Bathroom Readers' Institute's Blog, page 100

The Curse of Winning 100 Games

The St. Louis Cardinals won 100 games this season, the most of any team in baseball…but they were eliminated in the National League Divisional Series. Why? So few teams win 100 games, and the World Series, that a curse must be afoot!

There are 162 games in a Major League Baseball season, which is a slog by all measures. After that, there’s the wild card playoff game, the best-of-5 divisional series, the best-of-7 league championship series, and the best-of-7 World Series. All in all, a team can play a total of 182 games…not counting the 30 or so games in spring training. It’s all the more impressive then when a team is so thoroughly dominant from the beginning of the season to the end and reaches a feat that only a handful of teams have done: win 100 games in the regular season.

One would think that winning 100 games would guarantee a postseason of cruising through opponents en route to a World Series championship, but it’s just not very likely. Perhaps players are tired after playing almost 200 games, or perhaps they peaked too early in the season. Whatever it is, history doesn’t lie: Since the National League and American League expanded to four playoff teams each in 1969, 45 teams have won 100 games in the regular season. Of those 45 teams, only 10 have gone on to win the World Series. They are:

1969 New York Mets (100-62)
1970 Baltimore Orioles (108-54)
1975 Cincinnati Reds (108-54)
1976 Cincinnati Reds (102-60)
1977 New York Yankees (100-62)
1978 New York Yankees (100-63)
1984 Detroit Tigers (104-58)
1986 New York Mets (108-54)
1998 New York Yankees (114-48)
2009 New York Yankees (103-59)

Among the most notable teams to watch their regular season power vanish in October: The 2001 Seattle Mariners. Led by Randy Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, and Edgar Martinez, the team won 116 games—a Major League record. After beating Cleveland in the ALDS, they lost to the New York Yankees in the ALCS, four games to one.

Two other teams set franchise records for wins in a season, but had the misfortune to play in years where other teams did the same thing. For example, the 1969 “Miracle Mets” won 100 games and the World Series…over the 109-game-winning Baltimore Orioles. The New York Yankees won a then-record 114 games in 1998, and in the World Series beat the 106-game-winning Atlanta Braves.

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3 Unlikely Stage Musicals

The stage can be anything: a castle, the hills of Austria…even a fight club.

Fight Club

Before it was adapted into a film in 1995, Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club was considered “unfilmable.” It also seems like a stretch to adapt it into a stage musical—it’s an ultra-dark comedy about guys who try to feel more alive by beating each other to a pulp, and then bombing office buildings. (It may also be hard to stage the film’s famous twist ending regarding the identity of Tyler Durden, the character portrayed onscreen by Brad Pitt.) But a musical Fight Club is coming. Palahniuk says that he’s working on it with the film’s director David Fincher, as well as musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Roger Rabbit was a watershed moment for film, flawlessly combining live action with animation. A major, if not essential, part of its appeal was witnessing real people interact convincingly with cartoon characters. If it’s all real people in front of an audience…it loses its edge. And yet, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The Musical, featuring actors dressed in bunny costumes, was staged at a community theater in suburban Chicago in 1993, before enjoying a brief run in Los Angeles.

Grey Gardens

Grey Gardens is probably the only musical based on a documentary film. Released in 1975, the original film, by famed documentarians Albert and David Maysles, tracked the slow, sad descent of mother and daughter “Big” Edie Bouvier Beale and “Little” Edie Bouvier Beale in their decrepit, trash-filled East Hampton mansion. (They were related to former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.) The cult classic was adapted into a musical in 2006, and was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, and winning three.

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The Adventures of Bill Murray

The star of Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day just seems to pop up around the world. Here are some of the weirdest exploits of the comic legend, who recently turned 65.

In May 2014, Erik Rogers and Ashley Donald were having wedding photos taken in Charleston, South Carolina. And suddenly, there was Murray, standing behind them with his shirt lifted up, patting his belly, and trying to make them laugh. Murray posed for a few photos, and then disappeared.


