NCAA Basketball Tournament East Regional 2016

UNC and Notre Dame in East Championship Game

 

I like college basketball so I recently attended the NCAA East Regional in Philadelphia.  As one might expect, my seat was way up high but I still got some good pictures and videos.

The games were played in the Wells Fargo Center which is part of the Philly sports complex in the Navy Yard area.  The Center is home to the NHL Flyers, the NBA 76’s, and an arena league football team.

I actually like Philadelphia and enjoyed the city during off time.  I was staying at a hotel in the Navy Yard, near the sports complex.

The teams in the regional were Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Indiana, and North Carolina.  Game 1 was Wisconsin and Notre Dame, who played a tight game though the play was not that good.  Wisconsin basically gave the game away.  North Carolina handled Indiana easily and were clearly the best of the 4 teams.  In the regional final North Carolina beat Notre Dame.

This was the 4^th regional finals I have attended.  I enjoy the atmosphere.  Hopefully the pictures and videos will give readers a feel of the atmosphere.

The Philadelphia Navy Yard was a major military site from about 1870 to 2000.  The Navy closed most activities and the city took over the site in 2000.  The Navy still has some activities there and maintains a Navy Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility.

Destroyers at the Navy Yard

 

More Destroyers

This is something you do not see on TV.  Notre Dame cheerleaders and band during a time out.  Took this from my seat holding camera so not a smooth video.

Wisconsin Coming on the Floor

Wisconsin and Notre Dame on the Floor

Indiana Fans Pre-Game

Site of the Games

Site of the Games at Night

 

 

Opening Tip  Wisconsin and Notre Dame

 

North Carolina-Notre Dame

Warmup Before Championship Game

 

 

Wisconsin and Notre dame Warming Up as the Fans Come In

Dragnet

The facts you are about to read are true, the opinions are mine, and no names have been changed to protect anyone. This is a reworking of the opening of Dragnet, which has been a radio program, a television program, and several motion pictures.
Television shows have various lifespans and impacts. Some flash across the spectrum like comets, going from highly visible to invisible quickly, Alf with 4 seasons. Others are more like a family member who visits regularly every week for years, Gunsmoke with 20 seasons. Some are like snowflakes melting before they reach the ground, Emily’s Reasons Why Not, which was cancelled the day after it aired in 2006. More importantly, some influence future shows while others only influence during their era. Gunsmoke had some influence on westerns of the 1950s and 1960s but westerns have disappeared from television. Dragnet began in the same era as Gunsmoke but its influence is still felt.
On June 3, 1949 Dragnet first aired on the NBC radio network, where it was to run until February 26, 1957. The Dragnet television series began in 1951 and ran through 1959. The television series was revived in 1967 and ran through 1970. There were also Dragnet movies in 1954, 1966, and 1987, and TV revivals in 1989 and 2003. Jack Webb was the constant presence throughout the radio series and the first two television runs. Webb died in 1982 so he had no role on 1987 movie, the 1989-1991 series starring Jeff Osterhage, Bernard White, Thalmus Rasulala, and a 10 episode series starring Ed O’Neill as Friday in 2003-2004.
I am writing to praise Dragnet for its many innovations and its impact. I asked some people to give me a word or sentence about Dragnet and these are the responses: I miss Friday; the disclaimer; the Pismo Beach episode; too young to remember; loved same actors seen in different episodes; preachy about drug use; heavy hammer and dramatic sound; great show; loved Webb’s deadpan look and voice; anti-shoplifting tips show; best detective ever, and just the facts ma’am. Just the facts ma’am is an altered memory as Webb never used that term. All we want are the facts, ma’am” and sometimes “All we know are the facts ma’am” were Webb phrases. Just the facts is a shortening of Stan Freberg’s Dragnet spoof “St. George and the Dragonet where he had the character say, “I just want to get the facts, ma’am.”
St. George and the Dragonet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUdFLyNCeI4
Dragnet is a very parodied TV program. Here is clip of Webb on the Tonight Show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjquGpmgwOo

Dragnet was also a comic strip.

Dragnet is the template for many programs that followed it. Two police officers working as partners instead of a lone detective or a detective with a helper. After Dragnet many police shows had two partners (Starsky and Hutch, Chips, Miami Vice, and the Law and Order franchise among them).
Dragnet also had a large group of performers who appeared in several episodes playing different characters. A few them were Stacy Harris in 8, Kent McCord in 8, Peggy Webber in 8, Virginia Gregg in 13, and Ed Deemer 13. Many of them appeared on the radio version and in both TV versions. The Law and Order franchise did the same thing, you will find someone playing a judge one episode, a lawyer in another, and a suspect in another.
A unique aspect of Dragnet was that Friday and his partner were every-cop. One week they would be working out of homicide, the next out of fraud, and the next out of public relations. Over the course of the series viewers saw a large range of what police officers might do. Although Friday and his partners never walked a beat or patrolled the streets some episodes focused those who did beat work. Webb later created a program focusing on the patrol units, Adam 12.  Below is the cast of the Dragnet radio program and Webb doing a radio broadcast.

