DEFY SMCQUAID! #53: Sports Announcers and Elvish Support Staff

The Question
Jon Abad asks:
2005-10-11 04:33:22

How do baseball commentators come up with all those wacky statistics so fast?
I was watching the 18 inning Astros v. Braves NLDS game 4 and they would talk about the records that were being broken (which doesn’t seem so hard) and then things like “he’s the seventh player in history to tie a postseason game with a home run with two outs in the ninth”. Now that’s obscure!

The Answer

Two things that sports announcers have access to that mere mortals don’t: A veritable army of elves, and the Never-empty refrigerator. The elves research the statistics, and the announcers survive off of chocolate cake from the Never-empty refrigerator. Lately there has been some talk about the elves being underpaid – you may notice that sports announcers are less and less interesting lately due to the lack of Elven support (it’s a work-slow-down, not a stop, but that still impacts the quality of statistics we receive).

No, I’m kidding.

The real source of all these statistics is a Sports Statistics Bureau. There are several out there, and they provide all sorts of information to announcers. The wacky fact combinations are come up with by the announcer’s support staff (which can be extensive) and delivered for announcers at the appropriate time, after querying the database.

Not terribly exciting, I know. I like the elves story better. But hey, you can’t have everything, I suppose, on a Tuesday morning when your dog just got sick on the carpet and it’s cold enough to freeze your earlobes solid…