Learning How to Lose is the Key to Winning

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This is a great video for traders and investors alike. Nobody’s perfect. Take it from Michael Jordan: learning how to lose is the key to winning.

NERF: The Ultimate Office Morale Boost

My eight-year-old son’s favorite toys are his NERF dart guns. They’re actually my favorite toys, too. In fact, due to the pure fun they inspire, I gotta think they’d be one of the biggest workplace morale-boosters for such a meager cost.

Don’t believe me? Check this out:

http://view.break.com/521743 – Watch more free videos

Source:
The Great NERF Office War
Gizmodo
June 20, 2008

Bye Bye, Bo

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AP:

Bo Diddley, a founding father of rock ‘n’ roll whose distinctive “shave and a haircut, two bits” rhythm and innovative guitar effects inspired legions of other musicians, died Monday after months of ill health. He was 79.

Bye bye, Bo.

Source:
Rock pioneer Bo Diddley dies at age 79
Ron Word
Associated Press
June 2, 2008

World’s Highest Scoring Team: Your Central Oregon Hotshots!

Bend Weekly reports:

Central Oregon boasts the distinction of being the world’s highest scoring basketball team, having averaged 147 points per game last season…

Last season, Central Oregon tied the record for the highest scoring professional basketball game in history by putting up a combined 370 points in a 194-176 victory on June 17, 2007 over the Windy City Soldiers.

While the Hotshots’ high-octane performance that night merely tied the record, which was set on Dec. 13, 1983 when the NBA’s Detroit Pistons defeated the Denver Nuggets 186-184 in triple overtime, Central Oregon’s effort was far more impressive considering it occurred in a 48-minute regulation game.

I don’t know why their opponents even bother showing up; the Hotshots score enough points for both teams.

Source:
Central Oregon Hotshots, world’s highest scoring basketball team, face Slam
Bend Weekly

Billy Beane: The Ben Graham of the Sports World

I loved Michael Lewis’ “Moneyball.” The book tells the story of Billy Beane, a proto-typical baseball player the scouts loved who nevertheless fails to find success as a player in the big leagues.

Beane finds his calling as the general manager of the Oakland Athletics by taking a very business-like, very investor-like, approach. Despite one of the lowest payrolls in the league, Beane’s iconoclastic, calculating style leads him to build an above-average team, year after year.

Since the book was published managers around the league have emulated and adopted Beane’s techniques. But an article from Bloomberg today reveals that the book has made fans outside the sport of baseball:

Forget the Brazilian street kids juggling soccer balls with their bare feet. The sport’s next big star may be a mathematician.

Chelsea and Manchester United, who meet in the Champions League final May 21 in Moscow, are among the English Premier League teams recruiting professors and computer wizards to crunch statistics, find the best players and gain an advantage over their opponents. The stakes are high: the winner of Europe’s club championship can net as much as $160 million.

“It is a race,” said Simon Wilson, 29, who is hiring six analysts for Manchester City. “The rewards will be great.”

Soccer coaches are following the lead of Billy Beane, the general manager of Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics who was featured in the 2003 U.S. bestseller “Moneyball.” The book detailed how Beane used overlooked statistics to grade players and build a contending club with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball.

Considering the success of his model, I’d go so far as to call Beane the Ben Graham of the sports world. And if you have any interest in sports or investing I recommend the book (Graham’s, too).

Source:
Soccer Giants Borrow Beane’s Formula to Chase Champions League
Alex Duff
Bloomberg

No Way, Jose!

Jose Canseco has officially given his mortgage lender the bird:

Former U.S. baseball star Jose Canseco said on Thursday he had lost his California mansion to foreclosure — one of the first celebrities to publicly admit being a statistic in the U.S. housing crisis.

Canseco, 43, one of the most flamboyant U.S. baseball players until his retirement from the major leagues in 2001, told the celebrity TV show “Inside Edition” that it did not make financial sense to keep his 7,300 square-foot (678.2 sq-metro) home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino.

I guess it ought to be pretty natural by now for Jose to take a walk.

Source:
Baseball star Canseco loses home to foreclosure
Jill Serjeant
Reuters

No Way, Jose!

Jose Canseco has officially given his mortgage lender the bird:

Former U.S. baseball star Jose Canseco said on Thursday he had lost his California mansion to foreclosure — one of the first celebrities to publicly admit being a statistic in the U.S. housing crisis.

Canseco, 43, one of the most flamboyant U.S. baseball players until his retirement from the major leagues in 2001, told the celebrity TV show “Inside Edition” that it did not make financial sense to keep his 7,300 square-foot (678.2 sq-metro) home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino.

I guess it ought to be pretty natural by now for Jose to take a walk.

Source:
Baseball star Canseco loses home to foreclosure
Jill Serjeant
Reuters

Penguins Captain Goes "Old School"

Who does this remind you of?

From ESPN:

The captain of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins was charged with indecent exposure after a police officer saw him running naked on a downtown street early Sunday, and a teammate was arrested for public drunkenness.

Nathan Smith told the officer he acted on a bet.

Officials said Smith, a center for the AHL team, was charged with misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure, open lewdness and disorderly conduct, as well as public drunkenness. He was released on $10,000 bail.

I can’t read it without the image of Frank “the Tank” in my head:

Source:
Smith caught streaking; Stone arrested for public drunkenness
AP
via ESPN

Penguins Captain Goes "Old School"

Who does this remind you of?

From ESPN:

The captain of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins was charged with indecent exposure after a police officer saw him running naked on a downtown street early Sunday, and a teammate was arrested for public drunkenness.

Nathan Smith told the officer he acted on a bet.

Officials said Smith, a center for the AHL team, was charged with misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure, open lewdness and disorderly conduct, as well as public drunkenness. He was released on $10,000 bail.

I can’t read it without the image of Frank “the Tank” in my head:

Source:
Smith caught streaking; Stone arrested for public drunkenness
AP
via ESPN

Bill Belichick: Karma Chameleon

ESPN reports that Matt Walsh has cut a deal to talk to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell about the Patriots illicit video habits:

After more than two months of negotiations, lawyers for the league and Walsh, the former New England employee, finally reached agreement Wednesday on terms that will allow him to talk Goodell. They include an agreement by the Patriots not to sue Walsh and to pay his legal expenses and his airfare to New York from Hawaii, where he is now a golf pro.

Walsh’s name first surfaced just before the Super Bowl, in which the Patriots were upset by the New York Giants after finishing the regular season 16-0 and winning two playoff games. Among the allegations was that the Patriots illegally taped the Rams’ final walkthrough before that title game, when New England, a two-touchdown underdog, upset St. Louis 20-17.

Even if Walsh gives them nothing I still think karma bit Belichick in the Super Bowl this year for his early season transgressions:

Five months before their loss to the Giants, New England coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team $250,000 for taping the New York Jets’ defensive signals during the season opener. The Patriots also lost their first-round pick in this weekend’s draft.

Speaking of which, what was Bill up to in 1983? The back up band in this rare footage looks highly suspicous:

Source:
Depending on Walsh evidence, Goodell ready to crack down on Pats
Associate Press
via espn.com