title: Nolan Patrick

text: Patrick has an impressive athletic lineage. His father, Steve, played 250 games in the NHL and his mother, Carrie (née Chernomaz), played volleyball with the University of Winnipeg Wesmen and the Canadian national volleyball team – she earned a Team Canada roster spot for the 1996 Summer Olympics but a torn ACL prevented her from participating. On his paternal side, his grandfather, Stephen Patrick, played football for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and later became a politician. His uncle, James Patrick, played 1,280 games in the NHL and served as assistant coach for the Buffalo Sabres and Dallas Stars prior to securing his current position as head coach of the Winnipeg Ice of the WHL. As a teen, Patrick trained with his uncle during the summer and has credited his uncle's influence as “huge” to his career. His paternal aunt, Tara, played collegiate volleyball at the University of Winnipeg where she and Patrick's mother were teammates. On his maternal side, his uncle, Rich Chernomaz, played 51 games in the NHL and currently serves as head coach of the Ravensburg Towerstars of the DEL2.


title: Nolan Patrick

text: Patrick's two sisters also play hockey. His older sister, Madison, was a defenceman with the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds from 2014 to 2019. His younger sister, Aimee, is committed to the University of Manitoba Bisons and will be a freshman for the 2020–21 season.


title: Nolan Patrick

text: Patrick is of Ukrainian descent through his paternal great-grandfather, with the original family surname being "Patrebka."


title: Nolan Patrick

text: Patrick and his family are also avid hunters. They own a cabin on Falcon Lake where he hunts with a rifle, bow, or spear.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: Cherkasy Oblast (, ), also referred to as Cherkashchyna (, ) is an oblast (province) of central Ukraine located along the Dnieper River. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Cherkasy. The current population of the oblast is


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: With 20,900 km², Cherkasy Oblast is the 18th largest oblast of Ukraine, comprising about 3.5% of the area of the country. The south flowing Dnieper River with the hilly western bank and the plain eastern bank divides the oblast into two unequal parts. The larger western part belongs to the Dnieper Upland. The low-lying eastern part of the oblast used to be subject to the frequent Dnieper flooding before the flow of the river became controlled by multiple dams of Hydroelectric Power Plants constructed along the river in the 20th century.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: The oblast extends for 245 km from south-west to north-east, and for 150 km from north to south. The northernmost point of the oblast is located is near the village of Kononivka in Zolotonosha Raion (district), the southernmost point near the village of Kolodyste in Zvenyhorodka Raion, the westernmost point near the village of Korytnya in Uman Raion, and the easternmost point near the village of Stetsivka in Cherkasy Raion. The geometric centre of the oblast is located near the village Zhuravky of Horodyshche Raion. The oblast borders Kyiv Oblast to the north, Kirovohrad Oblast to the south, Poltava Oblast to the east, and Vinnytsia Oblast to the west.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: Cherkasy Oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on 7 January 1954. The oblast's territory was the major cities of Cherkasy, Smila and Uman, their corresponding "raions" (districts), as well as 30 former "raions" of the Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Kirovohrad and Poltava Oblasts.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: Archaeological discoveries have shown that people have inhabited the valley of the Dnieper River since time immemorial. The oldest objects excavated on the territory of the region date back to the Stone Age – the Palaeolithic period.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: Since July 2020, Cherkasy Oblast is administratively subdivided into 4 "raions" (districts). There are a total of 16 cities, 15 urban-type settlements, and 824 villages.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: The following data incorporates the number of each type of administrative divisions of Cherkasy Oblast:


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: The local administration of the oblast is controlled by the Cherkasy Oblast Rada. The governor of the oblast is the Cherkasy Oblast Rada speaker, appointed by the President of Ukraine.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: The region has 16 populated places designated as cities (towns). The only one with the population over 100 thousands is Cherkasy. Uman and Smila are in the range between 80 and 90 thousands, and all others are below 30 thousands.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, the oblast's population is almost equally divided between the urban and rural areas (53.7% and 46.3%, respectively). The demographic situation in this largely agricultural territory is somewhat complicated by population ageing.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: By ethnic composition, Ukrainians represent the overwhelming majority of the oblast's population (73.6%). Ethnic Russians are the second group of population (25.4%), and are concentrated mainly in the city of Cherkasy.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: The economy of the Cherkasy Oblast is largely dominated by agriculture. While the winter wheat and sugar beets are the main products grown in the oblast, barley, corn, tobacco and hemp are also grown. Cattle breeding is also important.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: The industry is mainly concentrated in Cherkasy, the oblast's capital and the largest city. A chemical industry was developed in the city in late 1960s in addition to machine building, furniture making and agricultural processing.