 

 
Dragnet also delved into issues long before they became national. Among these issues were drunk driving, race relations, women on the force, child abuse, bad police officers, excessive force by police officers, abandoned babies, and vigilante or para-military organizations, such as the Fielder Militia episode. Dragnet was dealing with these issues long before they became nationally prominent. Since Webb was using actual police cases it is clear none of them are new issues but most would not become well known for another decade or so. MADD did not start until 1980.
On child abuse, sometimes it was the mother, sometimes the father. On drunk driving there was an episode where a drunk driver killed two elderly people in a crosswalk and was let off with a slap on the wrist, fined $250 and placed on probation. Later in the episode, driving drunk again, he killed two more people in crash. He lost both legs in accident. This time he gets “five to ten years in prison. Because of his permanent disability as a result of the accident, however, sentence was suspended. He was also forbidden to ever drive a motor vehicle again as long as he lived; despite the fact that artificial limbs would have enabled him to do so.”

There were several episodes on race relations.  One dealt with recruiting minorities to join the police force.  Another on the the difficulties a black officer had walking the line between members of his race and the job of of a police officer.  A third episode dealt with minority distrust of the police.  A young black man, played by Georg Stanford Brown, runs to his room after police stop him for an unpaid parking ticket.  Friday and Gannon work to gain his trust as they talk through the door.

The program dealt mainly with police work. Even the few off-duty programs showed that the officer is rarely really off-duty. On the radio program Friday was single and lived with his mother, played by Peggy Webber, then in her 20s. Friday remained single in both TV series and his partner was married. His first partner was Ben Romero, played by Barton Yarborough. He had a couple of other partners, one played by Martin Milner, before Frank Smith, played by Ben Alexander, became his longest running partner. The Friday-Smith team started on the radio and continued through the first television series. Webb wanted Alexander back for the 1967 revival but he had signed to do Felony Squad. Raymond Burr was also on the radio program playing the Chief of Detectives. For the 1967 revival Webb decided to use Harry Morgan as his partner. Morgan had worked on the Dragnet radio show and in a couple of the Dragnet TV movies. Morgan was in middle of long career and he reprised his Bill Gannon role in the 1987 Dragnet movie.

Webb and Alexander in the first TV series

 

Webb and Morgan in the 2nd TV series

Dragnet had negatives too, as the comment “preachy about drug use” shows. Jack Webb was born in 1920 so the drug culture of the 1960s was new to him. Also, since he worked with police department on the shows he got their points on drugs. If you watch all the shows, several of them dealt with people getting drugs to children. The show also dealt with different drugs, most of the preaching was on marijuana. On other drugs the show was not far off of what they could do, there is a lot of news as I write about New Hampshire’s heroin crisis. One of Dragnet’s radio programs. .22 Rifle for Christmas, dealt with a young boy getting a rifle and his friend getting accidentally  killed by the rifle. The NRA complained about the show but it ran 3 straight Christmases.

As I mentioned above, Webb did not portray the police as perfect, as Friday said more than once in one way or another, as long as we hire people will have some bad apples no matter how hard we try to avoid them. Friday and his partner did not always succeed, there is one episode where the defendants get off because the defense successfully argued the police did not have probable cause to do the search that found the evidence and their key witness was unable to appear.

There are a lot of Dragnet episodes, 318 of radio, 276 of the original TV series, 98 of the second series, 52 of the 1989-1991 series, and 10 of the 2003-2004 series. Although there are a lot of episodes, many of the radio programs were redone on the first and second TV series. The second series still runs on oldie channels and is also on Hulu. The radio series runs on Sirius-XM’s Radio Classics station. Many of the programs are available on CDs or DVDs. A number of the radio programs can be listened free on the web and many episodes of the original TV series are free on You Tube.
Ween Jack Webb died the Los Angeles Police Department retired badge 714 and Los Angeles city buildings lower their flags to half-mast. The department also named an auditorium in his honor.
I have now reached the end of this piece, so the final sentence will appear soon. Dragnet began over sixty years ago and the second series ended in 1970 but syndication has kept the show going. Just the other day someone who was likely in her 20s asked what I did. When I told her about my site and this article she said, “Dragnet, the TV show, I watched that on Nick at Night.” From NBC radio in 1949 to various stations like Cozi and Me TV in 2016 Dragnet has had a long and influential presence in our culture. That is fact.

The Hypocrisy of the States

I received an email about New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman telling Fan Duel and Draft Kings to cease doing business in New York and accused them of illegal gambling. The two sites are daily fantasy sites where people spend money to draft players and can win money based their performances. I have never used either site so I am not an expert on exactly how that works.

According to Schneiderman, these sites are different from fantasy leagues because “[Daily fantasy sports] is designed for instant gratification, stressing easy game play and no long-term strategy,”. New York is not the first state to go after the fantasy sites but they are the first to call them criminal.
So long term strategy is Ok but short term strategy is not? That makes no sense to me.
A Wall Street Journal article I read had this, “The notice said the companies, much like a lottery, mislead consumers into believing they have a shot at winning big, when in reality the odds are vastly stacked against them.”
Now we come to title of this piece, who runs lotteries? The states run them. So at worst the fantasy sites do the same thing the states do, hence the hypocrisy. I see major differences between a lottery and fantasy sites. When you play the lottery you are using pure chance, all numbers are equal. You have no way to determine which number is more likely to be drawn. Fantasy sports has a skill element in it. If you know the players and the situation you can determine who is more likely to hit a home run, score a run, and do other things. You can’t control how the players perform but can make decisions based on knowledge.
While any form of gambling can become addictive the vast majority of people can place a bet today and then go months before placing another bet. Just like most people can have one glass of wine without drinking an entire bottle of wine. I have been to Las Vegas several times and I always spend more on shows and food than on gambling.
Even in Las Vegas, where is the line between gambling and skill? Roulette is pure chance, the ball will drop where it drops and the player has no control. Poker has a big skill component. As Kenny Rogers sang, “You have to know when to hold em, know when to fold em.” There are no roulette champions but there are poker players who have won several tournaments. No one wins consistently on pure chance. You have no control over which cards are dealt but after that skill comes into play. Bridge is another card game with a high skill component.
I see the lottery as worse than the fantasy sites. The lottery sells more tickets to lower income people while most who play the fantasy sites have entertainment money. According to Journalist’s Resource, a project of Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center and the Carnegie-Knight Initiative:
“A 2011 paper in the Journal of Gambling Studies conducts a thorough review of the available research on lotteries and concludes that the ‘poor are still the leading patron of the lottery and even the people who were made to feel poor buy lotteries. The legalization of gambling has seen a significant increase of young people gambling, particularly in lotteries, and the best predictor of their lottery gambling is their parents’ lottery participation.’’

