Alex Ovechkin, rock star

Check out this TSN video featuring behind-the-scenes footage of the taping of a new Washington Capital music video -- featuring "Ovie and the Caps". The Capitals are using the video as their pre-game intro for the 2008-09 season.



You can watch the full video here. The song they're lip-synching to is Hell Yeah by Rev Theory. Great video, but not nearly as great as Can't Stop A Flame...

(via Scarlett Ice)

New scoreboard at Air Canada Centre

The Toronto Star has and article and some video showing the new video scoreboard and control room at Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors. Some highlights from the article:

- The new scoreboard is fully HD functional - the old board was VHS type quality signal. The main portion of the new board is 17 by 10 feet - old was 16 by 9 - so 20 per cent more screen.
-8 new rectangular boards above the main board, all with LED projection.
-A new ring style board below the main board.
- 4 new boards on the bottom, used specifically for NHL, NBA score updates.
- Total expense on the new board is $7.8 million - $4.7 million to renovate the control room, and the rest on the board - the old board coast $4 million (10 years ago).

Foam hand history

We learned two things today via the always-entertaining Freakonomics blog

First: The "#1" foam finger hand was invented in 1978 by Geral Fauss, a high school teacher. Now made of polyurethane foam, originally it was a wooden sign. Fauss says: "I saw the students in the stands holding up an index finger, and shouting 'we're number 1' at the playoff games. Students rallied around the team and kept a fevered pitch during the playoffs. I knew that they wanted something 'big' to show their spirit.....so I thought , why not a large 'hand sign.'" Lots and lots of additional details about the foam hand are here...

Second: Maybe fans should tone it down a bit when cheering for the home team? "Jennifer L. Butler and Roy F. Baumeister, psychologists at Case Western Reserve University, found that people often performed unexpectedly worse in front of supportive audiences than they did in front of neutral ones. (We think of it as choking under pressure.) In Butler and Baumeister’s experiments, the higher audience expectations got, the worse their performers did." (More via Freakonomics)

"Take Me Out to the Ballgame" turns 100

"Take Me Out to the Ballgame", the unofficial anthem of baseball, turns 100 years old this summer. EarFarm.com has a good article about the song, including these highlights:

• In 1908, the Chicago Cubs won the world series. Coincidentally, in the same year, the song was written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer.
  
• The song was popular, but didn't really take off until after 1971: "Chicago White Sox announcer Harry Caray first started singing the song along with Comiskey Park organist Nancy Faust. In 1976, White Sox owner Bill Veeck asked Harry if he could give him a microphone so he could sing for the entire stadium during the seventh-inning stretch. Initially, Harry wanted no part of it. Thankfully, as Caray was doing it one afternoon, WMAQ radio producer/broadcaster Jay Scott decided to open the booth mikes on him without his realizing it and a tradition was born.
• In 1982, Carayh joined the Chicago, and his seventh-inning performance of the song became legendary.
• Harry Caray continued that tradition of singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” until he died in 1998. At that time the Cubs began a practice of inviting guest celebrities, local and national, to lead the singing Caray-style.
• A full list of celebrities who have performed "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at Wrigley Field (up to June 19, 2008) can be found here.
  

There's a great Bill Veeck story about Caray and the song. As the story goes, Veeck secretly placed a mic in Caray's booth so the fans could hear Caray singing. Veeck told Caray: "Harry, anybody in the ballpark hearing you sing 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' knows that he can sing as well as you can. Probably better than you can. So he or she sings along. Hell, if you had a good singing voice you'd intimidate them, and nobody would join in!" (From BaseballAlmanac.com)

A few more facts from the Canadian Press:

• It's the third most frequently sung song in the United States, yet few know all its lyrics. (Happy Birthday and The Star Spangled Banner are #1 and #2.)
  
• It's been recorded by more than 400 artists, from Frank Sinatra to Frank Zappa.
• The song was a top 10 hit for three recording artists in 1908.
• It wasn't performed at a ballpark until Pepper Martin and his teammates played it before Game Four of the 1934 World Series at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.
  

More info:

• Wikipedia: Take Me Out to the Ball Game
• Amazon: Baseball's Greatest Hit
  

Who's got the biggest scoreboard? The Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys will have the largest video scoreboard of any sports facility when their new stadium opens in 2009. The scoreboard, pictured above, features two "sideline displays" measuring 159 feet x 71 feet, and two "endzone displays" measuring 50 feet by 28 feet. There will be also more than 3,600 linear feet of ribbon board LED displays. Mitsubishi is supplying the LED screens, and recently revealed these specs:

Center-Hung – Sideline Displays (2)
Width: 159’ 7-1/16”
Height: 71’ 4-3/4”
Total LEDs: 10,584,064
Pixel-Pitch: 20mm
Screen Area: 11,393 square feet
Power Consumption: 635 Kilowatts
Screen Weight: Approx. 170,000 lbs
Video Source: 1080p HDTV
Resolution: 2,176 x 4,864
Installation start date: October, 2008
Installation completion date: June 1, 2009

