Can't wait to hear you next season.

Seriously, happy birthday gentlemen. And seriously, Ned can have Rowand if he moves JP.

you really need to get a life...

In this case, don't you mean a half-life?

In a group of 23 (or more) randomly chosen people, there is more than 50% probability that some pair of them will have the same birthday. For 57 or more people, the probability is more than 99%.

In fact, I still don't.

for n people
1-(365!/((365)^(n-1)*((366-n)!))

Use the recursive form if you want to compute that (or calculate it by hand and cancel out 365!/364!=365), because your computer doesn't even want to know what 365! is.

Anyway... happy bday Vin and Ross! Wish the latter would come back to replace Rick Monday.

I guess Phil doesn't want Joe Torre to be the most successful coach in L.A. just yet.

I think TW and I often post little notes about what we see on BRO here just to pass the time.

Off to the cafe car for some peaches . . .

Which reminds me of this amusing story:
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2011296/

The fella sitting across from me has left an awful nice North Face windbreaker on the seat for about ten minutes now while he is off somewhere . . .

On a less pleasant note, USC's coach and several of its players are renewing their call for a playoff system to try and rescue the season they themselves wrecked. Funny thing: when they made the BCS in previous years, they did not see the merit in having playoffs. But now, shoe on other foot.

If they hadn't lost to a club team forced to field its second-string quarterback and hadn't been pushed around by Oregon, they would be playing for the title. Now, they can only whine.

Why the Dodgers are holding off announcing that they plan to spend the final two weeks of spring training in Phoenix is beyond me.

Add the Colorado Rockies, who are scheduled to host the Dodgers on March 23 at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, to the growing list of Cactus League clubs that have finalized their spring schedules with the Dodgers listed as one of their opponents.

The Dodgers also have games scheduled with the Chicago White Sox on March 20 and Kansas City on March 26.

But when the Dodgers do finally announce this, just humor them and pretend to be surprised, OK?

But I still hate Notre Dame.

Should be fun.

My mom is out from LA and she plans to take the kid to FAO Schwartz tomorrow to pick a Hanukkah present. That seems pretty hard core to me.

http://tinyurl.com/ypxlo7

41 - Jim, were you there for this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og8PJaYzv44

In the 8 team playoff USC faces Missouri in the first round. In the 12 team playoff USC plays a play in game against Oklahoma with the winner taking on Missouri. In the 16 team playoff they also play Oklahoma in the first round but Missouri has to get by Central Michigan in the first round. In the 12 team playoff Hawaii plays VATech and in the 16 team playoff they face Kansas, they don't make the 8 team playoff. The playoff participants and seedings will change from week to week. I can't stand the Bowl system and it's dozen or so exhibition games.
vr, Xei

#2 Juan Pierre to CWS for Crede.

#3 Crede, Lowe, Abreu, Hendrickson, Proctor, Elbert, DeWitt, DeJesus and results from #1 to Baltimore for Tejada and Bedard.

Tejada plays 2B, Furcal plays CF, LaRoche plays 3B and Hu plays SS.

Penny/Bedard/Bills/Schmidt/Loaiza-Kuo

Get over it. A team that promotes its greatness, chokes, then demands the equivalent of a "do over" deserves to be criticized.

Thanks for the link; it was very cool.

Sounds like one of those logic problems: Six friends have pairs of birthdays that are one day apart, one month apart, and one year apart. Richard was born in February. Timmy always wears a red baseball cap. Martha cannot be seated next to Jim or Sandra. Who is the driver of the bus?

A woman with much to learn about how twins work.

My first son's due date was the same as my niece's birthday, but he came five days early.

My second son's due date is the same as my nephew's birthday.

http://www.sonsofstevegarvey.com/2007/11/unwatchable-mortifying-galling.html

First of all, until I actually see this picture, rather than hear about it, I'm going to assume it doesn't exist. Don't you think such a picture would be all over the place, given the notoriety and on-going debate on The Play, rather than appearing once in a newspaper, then going about its business? Not to belabor the metaphor, but this photo would be the Zapruder film. So then I'm supposed to believe in a vast conspiracy of Cal fans, the CIA, and anti-Castro Cubans suppressing evidence pertaining to the end of a college football game. I wish Cal football had that kind of power.

Second, as everyone knows, the officials huddled for a good long time after the conclusion of The Play. If one of them had, indeed, whistled (or waved) The Play dead, would he not have offered up that information to his colleagues? Has his silence been bought all these years?

Resume baseball/birthday discussion.

It's very easy to remember. She says it's a bad day to have a birthday. People celebrate her birthday on New Year's Eve and she really just wants to go to sleep, but she is forced to stay up until midnight.

I share it with Tom Waits,Johnny Bench, Harry Chapin, and Larry Bird.

Also, on my birthday this year, a certain Undiscovered Territory would, if it existed, celebrate the 220th anniversary of its ratifying the US Constitution - the first state to do so.

I've actually moved on - despite what Bob would think - but there's objectively no way that the call should have stood. The notion that Cal committed no infraction on the return simply doesn't stand scrutiny. I'm not trying to fight it ... it just is that clear to me.

What's funny is that just last week, just before halftime, Notre Dame had an incredible 99-yard lateral return against Stanford that got nullified by something of a dubious penalty. The penalty occured before the laterals began - the return itself was clean. But no one seemed to notice.

Don't hate us for being great.

And, preferring an equitable playoff system is not a do over - as long as your team is good enough to qualify.

Good luck in the Final Four this year.

Although I do think Alexsandr Belov was on the field.

(Even though he died in 1978.)

I actually saw the ND return. I don't really remember what the penalty was, but I didn't get the impression it was all that dubious. Refresh my memory. I found the whole thing fairly amusing, in context. I'm sure it was a big thrill for Stanford folks to have that play called back.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/e105aebf92

S 1-10 N41 1D-Pritchard, T. pass intercepted by 27-BRUTON at the ND3, 27-BRUTON return 3 yards to the ND6, 9-ZBIKOWSKI for 24 yards to the ND30, 9-ZBIKOWSKI for 14 yards to the ND44, PENALTY ND personal foul (98-LAWS) 15 yards to
the ND29, 1st and 10, ND ball on ND29.

Why on earth was that ever made? Why did they enjoy doing it? Why... why God why...?? Still, I laughed out loud. When I wasn't crying.

you guys notice when Vinnie gets the day off the camera guys go crazy picking out hot girls in the stands? It mainly happens on East Coast games.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UP5YFr4SkCQ

http://youtube.com/watch?v=57DdviStOFo

http://tinyurl.com/2wh6jp

I am going to say Not Safe For Work just because they are weird.

As for coincidental birthdays, I think I have an ace in my hand. I was born 3 days after my brother's 8th birthday.... which proves, I suppose, that my parents were creatures of habit more than anything else. And the very first friend that I made (or that I can remember making) on my first day of kindergarten was born on the same day as me. Almost 40 years on, we're still good friends.