More information on this can found here http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/personal-finance/research-review-lotteries-demographics

Should fantasy sports be regulated? If you take money from people there should some regulation ensuring people are receiving truthful information and that company operates fairly. The odds of winning are very low but you get better odds playing a slot machine in Las Vegas than you do playing a state lottery. Insurance, gambling, and fantasy sites all operate under the same principle. They can’t stay in business if they pay out more money than they take in.  Someone will win at least some money while most will lose their money.
I neither support nor oppose fantasy sports sites but I oppose the state governments complaining about them while operating lotteries. If the state operates a gambling system then others should be allowed to gamble elsewhere. The real concern of the states is probably that they are not getting a cut of the action from sports sites.

A Day in a Press Box

Over the years I have attended many sports events, from an NCAA Basketball Tournament game to an English Premier League football (soccer) game. I have sat in purchased seats, been a guest in company boxes, and in club seats. On September 12, 2015 I watched the West Virginia University vs Liberty University football game from the Press Box. This was a new experience for and the experience that I am writing about.
You can’t buy a ticket for the Press Box and you can’t just walk into it, so how do you get to watch a game from it? The simple answer is that you ask for media credentials. The WVU Media Guide says requests for media credentials must be made at least 2 weeks prior to the game. It also says that media who are regularly assigned to cover WVU and from the visiting school are given priority.
How did I get into the Press Box? I had several things going for me. I have worked with WVU Sports Communications before, see my interview with Kevin Noreen on this blog. My father worked for WVU for 45 years and worked with several people who are in the athletic department today, so I had connections going for me. I asked for Liberty game because it was not a high profile game that would draw national reporters, so there would likely be room in the Press Box for non-regular reporters.

Credentials are game by game, if I want to be in the Press Box for another game I will have to put in a new application.

I received two items in the mail, my media pass and a parking pass for the media lot. The first thing I noticed about the media pass is that it gives access to the press box, post-game news conferences, and the field both pre-game and for the last 7 minutes of the game. The last 7 minutes allows reporters to get closer to the press conference area. Waiting until the last 7 minutes also keeps the area behind the end zone from being too crowded earlier. One thing not allowed was visiting the team bench areas.

The Press Box opens long before game time. Kickoff was set for 3 pm so I drove to the parking area about 11 am. Parking for media is on top of a hill about mile up from the stadium. There was a shuttle for media to the stadium and it was there as soon as I got out of the car. The shuttle dropped me at the media entrance and I took an elevator up to the Press Box. My credentials were checked getting into the elevator and exiting it.

The Press Box is long and on two levels. The lower level is mostly working press while the upper level is mostly for staff. Each seat on both levels has a name tag for the person who will occupying it. The upper level also has TV monitors showing several games and a food area. Staff was setting up the food when I arrived.

Each seat has an internet connection and electric outlets making it easy to set up a laptop or tablet. Each seat also gets a packet containing stat sheets, game notes, and Mountaineer Illustrated (the official game program, which can purchased for $5 by fans).
I set up my computer then went up to get some lunch, which I took back to my seat. Fans were not allowed into the stadium yet but the WVU Marching Band was on the field practicing their halftime show. From the Press Box the band formations are easy to see.

About 1 pm players began coming on to field. After my lunch I took out my camera and went down to field. I took the elevator down, went through a door into the concourse and walked down through the stands to field. Other than taking some pictures there was not much to do on the field, though it was interesting being that close to players warming up.

Picture of the Press Box taken from the field.

Went back to the Press Box and at the elevator ran into Dan Friend, a friend I have known since grade school. Dan has long been a photographer for WVU and was on his way up to Press Box for lunch before going to the field.
Most of the reporters had arrived by that time so I just took my seat and waited for the game. You can find game stories many places so I am not going to report on the game. WVU won 41-17.
From the Press Box the view of the field is excellent. The entire field is visible and you can see plays unfold. At the end of each quarter a sheet of game statistics is delivered to each person in the Press Box. Late in the 3rd quarter I went back to the food area for some dinner.

With about 10 minutes left in the game I packed up my stuff and headed for the field, arriving with 7 minutes left. It is very different perspective watching plays unfold at field level. It is easy to understand why teams have coaches stationed high above the field.