Around the same time, Murray was eating at a nearby restaurant that was hosting a bachelor party. One of the groom’s friends asked him if he would make an appearance but the actor declined. A few minutes later, Murray changed his mind, wandered into the room where they were celebrating, and delivered an impromptu speech. After dispensing some advice about modern courtship, he hoisted the groom onto his shoulders and earned cheers from the attendees before returning to his table.


After participating in a golf tournament in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2006, Murray ran into a young Norwegian woman named Lykke Stavnef. She was surprised when he accepted her invitation to a nearby house party hosted by a group of exchange students. The kitchen was stuffed full of dirty dishes and the attendees were shocked when the actor decided to roll up his sleeves and start washing them.


During the 2010 edition of the annual festival, Murray showed up at a bar called Shangri-La in downtown Austin with several members of the rap group Wu-Tang Clan. He then wandered behind the bar and began taking drink orders from the crowd. No matter what they requested, he nodded politely before serving them glasses tequila.


While in Europe to promote the 2014 film The Monuments Men, Murray abruptly decided to hop a train from Berlin to Prague despite being scheduled to appear at a press event the following morning. He arrived in Prague around midnight and convinced a cultural attaché at the U.S. embassy to give him a tour of the city. After catching a few hours of sleep at the ambassador’s house, Murray caught an early morning flight back to Berlin.

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You Have Died of Dysentery: A Look Back at ‘The Oregon Trail’

Here’s the history of the educational computer game that has taught millions of students around the world about the perils of pioneer life.

In 1971, Don Rawitsch was a senior at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Eager to earn some extra cash for tuition, he took a job as a student teacher at a local middle school. Teaching the kids history was a chore and he soon grew frustrated with trying to hold their attention during class time. So, he contacted two other college students and started working on a computer game about the Oregon Trail. The game was ready to play by the end of the year.

Despite its incredibly rudimentary graphics, simplistic gameplay and bugs (computers weren’t too advanced in 1971) the kids loved The Oregon Trail. Rawitsch shared the game with other nearby school districts before printing out the source code and setting the project aside. Then in 1974, he was hired by a Minnesota company called MECC to design educational software. Rawitsch dusted off The Oregon Trail and created a more sophisticated version with innovative features and published the source code in 1978. Other editions followed, the most popular of which was the fourth one released in 1985. Many American kids spent countless hours playing this version in school computer labs all across the country.

Its now hilariously outdated graphics but addictive gameplay taught them all about an age when dysentery was often fatal and transporting over 100 pounds of meat to a wagon was nearly impossible. Naming the game’s characters after students and fellow teachers also provided lots of cruel chuckling as they succumbed to various perils during their journey west to the Willamette Valley. To date, 65 million copies of The Oregon Trail have been sold and the latest version was released for smartphones in 2012.

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5 Strange Facts About the Major League Baseball Postseason

The road to the World Series has begun.

There have only been a handful of geographic “rivalries” in the World Series in which cross-town or across-the-same-small-state played each other. If the Kansas City Royals and St. Louis Cardinals reach the World Series this year, it’ll be an all-Missouri championship, which last took place in 1985. Other occurrences: 2000 (New York Yankees vs. New York Mets), 1989 (Oakland A’s vs. San Francisco Giants), 1944 (St. Louis Browns vs. St. Louis Cardinals), and 1906 (Chicago White Sox vs. Chicago Cubs).


Of course, this doesn’t count those decades before the Dodgers and Giants moved to California, when there were three teams in the New York area (the New York Yankees, New York Giants, and Brooklyn Dodgers), and they were all dominant. In fact, from 1949 to 1958, a New York team played in the World Series ever year. In seven of those 11 years, two New York teams did.


Only two teams have never made it to the World Series: the Seattle Mariners and the Washington Nationals. (The Nationals never made it in the team’s previous iteration as the Montreal Expos.)


