Author: Chris

  • Ballpark Location

    Alex Reisner has made the observation that baseball parks are built differently depending on whether they are located in an urban or rural area. Further:

    Professional baseball teams must play in places where fans can go to see them. Before the 1950s this meant that they played in cities where the population was dense and public transportation available. In the 1950s, however, as cars became affordable and good roads the rule rather than the exception, the growing class of car owners began to move to the suburbs. It was no longer necessary to locate a ballpark in the city, and it became common practice to build on the outskirts where land was cheaper, parking safer, zoning rules more lax, and events generally less disruptive.

    He notes that ballparks built after 1960 when personal transportation was more widely used are more symetrical and larger, while the shape of ballparks built before that time are often irregular and smaller so they fit into a city center. Look at the New York Mets’ Shea Staduim on the left and the Boston Red Sox Fenway Park on the right below.

  • The Economics of Beanie Babies

    Here’s an interesting passage from Ty, Inc. v. Publications Int’l, Ltd., a case I recently read in Introduction to Intellectual Property. The case is concerning whether Publications Int’l is violating Ty’s copyright by publishing books with images of Ty’s Beanie Babies. The description of Ty’s marketing strategy is used to set up the differences and similarities between children’s and collectors’ approach.

    As a marketing gimmick, Ty deliberately creates a shortage in each Beanie Baby by selling it at a very low price and not producing enough copies to clear the market at that price. As a result, a secondary market is created, just like the secondary market in works of art. The secondary market gives widespread publicity to Beanie Babies, and the shortage that creates the secondary market stampedes children into nagging their parents to buy them the latest Beanie Babies, lest they be humiliated by not possessing the Beanie Babies that their peers possess. The appeal is to the competitive conformity of children – but also to the mentality of collectors.

    As far as I’m concerned, the best use for Beanie Babies was to wipe the dust off computer and TV screens.

  • On Being Home

    I’ve been home for less than a week, and already I’m gong nuts. I walk around looking in cupboards, around corners, and outside. I’ve managed to take a doorknob off, but replacing it has been asking a bit too much at the moment. It’s weird to experience such a drop-off in mental tasking from 2+ weeks of law school finals to loafing. The down time is good, but I need to make / build / do something sooooon.

  • Spring Ahead

    Does the time change matter if every clock you regularly look at springs ahead automatically? My cell phone, computer, and the television all changed and it wasn’t until someone changing the oven clock said, “It’s 1pm, not 12pm” that I realized we had sprung ahead.

  • Conversation: 15 Degrees

    The funniest thing on the ski hill today was when a kid went off a jump and yelled, “I’m gonna do a 180.” When he landed, his friend said, “Dude, that was like a 15.”

  • Last Day of 2006

    From T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we start and know the place for the first time.

  • Scrambled Brain

    I want to write a lot on here to catch up, but when I get going all of my memories from the past three months seem diluted by hours of studying and falling in love. I never expected the later to happen in Concord, NH or at law school. School has a way of putting you […]