As the game ended I headed for the interview room, which is in a building next to the stadium. First Coach Holgorsen came in and answered a few questions, then selected players came in and answered questions. Since I was writing a game story I let the ports reporters ask the questions.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. WVU did an excellent job organizing the game experience. I was treated as member of the press, which in some ways I am. I particularly want to thank Joe Swan, Director of Athletic Publications, and Mike Montoro, Director of Football Communications, for setting up this experience for me.

Listen to the Radio

Listen to the Radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9j5YZnEx3o
“I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales, hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak.” Opening of The Whistler radio program.

The Whistler was radio program, ran from May 16, 1942 until September 22, 1955, on the west-coast regional CBS radio network. It was one of many programs that ran on radio during what is called the Golden Age of radio.
Radio was the first electronic mass media in homes. Although radio began in the first decade of the 20th century, commercial broadcasting did not exist until 1920-21. KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is generally thought of as the first radio station, though WJR in Detroit, Michigan argues they were on the air a few weeks before KDKA. Whether you accept KDKA or WJR as first, commercial radio is still less than 100 years old.
Early radio was a mix of news, music, and sports. By the 1930s radio stations began broadcasting drama and comedy programs. It is difficult to determine what the first drama or comedy program was since some stations did shows locally but one of the earliest was Police Headquarters, which went on the air in 1932. By the 1940s radio was broadcasting movies, many with same cast as the motion picture. You might hear Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Katherine Hepburn, and many other stars of the day recreating their movie roles for radio.

Late 1940’s or early 1950s German multi-band radio
Well-known performers also starred in radio programs: Vincent Price as The Saint, Dick Powell as Richard Diamond, Orson Welles as The Third Man; and others.

Many early television shows came from radio. Ozzie and Harriett began on radio in 1944 and came to TV in 1952. Gunsmoke (on TV in 1955) started on radio in 1952 with William Conrad as Matt Dillon and Howard McNear (who moved on the play Floyd the Barber on the Andy Griffith Show) as Doc. The Life of Riley, Have Gun Will Travel, Dr. Kildare, and Dragnet all began on radio. A number of additional programs moved from radio to TV.

There were some programs that were templates for later TV shows. In the summer of 1950 Somebody Knows aired, asking people to help solve unsolved homicide cases and offering $5,000 for clues leading to solving the case. Many years later America’s Most Wanted ran on television.
By 1960 radio’s time as a general entertainment medium was basically over. Suspense, which began in 1942 and Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, which began in 1949, are considered to be the last radio dramas, going off the air September 30, 1962.
By the time they went off the air radio was returning to its origins of music, news, and sports. CBS did a revival of the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre which ran from 1974 to 1982 with E.G. Marshall as the host. Talk radio also became a major format in the 1980s and 90s. Other radio shows continue to be revived, in 2012 Suspense was revived.

Through the formative years of both radio and TV there was a positive and a negative. The positive was the programs were free. All you needed was a receiver and you could watch or listen all day for no cost. The downside was that choice was limited to what the antenna could pull in.
Growing up in Morgantown, WV meant TV was limited to stations out of Pittsburgh, PA for many years. Weather systems did strange things at times, once, for short period of time, we pulled in a station out of Denver, CO.
Radio was different. During the day we were limited to stations in the area, but there were many more stations available. Night was when radio got more interesting. Many small stations went off the air and 50,000 watt stations boosted their signal. I had no problem listening to WBZ Boston, WLS Chicago, KMOX St. Louis, WABC New York, and many other stations on a pocket transistor radio. It was like taking trips to faraway places.

1960s transistor and modern transistor

Late 1950-early 1960s Stereo Hi-Fi System.  Spent hours doing homework listening to this

Sirius XM radio

1940s era radio

Entertainment started changing in 1975 when HBO began, followed in 1976 by TBS being broadcast by satellite. Although cable had been around since 1940’s it was primarily for people who could not get stations over the air because of where they lived. However, by the late 1970s people started paying for stations that were not local. Broadcasters learned people would pay for more stations.
Radio remained free at that time. In the 1990s people started putting together ideas for satellite radio. In 2001 two systems, Sirius and XM, began broadcasting as a subscriber service. In 2007 Sirius and XM merged into the current Sirius XM. By the end 2013 Sirius XM had 25.6 million subscribers.
With Sirius XM radio has come full circle except you pay for it. Almost everything that was on is available from music of decades past to old radio programs. Radio Classics plays shows from the 1930s up. A recent schedule had Box 13 from 1948, The Charlie McCarthy Show from 1946, Lum & Abner from 1942, Broadway is My Beat from 1953, The Lineup from 1952, Life of Riley from 1947.
I asked Greg Bell, the host of Radio Classics, if he knew the breakdown of his audience. His response, “Sirius XM does not do ratings in the traditional sense. I do know from email feedback, plus the over 12 thousand folks on Facebook that that majority of folks listening are in the 30 to 60 range, but I also heard most weeks from 20 somethings and even teens and pre-teens (usually listening with their parents and grandparents). And of course there is also a healthy number of over 60 age fans who were around when these shows first aired.”
I also asked him why radio programs have better storytelling than TV. His response, “Television quite literally grew out of radio as did the power of storytelling. The early TV shows were mostly written by former radio writers so the attention to detail and the practice of “telling instead of showing” was still quite evident. As the years went on, many of the writers grew “lazy” and relied too heavily on the visual only. That’s not to say there weren’t some wonderful examples of the pictures telling the story, but more and more the quality of the dialogue suffered.”
If you would like to hear some old radio programs you do not need a Sirius XM subscription, there is a nationally syndicated program titled When Radio Was. At their website you will find schedules and stations that carry the program. http://www.whenradiowas.com/
In addition to regular radios many people have radio like programs on their phones or computers, like iHeart Radio, and a radio in their vehicle, many with AM, FM, and Sirius XM settings.

