand the science behind it, but the team has started keeping the balls in humidors, and that supposedly has some effect on the number of home runs that have been hit there lately.  In addition, certain stadiums such as Wrigley Field are notorious for the wind which blows out towards the stands, making home runs easier, and then there's the Green Monster at Fenway Park ... Corvus cornix 20:36, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As for wet grounds ... although it's true that baseball tends not to play when the field is wet, conditions of the field are up to the discretion of the home team. There have been cases of teams with very quick players, who keep the ground packed down extremely hard so that the ball will scoot quickly through the infield and past the fielders, thus giving the home team's quick batters an advantage in getting on base.  And there have been other cases (notoriously a game in the '60s between the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers), where the home team (the Giants) intentionally ovewatered the area around home plate so that Maury Wills, the fast Dodger runner, couldn't bunt balls past the infielders.  Corvus cornix 20:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As stated above, all the stadiums are different in field size. The reason Coors field was once considered a "hitters park" was because of its elevation.  The city and park is in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, which results in thinner air than at sea level.  Because the air is thinner, the baseball does not face as much resistance.

post
i had asked a question earlier and realised it was wrongly posed.the questions is supposed to be which woman was the first to act a waorking woman on american tv.she is american and is still alive.her husband is also a comedian.both have articles in wikipedia


 * Well, dang. It seems that neither Shirley Booth nor Whitney Blake are still alive.  Those were who I thought of first.  Another contender is Mary Tyler Moore -- her article says that her show "was the first to show, in a serious way, an independent working woman.  Wikipedia doesn't seem to have an article on her current husband, though.  (I doubt she is married to Robert A. Levine). I'm stumped.  Maybe this question has been floating around the internet for a few years and the facts have changed since it originated?  152.16.188.107 10:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * My answer was Ann Sothern, who was a working woman on TV much earlier than any of those actresses, but she's not alive, either. ... Corvus cornix 20:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've looked through 1947-48 United States network television schedule through 1952-53 United States network television schedule, and, as far as I can tell, the first show with a female working lead was Our Miss Brooks, in which Eve Arden played a teacher. If somebody can find anything earlier than that, please post it here. But I can say without fear of being contradicted, that Eve Arden was most definitely not married to a comedian, and neither is she alive. So I don't think that the question is correct. Corvus cornix 20:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * According to the IMDB, Mary Tyler Moore's husband Robert Levine is a doctor, like the Robert A. Levine in Wikipedia, but born in 1954, not 1942. It says nothing about him being a comedian. So Moore would not be the right answer.


 * Note that the question did not refer to the working woman being a leading role. It could be the lead character's secretary or something, like Barbara Hale as Della Street on Perry Mason, or for that matter Mary Tyler Moore's legs on Richard Diamond, Private Detective .   Hale is still alive and was married to an actor, but not a comedian, and he's dead, and anyway Our Miss Brooks was earlier than Perry Mason (or Richard Diamond either).


 * --Anonymous, August 3, 2007, 21:33 (UTC).


 * To the OP: It might help us if you can give us the exact wording of the question, the way it was presented to you. It seems like the question must have been somehow slightly different.  For instance, if the husband has to be a famous television personality, but not necessarily a comedian, then I think Marlo Thomas would fit the bill.  She starred in That Girl, which "was the first show to focus on a single woman who was not a domestic or living at home," according to the article, and she is married to Phil Donahue, a famous television personality.  Both are still alive and Wikipedia does have articles on both.  Or maybe I'm just grasping at straws.  152.16.188.107 04:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * If the wording of the original question is uncertain, it could lead to an answer of Marlo Thomas. Although her husband Phil Donahue is famous in his own right, I doubt he could be considered a comedian. But Marlo's father, Danny Thomas, is undoubtedly a comedian. — Michael J  19:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

DSS Cards in Circle of the Moon.
I am currently playing the game in 'Thief' mode, and I cannot find the uranus or pluto cards anywhere. If anyone could tell me where they are it would be greatly appreciated. --MKnight9989 12:06, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Have you checked www.gamefaqs.com? they usually have all the answers for games. --12.155.80.115 16:31, 3 August 2007 (UTC) Sp3ktral


 * I was just wondering if someone could post them here. I don't have alot of time on the internet and since I visit wikipedia whenever I can I thought that maybe someone here could give me the answer. I still need it by the way. --MKnight9989 12:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 6)
Hi! I just saw that episode (german version with german voices and no english voices) and in the end the jury-foreman said "We found the defendant." ("Wir befinden den Angeklagten.") and the screen becomes all black with some letters but no "guilt" or "not guilty" can be heard or read. Is the german translation wrong? Or did the TV broadcast station make a mistake? Or does the director want to emphasize, that it does not matter here, what they found? --Homer Landskirty 19:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't guarantee that this is the one in question, but I remember at least one episode where they purposely left the audience in the dark as to the jury's decision. The issue was more about the discussion of the facts of the case rather than the actual decision.  Corvus cornix 20:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's the one. Or so it says at The Lady, or the Tiger?. --Anon, August 3, 2007, 21:35 (UTC).


 * This is the second time someone has asked about a program, and both times, the question has been about the only episode I have ever seen. H YENASTE 00:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * When I was a lad we didn't have a color TV, but my grandparents did. Sometimes we would watch Star Trek on it, and somehow it was always the same episode.  So until my college years, when I'd sometimes watch TV at the Illini Union, the only Star Trek episode I had seen in color was "The Alternative Factor".  Or so I remember, and I'm sticking to that story.  &mdash;Tamfang 01:05, 8 August 2007 (UTC)