Can Lightning Strike Your March Madness Picks?

Posted on March 21, 2019March 21, 2019 by thependulumswings staff

The national Powerball Lottery jackpot hit $560 million last evening. Did you win it? The odds were long. If not, you have another chance at fame and fortune starting today. Did you fill out your NCAA March Madness Tournament Challenge bracket?

Warren Buffet, who is of some fame and fortune himself, is offering his 400k employees a chance at a million bucks a year for life if they “just” correctly predict the Sweet Sixteen this year. The calculated chances of that are roughly one in a million. So you’re saying there is a chance!

That chance is far better than his recent years of bracket challenges when everyone was invited to play for the same payout. But, then you had to have an entry that stayed clean for all 63 games of the 64 team tourney field. The chance of that was a not so reasonable 1 in 9.2 quintillion. How much is a quintillion? It’s one billion billions, or a one followed by 18 zeros. Or, if you are a visual person it’s 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. Makes the nation’s debt look pretty manageable, doesn’t it?

Need inspiration, do you? Early March madness occurred on March 8th when what may be the greatest parlay wager ever to hit at a U.S. sportsbook was placed. A bettor at a Vicksburg, MS casino placed a $25, 20-leg bet that paid $104,412.44. The parlay featured point spreads, money lines and over/unders on a mix of Friday night NBA and college basketball games. The bettor backed 14 favorites, three underdogs, and three overs. Every single one hit. So you’re saying there is a chance!

If you haven’t filled out your bracket yet, you still have a few hours before the first jump ball is tossed up. March Madness actually ends when one team cuts down the nets in early April. You know what April brings don’t you? Showers. April showers bring, of course, May flowers.

Oh, and if your bracket is still holding up then, you should stay indoors. One of those showers could bring lightning. The chances of getting struck by lightning are about 1 in 300,000. So you’re saying there is a chance!

Ten Piece Nuggets-Multiple Sports

Posted on February 19, 2019February 19, 2019 by thependulumswings staff

Update-February still makes us shiver.

As the shortest month of the year rolls along we dug deep to find a savory serving of ten nuggets for our insatiable readers. We need to grab a bit from here and some from there to do so. The oven is on.

In men’s NCAA basketball the new AP Top 25 is out. Duke regained the no. 1 spot for the third time this year. Somehow, Tennessee dropped for 1 to 5. Sure, Kentucky worked them over in Lexington Saturday. But, a drop of four spots with only two year long losses in what is supposed to be one of the top two conferences seems a bit strong. It doesn’t matter too much just yet.
Kentucky, somehow rose one from 5 to 4. The same voters that punished Tennessee rewarded Kentucky for losing at home earlier in the week to LSU and then beating Tenn. It must pay to have the Kentucky blue unis come voting time. It doesn’t matter too much just yet.
This just in. The PGA is now allowing shorts for the pros in practice rounds. After an offseason of rule changes for the stodgy sport that includes leaving the flag in on putts, can beer kegs next to the Powerade coolers on the tee boxes be far off? One can hope. This just in. John Daly liked boomboomsroom.com.
How many mock drafts do you think you could review between now and the NFL draft in April. How many ways can the “draft experts” recast a list in hopes to get one to read one? Like the stock market pundits someone should write a column or three after the draft to mock the absurdity and inaccuracy of these mocks.
Speaking of mocks, mocking, and bad franchises; have the Cleveland Browns turned a corner? Baker Mayfield, Jarvis Landry, and a talented defense won seven games last year after the team won one game in the last two years prior combined. And they have a lot of decent, promising, young talent acquired in 2018 draft.
And, here is the kicker. The once and forever woeful Browns have their own pick in all seven rounds in 2019. Plus, they have an additional 3rd, 5th, and 7th thanks to some savvy moves on draft day 2018 made by their “suddenly to be taken seriously” front office. Can the heretofore bad ownership stay out of the way?
This writer sat fifteen rows from the ice in Nashville at a Predators v. St. Louis Blues game Sunday a week ago. The Blues prevailed sixteen seconds into overtime 5-4. Why is this now news? It’s not. It’s just the setup to say that hockey is SOOOO much better in person than on the TV. Two dimensions, even in HD, cannot do justice to what large grown men do at full speed on a relatively small piece of ice with wooden sticks and a small frozen rubber puck. If you haven’t recently, get to an NHL game soon. If they don’t look faster than ever to you it will be a surprise.
Pitchers and catchers reported to MLB camps over a week ago. With Tampa Bay now pitching backwards in some games (starting the closer and finishing with longer innings guys) and other teams increasingly going to “Johnny Whole Staff” for pitching games by committee, innovative thinking is accelerating in baseball. Can it be very long before a team decides to not have pitchers and catchers throw and squat in early February in hopes that they will still be able to throw and squat in early October?
In yesteryear four man starting rotations were the norm. Now nearly every team has a five man starting rotation, giving an extra day of rest to all. The analytics side to the game has really changed the thinking on many fronts for what we think is the good of yet another sport viewed by too many as too stodgy.
Which reminds us of the whispers emanating from MLB’s front office. “Should we limit the severity of the defensive shifts that teams are making against hitters?” Here is a simple answer-NO. Should teams, and hitting instructors from early ages, rethink their approach as to how hitters work their plate appearance? Here is a simple answer-YES. Can you imagine the NFL dictating that defenses must not overload one side of the field? Well, with this commissioner, maybe you could. The ever-changing strategy is the actual beauty of these games.

March is but ten days away. Who’s counting?