The internet has also added to the versatility of radio. Many stations can be listened to on the web, just search the station’s call letters. Podcasts are a variation of radio. Actor, writer, and filmmaker Mark Redfield created Poe Forevermore where you can find modern radio programs with current actors. In production now is Sinbad and the Pirate Princess with Caroline Munro, Martine Beswick, and Mark Redfield. Martine and Caroline both told me they enjoy doing radio.
http://www.poeforevermore.com/index.html
There is also a website, Old Time Radio, where you can listen to many old time radio shows for free, as they are now in public domain.

https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio
Radio is also mentioned often in popular music, from the title song of this article to John Denver singing “The radio reminds me of my home far away” in Country Roads to Video Killed the Radio Star to Radio by Beyonce.

There is a documentary in production about radio titled Hearing Voices.  According to the producer it will be about how radio changed America and how America changed radio.  Additional information on the film may be found here

http://hearingvoicesthemovie.com

Why has radio survived so well for nearly a century? Probably several major factors. Radio travels well, you can’t lug around a big screen TV but a radio can fit in your pocket. You do not have to watch a radio so you can listen to it and do other things at the same time, such as drive.
Almost anyplace you go radio is available. Let it take you to adventures, make you laugh, or entertain you. As the opening of Escape put it, “Tired of the everyday routine? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you… ESCAPE! Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half-hour of high adventure!”  All you have to do is listen to the radio.

A Night at the Ball Park

When West Virginia University joined the Big 12 one of things they found out was  Hawley Field, their longtime baseball field, did not meet Big 12 standards. Hawley Field was built in 1970 and its first full season was 1971. A Fond Farewell to Hawley Field can be read here

http://www.wvusports.com/blogs.cfm?blog=baseballBlog&story=25711

During the 2013 and 2014 seasons the WVU baseball team played their Big 12 games in Charleston and Beckley. On April 10, 2015 their new park, Monongalia County Ballpark, opened and WVU finally had a home field. Monongalia County Ballpark is also home to the West Virginia Black Bears, the short season A minor league team of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Black Bears were formerly the Jamestown Jammers but the Pirates moved the team to Morgantown for the 2015 season.
Minor leagues focus on player development first, not winning games. Of course every team tries to win but player development comes first. For example, the Black Bears began the season with the Pirate’s 1st, 1st supplemental, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th round picks of 2015. Several weeks ago 1st round pick Kevin Newman was promoted to the class A West Virginia Power in Charleston. The Black Bears are currently 32-30 and 3rd place in their division.

If a player keeps advancing they will move from the Black Bears to the Power, then to the high A Bradenton Marauders, then to the AA Altoona Curve, and then to the AAA Indianapolis Indians, the last stop before the major leagues. Most players on the black Bears will never make it to the majors. The 2005 short season A team had Andrew McCutchen, who is now a star, and 6 other players who have some time in the majors. That is 7 players out of 38 who spent time there that season who have actually seen some major league time.
I recently attended a game with the Black Bears playing the Aberdeen Iron Birds. The Black Bears won the game 4-1. 2nd round pick Kevin Kramer went 2-4 with walk and 5th round pick Brandon Waddell pitched 4 innings giving up 1 hit, 0 runs, 0 walks, with 3 strikeouts. 28th round pick Albert Bauer went 3-4 as did international signee Alexis Bastardo. Anything can happen in the future but right now Kramer and Waddelll look most likely to make the majors someday.

A recap and box score of the game is available here
http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2015_08_14_abeasx_wevasx_1&t=g_log&sid=t5020

Below are some pictures I took

Monongalia County Ballpark is very nice with typical West Virginia nice views.

Kevin Kramer lines to first

Pepperoni Rolls Race

Brandon Waddell Delivers a Pitch

Alexis Bastardo Ready to Attack a Pitch

Diving back to first on a pick off attempt

Team mascot interacts with fans

Catcher Chris Harvey comes to the plate

INTERNET WEEK DAY 3

Day 3 began with Technology, Crime and Policing in the Digital Age with New York Police Commissioner William Bratton being interviewed by Gerry Byrne, Chairman, Reisenbach Foundation; Vice Chairman of Penske Media. Bratton pointed out how fast things have changed when he said, “Twenty years ago, when I was the commissioner for the first time, I had a flip phone and a beeper. The crime setup we now have just didn’t exist.” He continued, “In 1994 I created the department’s first computer crime unit to deal with identity theft, which was a new crime back then. We’d never really heard of it but with the beginning of the internet we were beginning to start experience that.” Bratton pointed out the department now has a 250-detective unit to deal with cybercrime. In 2016 they will be issuing 35,000 custom-designed smartphones with custom apps, such as language translation.