This season, the Houston Astros will play the Kansas City Royals in the American League Divisional Series. The last time the Astros made it this far, it was in the National League Divisional Series in 2005. The team switched leagues in 2013, making it the second team to play in both the ALDS and NLDS. Who was the first? The Milwaukee Brewers. Divisional series weren’t introduced until 1995, but they were used in 1981, a strike-shortened season, where the best teams in the first half of the season squared off against the best teams from the second half. That year the Brewers went to the American League playoffs. After switched leagues in 1998, the Brewers competed in the 2011 National League playoffs.


If the Chicago Cubs make it all the way to the World Series, it’ll be the team’s first appearance in the final round since 1945. If they win, it will break a 107-year championship drought. Eerily, the 1989 movie Back to the Future Part II predicted that the Cubs would win the 2015 World Series:

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Ask Uncle John Anything: Order in the (Televised) Court!

Uncle John knows pretty much everything—and if he doesn’t, he heads his massive research library, or puts one of his many associates on the case. So go ahead: In the comments below, ask Uncle John anything. (And if we answer your question sometime, we’ll send you a free book!)

Are TV courtroom shows like Judge Judy or The People’s Court legally binding? How do they work?

More often than not, the judges that star on daytime reality court shows are real judges, or at the very least, retired judges. Judge Judy Sheindlin was appointed to a New York criminal court in 1982, for instance, and Judge Wapner from The People’s Court was a California judge from 1959 to 1979, retiring two years before he moved to TV land.

The “trials” that air on TV aren’t really trials, but they are real “cases,” generally in small claims court. Producers for court shows seek out litigants who have cases pending in small claims courts primarily in California and New York. Why those states? Because that’s where the court shows tape episodes…and also because those massively populated states can benefit from court shows relieving them of some of its massive backlog of cases. Litigants benefit because 1) The TV show offers a quick and easy solution to their case, one way or the other, and 2) It’s neat to be on TV.

But while the small claims cases are presented like real courtroom trials, they’re actually examples of arbitration. By its definition, arbitration isn’t court – it’s a way to settle a dispute outside of the court system. Both parties in a case agree to present their side to an arbitrator, who examines evidence and makes a legally binding decision. That arbitrator doesn’t have to be a judge, but they usually are. Like on TV court shows, for instance.

The arbitrator’s decision on the televised case is legally binding, but not under the threat of jail time or a fine. It’s because the litigants sign a contract with the TV court show’s production company prior to appearing, and contracts are legally binding. At any rate, even the losing party gets an appearance fee, commensurate with the laws of TV production.

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5 Gigantic Facts About André the Giant

André René Roussimoff passed away in 1993 but he remains one of the world’s most famous wrestlers. Here are a few facts about the gigantic French grappler.

André suffered from acromegaly, which created an excessive amount of growth hormone in his body. By age 12, he was 6’3” and weighed 240 pounds. He couldn’t fit in the school bus, so he hitched a ride to school each day from his neighbor who had a pickup truck: Waiting for Godot author Samuel Beckett.


André dropped out of school in the eighth grade under the assumption that he would work as a farmer for the rest of his life. He eventually quit and moved to Paris where he worked as a mover until he caught the eye of a local wrestling promoter. At first, André wrestled under the alias “Géant Ferré,” the name of a French folk hero from the Hundred Years War.


His wrestling career really took off after he began appearing at matches in Japan during the early ‘70s, and was hired by Vince McMahon Sr. to work for the World Wrestling Federation as “André the Giant.”


André’s reign at the top of the WWF came to an end after he agreed to “turn heel” in 1987, or “play the villain.” The rising popularity of Hulk Hogan meant that it was time for a new king of the ring. The two began a public feud with one another that culminated in an epic match that year at Wrestlemania III. At the time, André weighed a staggering 520 pounds, which made what happened next all the more amazing. Hogan (who won the match) managed to bodyslam his colossal opponent in front of a crowd of 93,173 spectators.


In January of 1993, André returned to Paris to attend his father’s funeral. He later died of heart failure in a hotel room. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at his ranch in Ellerbe, North Carolina.