title: Cherkasy Oblast

text: Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after their capital cities, officially referred to as "oblast centers" (). The name of each oblast is a relative adjective, formed by adding a feminine suffix to the name of respective center city: "Cherkasy" is the center of the "Cherkaska oblast" (Cherkasy Oblast). Most oblasts are also sometimes referred to in a feminine noun form, following the convention of traditional regional place names, ending with the suffix "-shchyna", as is the case with the Cherkasy Oblast, "Cherkashchyna".


title: Professional sports

text: In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make sport their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skills, physical condition, and experience to modern levels of achievement. This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports. In most sports played professionally there are many more amateur than professional players, though amateurs and professionals do not usually compete.


title: Professional sports

text: Baseball originated before the American Civil War (1861–1865). First played on sandlots in particular, scoring and record-keeping gave baseball gravity. "Today," notes John Thorn in The Baseball Encyclopedia, "baseball without records is inconceivable."


title: Professional sports

text: In 1871, the first professional baseball league was created. By the beginning of the 20th century, most large cities in the eastern United States had a professional baseball team. After several leagues came and went in the 19th century, the National League (founded in 1876) and American League (recognized as a major league in 1903) were established as the dominant leagues by the early 20th century. The most victorious team in each league was said to have won the "pennant;" the two pennant winners met after the end of the regular season in the World Series. The winner of at least four games (out of a possible seven) was the champion for that year. This arrangement still holds today, although the leagues are now subdivided and pennants are decided in post-season playoff series between the winners of each division.


title: Professional sports

text: Baseball became popular in the 1920s, when Babe Ruth led the New York Yankees to several World Series titles and became a national hero on the strength of his home runs (balls that cannot be played because they have been hit out of the field). One of the most noteworthy players was the Brooklyn Dodgers' Jackie Robinson, who became the first African-American player in the major leagues in 1947; until then black players had been restricted to the Negro leagues.


title: Professional sports

text: Starting in the late 1950s, major league baseball expanded its geographical range. Western cities acquired teams, either by luring them to move from eastern cities or by forming expansion teams with players made available by established teams. Until the 1970s, because of strict contracts, the owners of baseball teams also virtually owned the players; the rules then changed so that players could become free agents within certain limits, free to sell their services to any team. The resulting bidding wars led to players becoming increasingly wealthy. Disputes between the players' union and the owners have at times halted baseball for months at a time (e.g., 1994–95 player strike).


title: Professional sports

text: A prominent professional baseball circuit known as Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) also developed in Japan. Founded in 1934, the league emerged as an international force after World War II. NPB is considered to be the highest caliber of baseball outside the U.S. major leagues, and the best Japanese players often emigrate to the U.S. by way of the posting system. Other countries where the game is important include South Korea (where their league has its own posting system with Major League Baseball), Taiwan, Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean states.


title: Professional sports

text: American football (commonly known as football in the United States) was professionalized in the 1890s as a slow, and initially covert, process; Pudge Heffelfinger and Ben "Sport" Donnelly were the first to secretly accept payment for playing the game in 1892. Regional leagues in Chicago, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York had coalesced in the 1900s and 1910s, most of which gave way to the American Professional Football Association in 1920. By 1920, pro football remained overshadowed by the college game. The first game involving an APFA team took place on 26 September 1920, at Douglas Park in Rock Island, Illinois, as the hometown Independents flattened the St. Paul Ideals 48–0. The first head-to-head battles in the league occurred one week later as Dayton topped Columbus 14-0 and Rock Island pasted Muncie 45–0.


title: Professional sports

text: Forward passes were rare, coaching from the sidelines was prohibited and players competed on both offense and defense. Money was so tight that George Halas carried equipment, wrote press releases, sold tickets, taped ankles, played and coached for the Decatur club. As opposed to today's standard 16-game schedule, clubs in 1920 scheduled their own opponents and could play non-league and even college squads that counted toward their records. With no established guidelines, the number of games played—and the quality of opponents scheduled—by APFA teams varied, and the league did not maintain official standings.