Video of the event here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcpwHemFt7I

Next up was a talk with FCC Commissioner Julie Brill on privacy, security, and fairness in a data driven economy. Her talk was on a constant theme of week, how do we protect sensitive data that our phones, the internet, and other technology gathers. Kate Crawford, of Microsoft Research, MIT and NYU’s Information Law Institute interviewed Ms. Brill. Ms. Brill said that we need a framework that tells users when, how, and by whom their data is collected. She continued, “The Internet of Things will add exponentially to information that we now refer to as big data, making it even bigger. In fact, the Internet of Things is already here and growing. Network equipment manufacturer Cisco reports that there are 25 billion networked devices in the world today and predicts that there will be 50 billion by 2020. These sensors, along with our smartphones, tablets, and computers, generate twice as much data today as they did two years ago, and this trend is expected to continue. “  You can watch the entire session here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-JVv6WSSt8 My next session was The Future of Media with David Callaway, Editor and Chief of USA Today, Jeff Green, Founder and CEO of The trade desk, Lockhart Steele, editorial Director at VOX, and Julie Hansen, President and COO of Business Insider. The moderator was Michael Sebastian, Media reporter for Advertising Age. The discussion mainly focused on the merging of traditional publishing and digital publishing. The New York Times is now putting stories on Facebook as are other publishers. The need is to publish on multiple platforms. You can watch the entire 25 minute session here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbe9oayeHKQ Final event I attended was Virtual Reality: The New Hub for Storytelling. Panelists were Mike Woods, Executive Creative Director and head of VR Studio at Framestorm, David Payne, Chief Digital Officer, Gannett, and Michael Rothenberg, Founder of Rothenberg Ventures. Ann Christine Diaz, Creativity Editor of Advertising Age moderated the discussion. One main talking point was using game technology as a template for developing VR stories. VR technology is changing rapidly. David Payne said USA has a goal of getting viewers into a situation as rapidly as possible. I see VR as a technological updating of the old TV show You Are There. Watch the entire session at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TPHr2VzO9A

Internet week Day 2

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”

Through the Looking Glass Lewis Carroll 1872

Same trip to event as day 1 but a bit later in the morning.

First event I attended was Taking Taboo Topics Social. This was a panel moderated by Randi Zuckerberg, the Founder & CEO of Zuckerberg Media and author of “Dot Complicated”. The panel members were Binta Niambi Brown, CEO of Fermata Entertainment; Nicole Lapin, financial journalist and author of Rich Bitch; and Molly Hayward, CEO of Cora, a startup centered on menstruation and women in developing countries.
Brown stated, “We are so afraid of offending one another and losing friends that we’re not willing to engage in tough political discussions. Allow yourself to be vulnerable, and make people uncomfortable. And, really this probably should have been the first thing, be really authentic and honest in your expression.”
Lapin said, “Women are more comfortable talking about blow jobs and periods than what they make. They prefer to admit their weight than their salary.”
Hayward, speaking about a trip to Kenya, said, “I met a girl sitting in front of her home who should’ve been in school. I asked why she wasn’t in school and she said, ‘I have my period.’ That really struck home for me. I realized this is something that we as women all experience. How can I, through business, connect women in my own society with women and girls in need?”
As I listened to panel first thought was that there are not really “taboo” topics. I worked many years in different types of organizations and do not remember any salary talk among men or women. I never knew what others made and they did not know what I made. I have been told that women are less likely than men to talk about salary but there are men who do not talk about it.
As for menstruation, I remember television and magazine ads from years ago on menstrual products from pads and tampons to pills to deal with cramps. The topic may be totally taboo overseas but in the U.S. you need to be a hermit to be unaware that it exists.

Video of the event here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJjd1Uj19Ck

The next talk I attended was The New York Times on Big Data and Publishing. The panel consisted of three Times employees, Steve Lohr (Technology Reporter), Alex MacCallum (Assistant Editor), and Michael Zimbalist, (SVP, Advertising Products and research and Development).
Print media has probably been hit hardest by the digital revolution. With news all over the web who needs a newspaper or magazine? Of three big news magazines, U.S. News and World Report (1933), Newsweek (1933) and Time (1923) only Time remains as a print weekly. Newspapers have also fallen on hard times. The past 50 years have seen the death of many afternoon papers and few cities have two newspapers. Newspapers were slow to react to the digital age and have been searching for the best way to present themselves on the internet.
As one of the nation’s most widely circulated newspapers (the three top circulation newspapers in order are USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times) the Times did not create an audience development staff until the fall of 2014 when they put Alexandra MacCallum in charge of creating one.
According to the panel, one problem facing the Times was paying attention to the front door, their home page, and neglecting the side doors of social media. MacCallum said, ““It isn’t chasing clicks; it’s making people loyal to the Times specifically,” she said. “The Times has had the luxury of readers coming direct for many many years. As readers move from search to social, we haven’t been as in front of them.”
The Times now has 15 copy editors and Web producers as “SEO ambassadors” (SEO is Search Engine Optimization). The purpose of SEO is to identify ley words so people searching for topic will find a Times article if they published on that topic. MacCullum’s staff does not demand reporters use social media but will encourage and work them to jump into conversation on social media.

Video of the event here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw3drSf-o20

Next up was #Rokertalk: Weather Gets Digital with Andrew Freedman, Science Editor at Mashable, interviewing Al Roker of the Today Show. Roker feels, “More data, means a better forecast. A richer experience.”

Roker is a fan of digital and apps. He has his own app, Al’s Weather Rokies. He likes Twitter, saying, “I think Twitter is the most significant tool. Not just for weather, but for real-time information to verify a forecast.”
One question dealt with the difference in audience between the work he does on the Today show and the Weather Channel. Roker said that on the Today show there is limited time so you need to get the basic information people need out while with the Weather Channel there is time to delve into things.
Roker feels you have to deal with fact in the weather. He said, “Just because it’s on the Internet, it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
This was a very entertaining discussion.