Center-Hung – End Zone Displays (2)
Width: 50’ 4-3/4”
Height: 28’ 6-3/4”
Total LEDs: 2,088,960
Pixel-Pitch: 16mm
Screen Area: 1,439 square feet
Power Consumption: 80 Kilowatts
Screen Weight: Approx. 25,000 lbs
Video Source: 1080p HDTV
Resolution: 1,080 x 1,920
Installation start date: October, 2008
Installation completion date: June 1, 2009

Sportline.com attempts to give an idea of how massive this scoreboard will be: "Imagine four city buses parked in a line. Now imagine another layer of buses stacked on top of them. Add five more layers and hang the 28-bus cluster over a mental football field."

Sportsline also reports that the cost of the massive screens will be more than $35 million, the amount that the original stadium in Dallas cost to build in 1971.

Meanwhile, at least one fan is worried the huge size of the scoreboard might hurt the fan experience. From DallasNews.com:

Team officials say [the 60-yard video scoreboard] will give every fan a close-up view of the action, and that's what worries a reader named Diane.

She's concerned that it'll create problems for fans when the on-field action and the on-screen action are going in opposite directions. In other words, it could be a huge distraction trying to watch a 50-foot-tall Terrell Owens streak toward the end zone one way when the life-size T.O. on the field is heading the other way.

"It has never been an issue before because the screens have never been 60 yards wide!" Diane wrote in an e-mail. "It would be impossible as a fan sitting on the Cowboys side to ignore that huge screen, which is of course Jerry Jones' intent."

Cowboys officials said they considered that, but they wouldn't be able to show the action from different perspectives on each side of the stadium.

Team spokesman Brett Daniels said he's not aware of any technology that could reverse the image on the fly for one side of the screen. Diane wrote that she wished the Cowboys would consider hiring a second video crew to shoot separate footage for the other side of the scoreboard.

Previously: Does Kansas City have the biggest video scoreboard?

Bob Sheppard: Yankees announcer forever?

Really interesting post today from Darren Rovell on NBC's Sports Biz blog: It's about Bob Sheppard, the 97-year-old announcer for the New York Yankees. He's been announcing for the Yankees since 1951 -- that's 57 years -- except this year there's a bit of a difference:

Sheppard, 97, who had been announcing all the names and numbers for the New York Yankees since 1951, hasn’t made it to the stadium this year due to illness, but his voice has lived on due to the fact that he has recorded the Yankee lineup.

Given the ovation at the mention of Sheppard’s name last night, it’s clear that there would be no replacement for Sheppard if he sadly never makes it to the new stadium next year.

But due to the state of text-to-speech technology, Sheppard’s voice could be the voice of the starting lineups for the next 50 years, if the Yankees choose to go that route.

Read on...

Milwaukee Brewers host Prostate Cancer Screening night

As seen on the Partnership Activation blog:

The Brewers have done it again. The team recently conducted the second annual "Free Prostate Cancer Screening" night at the ballpark - an effort that resulted in 480 people getting screened, a 25% higher turnout than the team's 2007 event.

How did they do it? The Brewers teamed up with local television station WITI Milwaukee, the National Coalition Against Prostate Cancer, a Milwaukee-area hospital, and Froedert & the Medical College of Wisconsin to run the promotion... The collaborating parties targeted their messaging at men 40+ and their wives and required participants to only have to fill out minimal paperwork and take a quick blood test on-site. Oh yea, the team also offered each participating individual two (2)free tickets to a future Milwaukee Brewers home game... Now the general rule of thumb is that you should never give away tickets to the general public, but this case is definitely a true exception (tying in quality partners to collaborate on a worthy cause and driving media attention).

Sports Illustrated ranks ballpark promotions

Sports Illustrated surveyed baseball fans in 30 MLB cities to rank the best and worst promotions (among other things). The Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cleveland Indians are in the top three, while the New York Mets, Washington Nationals, and Boston Red Sox have the lowest overall ratings.

Even better than the rankings themselves are some of the fan comments about the best and worst giveaways:

• Milwaukee: "The funniest was Jeffrey Hammonds bobblehead after he was cut by the team."
• San Diego: "The best promotion was a free Padres blanket. The worst was an ugly floppy hat that had a bigger logo of the sponsor than of the team. I would like to see more promotions of items people could actually use, such as the team blankets and cups."
• Los Angeles: "Pink tote bags for Mother's Day was the best. That jerk who sued the Angels is the worst. I would like to see only women get the pink tote bags again."
• Detroit: "My favorite was Magglio Hat/Hair day, I think that day was a blast. You have people of all ages walking around with a Tigers cap and curls hanging out the back of them."
• Colorado: "Honestly, the best was a 'Loyal Fan' pin I received after sitting through a three-hour rain delay a couple of years ago."
• New York Yankees: "The worst was one of the bobblehead nights when they only gave them out to kids. I hate paying 10-year-olds $10 to get a bobblehead."
• Minnesota: "Worst: Minnesota Road Map Night. The road maps turned into giant airplanes sailing down from the upper deck. Best: Dairy Queen Spatula Night. The clink, clink of 10,000 spatulas was incredible. I still use the spatula on the outdoor grill."