title: Professional sports

text: The inaugural season was a struggle. Games received little attention from the fans, and even less from the press. According to Robert W. Peterson's book "Pigskin: The Early Years of Pro Football," APFA games averaged crowds of 4,241. The association bylaws called for teams to pay a US$100 entry fee, but no one ever did. The season concluded on 19 December. At the conclusion of the season there were no play-offs (that innovation, although New York's regional league had used it, did not arrive until 1933) and it took more than four months before the league even bothered to crown a champion. Much as college football did for decades, the APFA determined its victor by ballot. On 30 April 1921, team representatives voted the Akron Pros, which completed the season undefeated with eight wins and three ties while yielding only a total of seven points, the champion in spite of protests by the one-loss teams in Decatur and Buffalo, who each had tied Akron and had more wins, thanks in part to Akron's owner presiding over the meeting. The victors received a silver loving cup donated by sporting goods company Brunswick-Balke-Collender. While players were not given diamond-encrusted rings, they did receive golden fobs in the shape of a football inscribed with the words "World Champions." The whereabouts of the Brunswick-Balke Collender Cup, only given out that one time, are unknown.


title: Professional sports

text: The legacy of two APFA franchises continues. The Racine Cardinals now play in Arizona, and the Decatur Staleys moved to Chicago in 1921 and changed their name to the Bears the following year. Ten APFA players along with Carr are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, set up in 1963 not far from the Canton automobile dealership that gave birth to the NFL in 1920.


title: Professional sports

text: The APFA, by 1922 known as the National Football League, has remained the predominant professional American football league in the United States, and, effectively, the entire world. The evolution from a haphazard collection of teams in big and small cities to the much more rigid structure it is in the present was gradual. With most of the small-market teams except the Green Bay Packers squeezed out of the NFL by the time of the Great Depression, multiple attempts at teams in the major cities of Washington, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia failed before, eventually, their current representatives took root (though Boston proved particularly problematic until the New England Patriots were accepted into the NFL in 1970); the NFL expanded coast-to-coast, the first of the four major leagues to do so, in 1946 with the Los Angeles Rams and admitted the San Francisco 49ers four years later; the NFL did not enter the Southern United States until admitting the Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints in the 1960s. A championship game was established in 1933, a draft was established in 1936, and schedules were standardized in the 1930s. A competing league has historically arisen to attempt to challenge the NFL's dominance every 10 to 15 years, but none managed to maintain long-term operations independent of the NFL and only two—the All-America Football Conference of the late 1940s and the American Football League of the 1960s—were strong enough to successfully compete against the league before the NFL subsumed their operations. Minor league football, although their leagues' memberships were unstable, began to arise in the late 1930s and remained viable as a business model up into the 1970s.


title: Professional sports

text: A major factor in the NFL's rise to dominance was its embrace of television early in the sport's history. As college football heavily restricted the rights of its teams to broadcast games (a policy eventually ruled to be illegal in 1984), the NFL instead allowed games to be televised nationwide, except in a team's home city; the restriction was softened in the early 1970s, by which point the NFL had secured broadcast deals with all of the major television networks, another major factor in the inability of any competing league to gain traction since then.


title: Professional sports

text: The related sport of Canadian football was eventually professionalized by the 1950s with the evolution of the Canadian Football League. The CFL, despite losing all games in a series of contests against the NFL, was considered to be at least comparable in talent to the American leagues of the 1960s (its lone game against an AFL squad was a victory). Because Canada has a tenth of the population of the United States, the ability to make money from television was much lower, and although some of the cities of Canada were comparable to the major markets of the U.S., teams in places such as Saskatchewan and Hamilton were in markets quite small compared to even the small markets of the NFL, thus the CFL pays significantly less than other major professional leagues, though enough to be considered fully professional.


title: Professional sports

text: Europe, Japan, Mexico also have American football leagues of varying levels that sign professional players. The top leagues are the German Football League, Austrian Football League, the new European League of Football and the X-League. There are over 60 countries that have leagues throughout the world.


title: Professional sports

text: The rise of indoor American football from the late 1980s allowed smaller-scale professional football to be viable.


title: Professional sports

text: Basketball was invented in 1891 and the first professional leagues emerged in the 1920s. The Basketball Association of America was established in 1946 and three years later became the modern National Basketball Association. The NBA was slower to establish dominance of the sport than other sports in the United States, as it would not do so until 1976, when it absorbed four teams from the American Basketball Association.


title: Professional sports

text: Professional basketball has the advantages of much smaller rosters than other professional sports, allowing the sport to be viable in smaller cities than other sports. Professional basketball leagues of varying caliber can be found around the world, especially in Europe and South America.


title: Professional sports

text: Basketball mainly became popular in the early 1980s when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird joined the NBA and lead their teams to multiple NBA titles. They are considered two of the best players of all time usually underneath Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan also gained the NBA views with carrying the Chicago Bulls to six titles in the 1990s.


