Journal #2 Revised: Who's got the Moneyball?

The cover of Moneyball DVD-http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/

        My favorite movie is Moneyball.  This movies shows what a general manager does in the MLB.  This is why I like the movie.  I have been a baseball fan for wuite some time and never got the chance to really know what a GM (general manager) does during the regular and off season.  Moneyball is about a former player for the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane, who becomes the general manager of the team that he played for.  The Oakland Athletics have had their ups and downs with getting into the playoffs as well as having the money to compete with all of rich teams such as the Yankees, Phillies, and Cardinals.  I especially liked Moneyball because of the actors that the director chose as the main characters.  These actors are Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.  These two actors are probably two of my favorite actors in Hollywood.  These two work together to make a team based solely on statistics like batting average and on base percentage.  To me that is interesting because for one I like statistics and I have never heard of that method before.  They did not focus on how they play or how hard they can hit the ball.  The Oakland Athletics went to the playoffs and made it to the world series in the movie.  I liked how the director focused on a team that had a small budget that won a championship.  This shows money cannot buy everything.  This message is what I liked about the plot of the movie, Moneyball.  This movie is my favorite because of the information about what the general manager can do and the message that the movie gives.

Journal #4 Revised: An Upcoming Revolution in College Football?

Woman not approving of BCS computers.
 http://www.krossover.com/blog/2012/09/the-bcs-how-computers-watch-football/

I read the article "College Football's War on Math" by Brian Curtis.  I thought that this article was very interesting and educational.  It was educational because I had no idea the teams of the NCAA did not like the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) rankings done by a computer.  I thought this was interesting because the BCS is expected to be terminated in 2014.  Some of the things about the BCS rankings are very good. For one the process is a lot faster than if committees were doing all the ranking.  Secondly, computers do not come with certain biases.  Thirdly, some people may not be as educated in what the rankings are based upon.  I think that the computer system do the rankings is a lot better than having people do them just by the reasons of it is faster and there is no bias involved.  Sure there could be a number typed in wrong, but that can be fixed.  If a committee member makes the wrong decision based on his/her feelings then a lot of people are going to be mad and it cannot be fixed as easily because you cannot say "well I typed a wrong number into my computer of feelings."  So in my opinion, I think that the computer system is better just because it is faster and it has no bias involve.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/42108/college-footballs-war-on-math

Journal #3 Revised: Nothing Can Compare

Bill Snyder, Kansas State Wildcats Head Coach http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/stewart_mandel/09/26/bill-snyder-kansas-state/index.html

The article I read was called "Father Football" and was written by Michael Weinreb.  This article was about the Kansas State University Football head coach, Bill Snyder, who is miraculously still coaching at the ripe old age of 73.  I learned that Bill Snyder came into the Kansas State program in the mid-1980's and then left in 2005.  He then came back in 2009.  From the end of World War II to when Snyder came to the program the Kansas State Football team was so bad that the football team would go door to door selling tickets because no one would go to the games.  Then when Bill Snyder left the team in 2005, the team did not do well for the four years that he was gone.  I found this interesting because when Bill Snyder was with the Kansas State Wildcats, they succeeded and when he was gone the were horrible.  This means that nothing can compare to the coaching and the father figure that Bill Snyder is.  Kansas State is so far in the Midwest that the students and players are so far from home that he is the football players second father.  This is very interesting to me.  So if Bill Snyder decides to retire again do not expect the Kansas State Wildcats to be very successful.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8570686/kansas-state-head-coach-bill-snyder-heisman-trophy-candidate-collin-klein-led-their-team-8-0-season