Video of the event here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MNVWhBqBmM

Chis Babel, CEO, TRUSTe did a session titled Somebody’s Watching You: Smart Devices and Privacy. Babel said that we need to be aware of who gets our private information and whether we care. He says we have devices today that can monitor our daily life. He showed slides from his devices showing how long he slept one night, where he was during the day, and more. He said we expect the information to go the app maker which keeps the data for us but some apps send the data to several places. If you download apps you have probably seen things like app needs access to identity, contacts, location, photos, media files, etc.

Video of the event here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLtGwt5_s-0

Next up was a session titled From On-Demand to In Demand with a panel of Samer Hamadeh, CEO of Zeel Toby Hervey, GM of Pager, Alex Levin, GM of Handy, Holger Luedorf, SVP of Postmates, and Amanda Rosenberg, VP of Marketing for Glamsquad. The moderator was Laura Rich, CEO of Street Fight.
On-demand has been around a long time in some areas, like Pizza delivering, but technology has brought new life to the concept. Some of the new companies are bringing old things into the present. Video rental companies like Blockbuster have all but disappeared but Blockbuster lives on as Blockbuster On Demand on DISH. The poster child of On-Demand is Uber.

Zeel advertises “Getting a great massage has never been easier! Zeel delivers top-quality massage from vetted, licensed therapists to your home, hotel or office in as little as an hour from the time you book.”
https://www.zeel.com/

Pager has an app let you request board-certified doctors to a specified location, in other words bringing back home visits by doctors.
http://pager.com/
Handy is an online booking platform for cleaners, plumbers and home services.
https://www.handy.com/
Postmates promises one hour home or office delivery from local merchants. Currently only available in a few major cities.
https://postmates.com/
Glamsquad, as you might guess, sends professional beauty experts to your home, office, or hotel. They have makeup people and hair stylists.
http://www.glamsquad.com/
Street Fight defines itself as a media, events, and research company focused on the business of hyperlocal publishing, commerce, marketing and technology. The Street Fight website publishes news, commentary, case studies, and how-to articles to chronicle the hyperlocal ecosystem’s development of sustainable business models.
http://streetfightmag.com/
The main discussion was about whether On-Demand has staying power or is just a fad.The panelists agreed that a big selling point of the industry is convenience.
Street Fight recently wrote “Stepping back briefly to define ODLS, It usually involves services that are summoned on-demand through mobile apps, then promptly fulfilled offline. For users, it brings immediate needs to their fingertips. For providers, it aggregates demand. This creates marketplace transparency that brings together buyer and seller more efficiently.”

If you are interested in On-Demand the following 3 articles give a good explanation of the concept.

Is Apple Pay Set to Power On-Demand Local Services?

http://streetfightmag.com/2014/10/27/will-apple-pay-drive-on-demand-local-services/

The Uberification of the “1099 Economy”

http://streetfightmag.com/2015/01/12/the-uberification-of-the-1099-economy/

On-Demand Local Services: The End of SMB Advertising as We Know It?

http://streetfightmag.com/2015/02/09/on-demand-local-services-the-end-of-smb-advertising-as-we-know-it/

Video of the event here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iFOc4xDiHk
My final panel of Day 2 was True Costs of Ad Fraud. The panel was Ed Montes, Chief Revenue Officer of DataXu, Andrew Casale, President and CEO of Index Exchnge, and Jonathan Mendez, CEO of Yiekdbot. The moderator was Alex Kantrowitz, Ad Tech reporter for Advertising Age.

According to the panel more than $6 billion will be lost to ad fraud this year.

The most common form of ad fraud is by computers hijacked by viruses and programmed to visit sites. The virus maker then gets paid for ads based on the false visits, in other words the site gets 1 million supposed visits and ad people pay based on that data. In reality, no real people visited the site so the ad makers gets no return from the ad.
About 28% of advertising money is now spent on digital ads so this is big business. The concern is that if ad fraud is not controlled businesses will stop advertising on the web and legitimate sites will lose money and fail.
To control fraud we now have online-ad auditing firms to check for fraudulent traffic.

Video of the event here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22hNFgK227o
Day 2 was very enjoyable with a lot of interesting information.
So it was back to the hotel. In New York City the subway system is based on uptown and downtown. When you go from 18th street to 37th street you are going uptown, from 37th street to 18th street you are going downtown. When I get off at the 23rd street station in the morning I come out on 6th avenue but that station entrance only gets you to downtown trains. To get back I had to cross 6th avenue and go to Broadway. The station entrance at Broadway and 23rd takes you to uptown trains. There are stations where you can get uptown and downtown trains so you have pay attention to signs at the entrance to determine if you can go either direction.