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7 Weird October Holidays You Ought to Celebrate

Have a spooktacular time on the ghoulish holiday of…Virus Appreciation Day?

Oct. 2: Name Your Car Day

Cars are very important to us (as they should be—they’re expensive), and some people get so attached they name their car. Usually a woman’s name, for some reason. So, take this day to name your car, if you haven’t done so already.

Oct. 3 Virus Appreciation Day

Maybe “appreciation” isn’t the proper word to reflect on the microscopic things that make us sick, or the human-created technological nightmares that wipe out our computers. Maybe this should be Virus Awareness Day.

Oct. 6 Mad Hatter Day

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter (mad as in crazy, hatter as in he wears a big hat) has a slip of paper sticking out of his hat that reads “10/6.” It’s an order for making the hat, and the number indicates a price of 10 schillings and sixpence. Today is 10/6…so wear a big, silly hat to celebrate.

Oct. 7 Bald and Free Day

Millions of men lose their hair, and almost all of them do something to prevent it from continuing, or to hide it when it does, such as Rogaine or hats, respectively. This holiday urges bald and balding men to end the fight, accept their hair loss, and proudly show off their chrome-domes.

Oct. 12: Moment of Frustration Day

Everybody gets frustrated once in a while. This day allows you to stop keeping all that anger and politeness in and to just take a moment for yourself and let it all out. (But try not to be too loud, and keep it safe.)

Oct. 23 TV Talk Show Host Day

For more than 50 years, they’ve helped us drift to sleep with a few jokes and a softball celebrity interview. This day is in appreciation of hosts like David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Steve Allen, Joan Rivers, and Johnny Carson, who was born on Oct. 23, 1925.

Oct. 24: National Bologna Day

This holiday is, well, it’s a bunch of well, you know.

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Impossible Questions: Rambocop Edition

Think you know the answer to this question? Think you can get it? Good luck…and come back tomorrow to see if you’re right.

What weird distinction links the Rambo movies and the RoboCop movies?

Want more impossible questions? Check out Uncle John’s Impossible Questions.

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The Ins and Outs of In-N-Out

In honor of the beloved burger chain’s opening of its first location in Oregon (which just so happens to be just down the road from the Bathroom Readers’ Institute), here’s a quick look at In-N-Out.

Harry Snyder and his girlfriend Esther were living in Seattle when they got married in 1948. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Baldwin Park, California, where they opened In-N-Out Burger, the Golden State’s first drive-through hamburger restaurant around the corner from their new house. During these early years, it was a pretty humble operation; the stand was 10 square feet. Harry woke up every day before dawn to grab the freshest ingredients he could find from local produce and meat markets, while Esther handled all the bookkeeping. After long days on the grill, Harry worked in the garage on a two-way speaker box so his customers could place orders without getting out of their cars.

Within 10 years, In-N-Out had five locations in the San Gabriel Valley. Customers couldn’t get enough of the Synders’ quirky burgers like the “Double Double” (two beef patties, two slices of cheese) and “Animal Style” (beef patty grilled in mustard with diced grilled onions, cheese, and special sauce). The chain’s locations became a magnet for local teenagers and hot-rodders, which is one reason why Harry decided to invest in the construction of the Irwindale Drag Strip. What was sold at the racing arena’s concession stands? In-N-Out burgers.

Harry was also a big fan of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, a 1963 comedy film that features various characters scrambling to find a robber’s stolen loot buried near a series of palm trees that form the letter “W.” This is the reason why most In-N-Outs still have crossed palm trees planted in front of them.

To this day, In-and-Out’s loyal customer base continues to flock to its various locations to dig into its burger and “secret menu.” Unfortunately in the mid-2000s, management had to do away with an official policy of preparing special order burgers of any size after a group of people requested one containing 100 beef patties at a location in Las Vegas. The most you can order at an In-N-Out today: four patties with four slices of cheese.

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