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| Buy the French DVD--reportedly dubbed into Français by Simon, Theodore, and Alvin...who also reveal just what precisely were the inducements that got "M'sieur Brad" to play Billy Beane... |
But first, three "trivia questions" that will be semi-germane to the discussion in that oh-so-acrid essay. Both deal with levels of "in-season play," and they are referencing a subset that's one of the lengthier measures of team performance within a season (108 games, or what is now two-thirds of a season--prior to expansion, it worked out to 70%, but who's counting?).
Trivia question 1: From 1901-2011, how many times has the team with the best record in any 108-game segment (in the ranges from 1-108 to 55-162) played over .700 ball during that stretch?
Trivia question 2: How many times has the team that's produced the best record over a 108-game stretch in any individual season NOT wound up as a pennant winner or playoff team? We might call this "dropping the ball."
Trivia question 3: Per #2, what team is the most recent franchise to "drop the ball"?
In case you were wondering: you can't Google these, you'll have to do it the old-fashioned way...
