Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Trivia Tuesday! League Play and Update on Last Week! Rob Core @ the Lighthouse @ 7:30

IRST!  
Welcome to so many new folks!
We had a great crowd from Gojo last week, and a several of them signed up.
I have also dug up my older signup sheets and corrected the distribuition list, so lots more of you folks are getting this.
Please feel free to forward this to anyone you like and invite them out to play.
Remember – it’s totally free to play, and there are excellent prizes.
(Want to get OFF the list?  Respond to this with “HOLYHECK ROB! STOP SENDING THESE!” and I will do so.)

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The Controversial Case of the Crafted Cork Center! Solved?
Last week’s Question 10 caused a bit of a hullabaloo.
The question, as written, was : “What material is at the very center of an MLB regulation baseball?”
The answer I had was simply CORK, but the responses were pretty evenly split between cork and rubber.
My spot judgment was to go with the answer I had. (Remember Rule #5 on your score sheets – “The decisions of the MCs are final.”)

Afterward, one of you mentioned she had actually watched a movie from a baseball manufacturer with her class that showed RUBBER centers in the manufacturing process.
(She pulled it up on YouTube and showed it to me.)

This got me into research mode.

The internet was little help at first.

Several sites gave me conflicting info, so I looked up the actual rules from MLB:
From there, you can pull up the full rules, and sure enough in here:
I looked down to Rule 1.09 where I found this:
     Rule 1.09 The ball shall be a sphere formed by yarn wound around a small core of cork, rubber or similar material, 
     covered with two strips of white horsehide or cowhide, tightly stitched together.
     It shall weigh not less than five nor more than 5 1/4 ounces avoirdupois 
     and measure not less than nine nor more than 9 1/4 inches in circumference.

It seemed pretty definitive. 
Proud of myself, I sent in my proof to our writing staff.

This was their response:
Thanks for the inquiry about what's in the center of a baseball. 
Like you, I found conflicting and/or incomplete information, not only from the MLB site,
but also from Rawlings, the official supplier of Major League Baseball. 
So I ended up calling the company and talking to a product specialist.  This is what he said:
            "Official Major League baseballs have a cushioned cork core, with wool wrappings, and a cowhide leather covering. 
While Rawlings does make balls with rubber cores for other organizations (I assume Little League and such),
the very center of a big-league baseball is made of cork." 
He also mentioned that every Major League baseball is still handmade, which kinda blew my mind. 
Apparently, they tried to automate the process in the 70s or 80s but the balls were of inferior quality.

So I'd say that's as definitive of an answer as we're going to get. 
I think the key phrase here is "very center"; even if the cushion around the cork is made of rubber,
cork is what is at the exact center point of the ball. 
I’ll consider this settled.
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LIGHTHOUSE INFO!
Become a fan of The Lighthouse and The Olde Harbor Inn on Facebook.

Info on the Portage Lakes Beer Tour – Starting September 2nd!

You know the Lighthouse has live music, right?  Here’s the band schedule through the end of the month!

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LEAGUE PLAY STARTS TONIGHT! (or actually, Sunday. . . .)
League play goes for 12 weeks.
Show up and play as normal.  (See me if you have not registered on the LastCallUSA Website.
You can play as much as you want, but only your top 6 scores will count for finals.
Top teams (from ALL LastCallUSA sites) will compete in the Finals on Dec. 8.
TOP PRIZE is for the $1000 (I did the math, and it turns out that you could afford to buy MORE THAN 57 ITEMS from the McDonalds Dollar Menu!)
(Remember you can only have 6 players per team during league play.)
Begin Date: August 26th
Final Week: November 11th
Finals: Saturday, December 8th at Noon (location TBA)

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One of you drew this lovely Trivia Turkey! on the back of an extra answer sheet a few weeks ago.
I got a kick out of it, and I thought you might too.
(Don’t click on that if you are offended by foul-mouthed, anatomically improbable, pilgrim-garbed fowl.)

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Have you visited the  Last Call USA website and clicked on the “Hints & News” Link at the bottom of the page?
Really? 
It’s free hints. 
You like hints, don’t you?

You don’t?

Are you some kind of freak?
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RANDOM CONTEST
This distinguished gent retired from the US Navy as a Rear Admiral, and received the Medal of Honor, as well as several awards and citations from the US government, including:
In spite of his distinguished military career, he was awarded the Medal of Honor in peacetime, by a special act of Congress. 
Who is he, and why was he so honored?
First person to tell me (correctly, and in person) before 7:20 pm tonight will win a good prize.
The second person will win a crummy prize.
The third person will get my heartfelt congratulations.
There won’t be a fourth person, because I know only 2 of you even read this far in the email.

See you tonight!

Trivially,
Rob Core

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