Friday, July 13, 2007

Is Friday the 13th unlucky for the Phillies?

We have tickets for tonight's game against the Cardinals. Will we witness the 10,000th loss? I'm kind of hedging my bets here, if the Phillies win I'll be happy that they started their second half well. If they lose, well then the city can have its "celebration" (I'm using the word very loosely).

Looking back throughout history, the Phillies record on Friday the 13ths is 45-44-1. Yes, that is one tie. This is an improvement over their actual overall winning percentage. But its not that crazy. If we throw out all ties and sample 89 games randomly from the Phillies history, we'd expect to get 45 or more wins about 27.4% of the time. Obviously this has no bearing on tonight's game, but is a fun frivolous stat. And in case you're curious (I know you are), the Phillies lost on Friday April 13th of this year.

In case you're not from Philly or didn't catch it, a local radio station (WMMR) decided that to "honor" the possibly loss, they would get 10,000 marbles (red and white) and throw them down the steps of the art museum (aka "The Rocky Steps"). I'm at work, so I can't go looking for the video of this, but from the sound of it, marbles went EVERYWHERE, including into the road. The inspiration for this was of course the inspiration for a lot of stupid things, Animal House.

UPDATE: Got back from the game. Phillies avoid the loss with 23 hits!!! It was fun and I had my first Schmitter (a tasty sandwich with roast beef, salami, cheese, onion, tomatos and some kind of sauce). Won't be at tomorrow's game, but I'll definitely catch part on TV.

UPDATE #2: I found the link for the dropping of the marbles.

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