title: Professional sports

text: After World War II, professional cricketers from the Indian subcontinent were enlisted in British teams.


title: Professional sports

text: Ice hockey was first professionalized in Pittsburgh, U.S. in the first decade of the 20th century. Because Canadians made up the vast majority of hockey players, early American professional leagues imported almost all of their players before Canadian leagues began to form in the wake of a mining boom, depriving the U.S. leagues and teams of talented players. Two distinct circuits formed: the Pacific Coast Hockey Association in western Canada and the northwestern U.S., and the National Hockey Association of central Canada, both of which competed for the then-independent Stanley Cup. The NHA's teams reorganized as the National Hockey League in 1917, and the West Coast circuit died out by the mid-1920s.


title: Professional sports

text: By 1926, the NHL had expanded to ten teams in Canada and the northeastern and midwestern United States. However, the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s and Canada's entry into World War II, greatly reducing the league's player pool, led to the league's retrenchment to six markets: Boston, New York City, Chicago and Detroit in the U.S., and Toronto and Montreal in Canada. These Original Six cities were the only cities with NHL franchises from 1935 to 1967. During this time, the NHL was both stagnant and restrictive in its policies, giving teams territorial advantages, having teams with multiple owners in the same family (thus allowing the best players to be stacked onto certain teams), and restricting its players' salaries through reserve clauses. This stagnation allowed other leagues to arise: the Western Hockey League soon became the "de facto" major league of the western states and provinces, and the second-tier American Hockey League emerged in a number of midwestern markets the NHL had neglected, in addition to a handful of small towns.


title: Professional sports

text: Amid pressure from television networks that were threatening to offer the WHL a contract, the NHL doubled in size in 1967, beginning a period of expansion that lasted through much of the 1970s. The last major challenger to the NHL's dominance was the World Hockey Association, which successfully broke the NHL's reserve clause in court, drove up professional hockey salaries, and continued to pressure the older league into expansion. The WHA merged four of its remaining teams into the NHL in 1979, but had to give up most of its players, as they were still under NHL contract and had to return to their original teams. The NHL made its last pronounced realignment in the 1990s, moving most of the WHA teams out of their markets and establishing a number of new teams in the southern United States.


title: Professional sports

text: In Europe, the introduction of professionalism varied widely, and the highest-caliber league on the continent, the Soviet Championship League (proven to be at least equal to or better than the NHL in the 1970s), was officially populated with ostensibly amateur players who were actually full-time sportspeople hired as regular workers of a company (aircraft industry, food workers, tractor industry) or organization (KGB, Red Army, Soviet Air Force) that sponsored what would be presented as an after-hours social sports society hockey team for their workers. In other words, all Soviet hockey players were de facto professionals who circumvented the amateur rules of the International Olympic Committee to retain their amateur status and compete in the Olympics. The modern-day descendant of the Soviet league, the Kontinental Hockey League, is fully professional and has some teams outside Russia, to the point where it has the resources to sign NHL veterans. Other European countries including Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, and Austria have prominent professional leagues.


title: Professional sports

text: Rugby union was strictly an amateur sport throughout the 19th and most of the 20th century. In 1995, the game's international administrators allowed professionals to participate for the first time. The related sport of rugby league evolved directly out of rugby union's opposition to player payments; it has allowed professionalism in its game since its inception in 1895.


title: Professional sports

text: Professional athleticism has been a traditional object of criticism by proponents of the amateur philosophy of sport, according to which the central ethos of sport is competition performed for its own sake and pure enjoyment rather than as a means of earning a living. Examples of amateur philosophy include the muscular Christianity movement that informed the promotion of sports in the English public school system, and the Olympism advocated by Pierre de Coubertin, a force behind the revival of the modern Olympic Games. The tension between the two sporting practices and ideals dates from the inception of modern organized sports in the 19th century. The high political and financial stakes involved in sport have ensured that this tension has remained strong. Professional sporting organizations have often developed as "rebel" organizations in relation to established national and international federation, for example the schism which created the code of rugby league.


title: Professional sports

text: Arguments against amateurism often appeal to the argument that amateurism in sport favors the classes who can afford not to be paid to play, and is thus a covert form of prejudice against lower classes. Another argument is that amateur players are often de facto professionals who retain their amateur status by earning allowances instead of salaries. For example, all Eastern bloc countries were populated with amateur players who were actually full-time athletes hired as regular workers of a company (aircraft industry, food workers, tractor industry) or organization (KGB, Red Army, Soviet Air Force) that sponsored what would be presented as an after-hours social sports society team for their workers.