(via GameOps.com)

Promotions gone bad: Major league forfeits

Check out ESPN.com's list of the last 10 major league baseball forfeits. Many of them are due to game day promotions gone horribly wrong. Some examples:

• Aug. 10, 1995: Dodgers fans littered the field with giveaway souvenir baseballs in the ninth inning, and Los Angeles forfeited to the Cardinals.

• July 12, 1979: Thousands of fans overran the field at Comiskey Park during the "Disco Demolition Night" promotion between games of a doubleheader. The White Sox forfeited the nightcap to Detroit.

• June 4, 1974: Cleveland forfeits to Texas when a riot breaks out at 10-Cent Beer Night.

• Sept. 30, 1971: Souvenir hunters overrun R.F.K. Stadium and the Senators, despite leading 7-5 with two outs in the ninth, forfeit their last game in Washington to the Yankees.

• Sept. 26, 1942: Hundreds of children, guests of the Giants in a promotion to bring scrap metal for the war effort, swarmed the field after the eighth inning, and New York forfeited to the visiting Boston Braves.

A complete list of forfeits can be found at Retrosheet.

Beer and violence in Cleveland

Here's a great article from ESPN about a Cleveland Indians game on June 4, 1974, featuring a "10-Cent Beer Night" promotion that ended in a riot. Some highlights:

The '74 Indians were a smorgasbord of mediocre and forgettable talent playing in an open-air mausoleum. That year, in a city that fielded one of the founding professional teams (the Forest Citys, incorporated there in 1869), 85 percent of the seats at home games went unsold. All those empty seats meant a balance sheet written in red. The team's executive vice president, Ted Bonda, could put up with losing teams and an ugly stadium (he had inherited both in 1972), but he would not tolerate insolvency. Bonda called a meeting to discuss options for improving attendance, which must have felt a little like trying to figure out how to get people excited about a trip to the orthodontist. Someone, apparently a team employee likely acting out of desperation, suggested copying the Texas Rangers, who had recently hosted a successful "10-Cent Beer Night." We can imagine the grim silence in the boardroom as the group considered this obviously dangerous remedy. How interested would Cleveland be in such a promotion?
...

Accounts vary as to the volume proffered -- 8 ounces? 10? 12? -- but the price was certain enough: 10 cents per cup. Fans -- and we shall use this term for lack of a better one -- could buy up to six cups at a time, with no system in place to prevent a designated mule from purchasing a full complement, handing them off to underage clients, and returning for more.

Even though the Indians offered copious amounts of beer at cut-rate prices, a great many attendees opted to play with a handicap, arriving at their seats drunk, stoned or both. The June 4 promotion turned out to be quite popular, drawing 25,134 people, more than double the average crowd that season.

...

Through deliberate coordination or spontaneous groupthink, hundreds of fans showed up with pockets full of firecrackers. Anonymous explosions peppered the stands from the first pitch, lending the game a war-zone ambiance that would seem increasingly appropriate. Though it is not clear whether this impromptu celebration cost anyone a finger or hand, an uneasy je ne sais quoi settled into the stadium along with clouds of exploded gunpowder and marijuana smoke.

...

As the night wore on, the crowds grew bolder, and packs of fans frequently scurried across the outfield. One man tossed a tennis ball into center field, then scrambled after it. After throwing the ball back into the seats, he led park security on a little jog, pausing at one point to hug another fan, perhaps a long-lost relative, who had jumped out to greet him. Ushers dragged away one of the two, while the other leaped into the stands and was borne away by dozens of gleeful, anonymous hands. The rain of beer became a hail of rocks, batteries, golf balls and anything not bolted down.

...

In 1974, it did not occur to the Indians organization to request an additional police presence at the ballpark for their beer-fueled promotion. If any municipal police were in the stadium that night, they were off duty and quite possibly as drunk as anyone else.

Early on, the demand for beer surpassed the Indians' capacity to ferry it to concession stands, and a luminary, perhaps the same person who suggested the promotion in the first place, decided to allow fans to line up behind the outfield fences and have their cups filled directly from Stroh's company trucks. The promotion achieved critical mass at that moment, as weaving, hooting queues of people refilled via industrial spigot.

The public address announcer reminded spectators not to litter onto the field, and refuse rained down harder. The grounds crew had not sat down since the second inning, and outfield fans used them as moving targets...

Read on ... it gets much worse...