From December 15-17, 2018, I attended the Joint Mathematical Meeting at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore.
There, I presented a talk on my current baseball research. This research tries to identify the ten greatest professional sports teams of all-time from the four Major Leagues (MLB, the NBA, the NFL, and the NHL).
My talk was in the session called Math and Sports. I also enjoyed listening to several other talks. All these talks involved mathematics related to sports. Some of these talks included the following topics:
- The fastest way to climb a mountain
- Is there referee bias in favor of the home-team
- A new ranking system for players in Major-League Baseball
A special highlight of my trip was a visit to Babe Ruth’s original home, located a few blocks away from the convention center. His home is now the Babe Ruth Museum. There, I discovered a very interesting fact connecting the Babe to The Star-Spangled Banner.
The U.S. involvement in World War I prompted the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner by the naval training school band during the seventh inning stretch of Game 1 of the 1918 World Series which was played on Sept. 5, 1918. After this, The Star-Spangled Banner would become a fixture at important baseball occasions — opening day and the World Series. However, the national anthem not was played at every major-league game until WWII.
By the way, Game 1 featured the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. Babe Ruth was the winning pitcher for the Red Sox pitching a 1-0 shutout. The Red Sox won the 1918 Series with Ruth credited with two of the four wins.
