Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 April 2

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April 2

Determining Rosters of Professional US sports team

Does the owner of a NBA, NFL, or NHL franchise have ultimate say over their team's roster and line up? Hypothetically, if a very wealthy individual wanted to play in one of the aforementioned professional sports game, could they purchase a team and force the coach to add themselves to the line up? Acceptable (talk) 03:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

A very wealthy individual (especially in a hypothetical situation) can do whatever he wants. One hurdle he might face is physical exams. Could be hard to get him on the ice if a doctor says exercise might reasonably kill him. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:15, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Hypothetically, he could make himself the coach. Also, Some players have made enough money to buy majority ownership of the teams they are playing for. Historically, however meddlesome owners are rarely successful and get blasted in the media for being too meddlesome. --Jayron32 08:30, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, in the Ted Turner example above, the National League stepped in and advised Turner that he was in violation of a major league baseball rule that prohibits players and managers from owning shares of their teams. In baseball at least, player contracts have to be vetted by the Commissioner's office (the rule was put in after the Eddie Gaedel stunt) precisely in order to prevent non-athletes from buying their way into the league. Other sports do things differently, however. In Formula One, pay drivers used to be quite common (and commonly reviled); Pedro Diniz for example, was the son of a billionaire team sponsor (although he was one of the more talented pay drivers of that era). Ultimately, having athletes participating in sports contests when they don't belong on the field is detrimental to the sport, so governing authorities tend not to take kindly to shuch shenanigans. --Xuxl (talk) 09:08, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Some sports leagues require that their teams always perform to their best possible standard. It's obviously hard to judge absolutely, but less than star quality owners putting themselves on the field would be a pretty obvious breach. HiLo48 (talk) 10:50, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

In less reputable leagues, the owner destroys his star. And vice versa. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:38, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Things were different in the early days of some sports. George Halas was co-owner, coach and player all at the same time on the Chicago Bears, as well as being a co-founder of the NFL itself. In fact, he was a "two-way" player, so he was seldom standing on the sidelines while doing his coaching, until he retired from playing. Albert Spalding had a similar career path in the National League, as did guys like Clark Griffith and Connie Mack in the American League. The difference is that that's a "bottom-up" situation, i.e. a player becoming an owner or part-owner, rather than the other way around. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Example of a "top-down " situation from that era is St. Louis Browns owner Chris von der Ahe, who became by all accounts an egregiously bad manager after firing a number of skippers and deciding he could do just as good a job as them; but he never tried to actually play the game. --Xuxl (talk) 14:58, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Another early example is Frank Patrick, founder of the Pacific Coast Hockey League, and owner, manager, coach, and player with the Vancouver Millionaires. His brother Lester Patrick was manager, coach, and player (for part of a game, anyway) with the New York Rangers (and not quite the same, but he got his two sons onto the team too). Adam Bishop (talk) 23:52, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I know someone personally who bought an English professional football (as in the game played with feet) team that was playing in The Football League. He happens to be quite young for an owner (still - he was obviously even younger when this happened) and he's the most talented footballer I've ever played against. The first season that he was at the club, he registered himself as a player. He never actually played though. --Dweller (talk) 09:33, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Nuclear testing

In this video (beginning at 18:18), which nuclear test is this? Is this footage of the Redwing Cherokee shot, or one of the Operation Dominic airdrop tests (Mesilla, Nambe, Rinconada or Otowi)? 24.5.122.13 (talk) 06:05, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

If you look at the final "bomb falling" shot, the test is clearly taking place in the dark. Dominic Mesilla and Dominic Nambe both took place about half an hour after sunrise, so you can rule them out immediately. Dominic Rinconada and Dominic Otowi took place half an hour before sunrise, while Redwing Cherokee took place an estimated hour before sunrise. Of the three, I'd guess this is Redwing Cherokee, since it had the largest yield. --Carnildo (talk) 01:07, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! 24.5.122.13 (talk) 08:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Matlab function

Hello! Is there anybody who knows how can use Digital Filter in Matlab? I need an example of usage with it's Matlab code. Thanks in advance--Freshman404^Talk 06:53, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

You should ask this at the Maths desk. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:55, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

...or at [1]. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 14:09, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Help please

Hello! I'm working with a number of my peers at the Evergreen State College to develop "Open Source Governance", and we've realized a number of our design inventions would probably be really useful for Wikipedia. I tried posting in the "idea lab", but couldn't seem to figure that out no matter how hard I tried. Plus the 'mock up' site is in .obp format (Open Office slideslow/"Impress"), and without being able to see the features it is really hard to understand how they play off of each other, so if anyone can help us get this mock up slide show visible to potential collaborators I would be very, very grateful.

I would also like to see if we could propose our wiki based concept for discussion about potential collaboration as well. Can you or anyone else tell us if we need to make things in different file formats or exactly what else might be necessary. I want to attach the site walkthrough but I'm having the hardest time attaching this file as well! I haven't felt this technologically inept in quite some time I really appreciate your patience. Thank you (also) for your time,

It is forbidden to post personal contact details here. I have removed your name and email address217.158.236.14 (talk) 11:13, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Unless somebody here can help straight away, a better place to ask is on the WP:Help desk. Alansplodge (talk) 12:38, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Big Boss

Who is the boss of big boss? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.124.224.51 (talk) 16:33, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

A bigger boss? --Jayron32 16:46, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Typically, the "big boss", assuming you mean company president, reports to the board of directors and the stockholders. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Well it was The Boss but currently he's his own boss 8.17.117.40 (talk) 18:07, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

• The OP geolocates to Springfield, Illinois. μηδείς (talk) 00:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I thought the Big Boss in Springfield was either Mr.Burns or Fat Tony Lemon martini (talk) 15:21, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe OP means Big Boss (Metal Gear), in which case they should read the article. Staecker (talk) 15:29, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Vince McMahon was Big Boss Man's boss. Or maybe it was Slick. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:29, 4 April 2014 (UTC)