About 21st Street and Broadway

Internet Week Day 1

I left my hotel on 37th street between 5th and 6th avenues, walked down 6th to 34th street subway stop and took R or N downtown to 23 rd street, I then walked down 6th the 5 blocks to 18th street, then a block and a half to between 7th and 8th. Internet week started with a breakfast Monday morning and an on stage interview by Marie Claire’s Editor and Chief Anne Fulenwider of Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad City, a show on Comedy Central. The link to Internet Week is that Broad City began as a web series. It was an entertaining interview. They talked about how they developed the show and built a following. “I did SEO at my old job,” Glazer said, “and Abbi did social media. When we made the series, we used these skills, like thinking about keywords . . . It’s exactly what I would’ve done for a coffee table book for this company I was working for, but now I did it for each episode that came out. We were used to doing our own PR. We threw parties for each episode, and even after we moved into the TV realm, we still have that mentality.” L to R Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, Anne Fulenwider

Video of the event here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTY5cChZWwQ

Next I attended a presentation by David Pakman on Media Giants in the Internet Age. Pakman is a partner in Venrock, a venture capital firm that invests in science and technology companies. Pakman believes we have shifted from an age of media scarcity to one of media abundance. The result is a fracturing of mass audiences into niche groups. People move from one platform to another and one screen to another. Think about it, television really started in the late 1940s-early 1950s. Prior to TV people had two main daily media, radio and newspapers. When TV started people had another source but it was very limited, with 3 or 4 channels. Fast forward 60 years and people have multiple choices. Some have cut cable and get their entertainment through streaming. Today, if you want to watch a movie you do not have to wait until it is on TV, you can use Netfix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or other streaming sites. You can watch on a television set, a phone, a computer, a tablet, and more. The media giants are still around, they are simply expanding to the web. For example, NBC sports covers the English Premier League (soccer) and games are shown on NBC or the NBC Sports network but if they are not showing the game you want to see you go to their website and watch any game being played on the computer, cellphone, tablet, etc, Followed with a talk between NY1’s Steve Kiernan and Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight. Nate Silver is a stats and data person who first gained prominence writing on baseball for Baseball Prospectus. He became more widely known in 2012 when he correctly predicted every state in the presidential election. He did a FiveThirtyEight blog for the New York Times website. His FiveThirtyEight Blog http://fivethirtyeight.com/ is now part of the ESPN family and covers sports, science, politics, life, and economics. Silver spoke about how the explosion of data has changed how stories are told and what stories are told. He said, “Homepage traffic is flat. People aren’t going through the front door.” What he was referring to is that many people find the stories on social media and click on a link there instead going to home page of a website. Silver said that “big data” is a mass of independent data points and without accurate correlation between multiple data points it can be worthless, or even destructive. Data also needs to be gathered from multiple sources to avoid bias. Photo by Michelle Kinney L to R Nate Silver, Steve Kiernan

Video of the event here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Gv-KtNyYs

A couple of other first day events were interesting but had little technology content. Lee Pace, star AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, spoke about the upcoming season and how he uses social media to interact with fans. Chester See talked about the road from net sites like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter to being cast in a Broadway show. My final event of the day was workshop on puzzle games with Kurt Bieg of Simple Machine Games. Some of the games he has created are Twirdle, Halcyon, and Circadia. He feels making a puzzle game is simple, all you need is an idea and code. Making a game that is good and will draw interest is more difficult. A game can’t be too simple or too hard. Finding the proper balance in difficulty is the key. Overall it was nice day with some interesting thoughts.

Internet Week: Overview

Doctor Who, Season 3 Episode 10  2007

Doctor Who was referring to aliens but the same statement applies in many ways to modern technology. We live in a time where technology advances so fast that if you blink you fall behind. Cellphones are outdated by the time you leave the store; computers update regularly; new apps are released daily. In 20 years we have come from rudimentary computers that were primarily word processors to carrying pocket devices that can do everything a computer of 5 years ago could do and more.

I recently attended Internet Week in New York City and am going to write several pieces on what I learned and experienced.

The event took place over 4 days and was headquartered at Metropolitan Pavilion (125 W 18th Street). There were two stages, a classroom, the Internet of Things pavilion, and a café curated by Food to Eat with different restaurants bringing in food.

I spoke with Allison Arden, Managing Director of the event and also vice president/publisher of Advertising Age. She told me Internet Week started in 2008 and she has been managing it since 2012. She said there would be over 9000 attendees at headquarters and over 45,000 participating in events around the city. She also said that the festival is an annual celebration of technology’s impact on business and culture and they want to provide attendees with the latest innovations and knowledge of how technology is affecting business and daily life.

The Internet of Things Pavilion had a number of interesting displays.

River is a virtual reality company. They attached a cellphone to the front of a headpiece that you put over your eyes. After a few seconds you feel like you are in the movie that is being projected and you have full 360 ability. It was unlike anything I have previously experienced.

SWASH™ is a clothing care system that is supposed to take out wrinkles and refresh the fabric.

Ringly creates smart jewelry that connects to your phone so you can stay connected to the people, messages, and notifications that are most important to you.

MUSE has a brain sensing headband. They claim “This measurement gives you valuable feedback that you can use to train your brain today – and over time – to improve your focus, attention and composure.”

Disney set up a table for the release of the movie Tomorrowland where you could pick up movie posters, pins, and have your picture taken in front of a blank screen. You got the picture and also could e-mail a copy to yourself or someone else.

Food to Eat brought in several vendors, including Mamagyro with Greek cuisine, Potatopiawhere you create your own potato dish, The Bao Shoppe with steamed bun sandwiches, The Nugget Spot with meat and vegetable nuggets, and Valduccis pizza.

The Trade Desk sponsored the classroom.  The Trade Desk offers advertising technology.

The two stages were sponsored by USA Today and YP.  YP offers marketing advice.  My next posts will look at some of the presentations on the stages.

“Don’t blink” also applies to the events because if you blinked you could miss something.