“Art Street Sports Beat” on 99.5-FM WUDR
I am thrilled to announce that starting this Saturday, September 13th I will have a sports talk radio show on 99.5-FM WUDR here in Dayton, OH. My friend Collin Schmidt from Rochester, New York will be filling in this week for my partner Ron Zeszut, a graduate of St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Ohio. For those outside the Dayton area, you can always listen online anytime at the WUDR website. Click on the link on the left-hand side to “Listen Now,” and follow the instructions of downloading Real Player in order to listen live. Do not hesitate to call the radio station at (937) 229-2774 if you need help listening to the show online.
The following is a rough outline for my first-ever live radio show. So if you are so enlightened, feel free to give me a call at anytime to talk sports, or even ask some political questions. I will be happy to take any callers, and I would be especially thrilled to hear from some people back in Akron:
Fuzzy Election Math
It has been a while since I reported on the ongoing events in the political polling world.. So today I have decided to finally announce one of my biggest spreadsheet innovations in a very long time. For the last week, I have been editing a small program published on Nate Silver’s amazing Five Thirty Eight blog that automatically computes the winner of the popular vote based on input information for party identification, and retention rates.
If Obama wins Democratic ID voters by a margin of 73.5... What would McCain have to do?
Without any further ado, take a look at the graph on the right side of this page. Taking given information from Rasmussen and Gallup in terms of independent voter preference and party identification breakdown, I have analyzed what a typical election situation could look like. The key problem to understand in this graph, is that if Obama wins the possible democratic electorate (minus given points to Ralph Nader, the independent candidate,) by a certain margin, and with everything else held constant, what would McCain have to do in order to tie? (Recent Gallup weekly averages have Obama winning the democratic electorate by about a margin of 73.5, and that is why I have that in my this breakdown.) My conclusion to this problem is that since the democrats are expected to have such a huge advantage in terms of identification, and since Obama is currently winning independent voters, McCain would have to win the republican base by a nearly impossible margin of 82.33%.
The Boots (September 2, 2008)
Boot Up: Cleveland Indians recent play – The Cleveland Indians recent ten-game winning streak is a certain sign that things are sure to improve n 2009 for this very young team. Despite this past weekend’s three-game sweep at the hands of the Seattle Mariners, the Indians have played above average baseball throughout the second half of the season. When the Indians traded C.C. Sabathia just after their game on Sunday, July 6th, they had just lost to the Minnesota Twins and fallen to a record of 37-51 in the days before the All-Star break. Since that time, and despite the fact C.C. Sabathia may be a possible Cy Young candidate in the National League (which could include a no-hitter, pending an MLB report on whether or not a lousy infield single is ruled an error from Saturday’s game) the Indians have been 29-19. The Milwaukee Brewers, on the other hand, were 49-39 before the trade, and have been 31-18 since. This shows that since losing their best pitcher, the Indians have played right on track with one of the best teams in the National League: a team that currently has a 94.6% chance of making the playoffs according to Baseball Prospectus.