title: Professional sports

text: Christians in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement, which adheres to the position of first-day Sabbatarianism, oppose the viewing of or participation in professional sports, believing that professional sports leagues profane the Sabbath as in the modern era some associations hold games on Sundays (the "Lord's Day"). They also criticize professional sports for fostering a commitment that competes with a Christian's primary commitment to God in opposition to , what they perceive to be a lack of conformity with the Methodistic doctrine of outward holiness in the players' and cheerleaders' "immodest" uniforms, its association with violence in opposition to , what they perceive to be the extensive use of profanity among many players that contravenes , and the frequent presence of alcohol and other drugs at sporting events that go against a commitment to teetotalism. Professional sports has been criticized for the gambling that is associated with it.


title: Professional sports

text: Laestadian Lutherans, who belong to the Pietistic Lutheran tradition, likewise teach that "Competitive sports are not acceptable, but we should maintain fitness through various forms of exercise."


title: Professional sports

text: Professional sportsmen can earn a great deal of money at the highest levels; for instance, in 2009 the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team paid over 8 million dollars to its highest-paid player. Per Forbes 2021 ranking, the highest-paid athletes include Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Naomi Osaka, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams and wrestler-turned-actor The Rock. The top ten tennis players make about $3 million a year on average. Much of the growth in income for sports and athletes has come from broadcasting rights; for example, the most recent television contract for the NFL is valued at nearly US$5 billion per year. Women in the U.S., on the other hand, make much less; for example in 2014 the WNBA enforced a maximum salary of US$107,000 for star players (coaches could earn double that). Average in-person attendance and television viewership are both far higher for the NBA compared to the WNBA.


title: Professional sports

text: Outside the highest leagues, however, the money professional athletes can earn drops dramatically, as fan bases are generally smaller and there are no television revenues. For instance, while the National Football League's teams can afford to pay their players millions of dollars each year and still maintain a significant profit, the second-highest American football league in the United States, the United Football League, consistently struggled to pay its bills and has continually lost money despite allotting its players only US$20,000 a year, and television networks made the league pay for television airtime instead of paying the league, making the league's business model unworkable. In the United States and Canada, most lower-end professional leagues run themselves as affiliated farm teams, effectively agreeing to develop younger players for eventual play in the major leagues in exchange for subsidizing those players' salaries; this is known as the minor league system and is most prevalent in professional baseball and professional ice hockey. Otherwise, the league may be required to classify itself as semi-professional, in other words, able to pay their players a small sum, but not enough to cover the player's basic costs of living.


title: Professional sports

text: Many professional athletes experience financial difficulties soon after retiring, due to a combination of bad investments, careless spending, and a lack of non-athletic skills. The wear and tear of a career in professional sport, can cause physical and mental side effects (such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition that has seen a massive rise in public awareness in the 2010s) that can harm a former professional athlete's employability. In the United States, some of these problems are mitigated by the fact that the college sports system ensures most professional athletes receive a college education with no student debt, a legacy that provides them with a career path after their sports career ends.


title: Professional sports

text: The average salary of a player in the Chinese Super League was about ¥10.7 million (£1 million) for the 2011 season, up from ¥600,000 in the 2010 season. The highest-paid player for the 2011 Chinese Super League season was Dario Conca of Guangzhou Evergrande who received an annual salary of ¥67.4 million ($10.5 million) after income tax, putting him among the highest-paid players in the world.


title: Professional sports

text: The highest-paid player for the 2011–2012 Russian Premier League season was Samuel Eto'o of Anzhi Makhachkala, who at the end of the 2011–12 season was expected to receive a total salary of RUB 900.2 million (£35.7 million) after income tax, making Eto'o the second highest-earning athlete in the world and the highest-paid footballer in the world followed by Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimović.


title: Professional sports

text: The average salary of a player in the German Bundesliga was about €3.3 million (£2.5 million) for the 2010–11 season, up from €2.5 million in the 2009–2010 Bundesliga season. The highest-paid player for the 2010–11 Bundesliga season was Franck Ribéry of Bayern Munich who received a salary of €6.3 million after income tax.


title: Professional sports

text: In the Italian top league, Serie A, the average salary was about €5 million for the 2010–2011 Serie A season, up from €1 million in the 2005–2006 Serie A season. The highest-paid player for the 2010–2011 Serie A season was Zlatan Ibrahimović of A.C. Milan who received a salary of €25.9 million after income tax and which also includes Ibrahimović's bonuses and endorsements.


title: Professional sports

text: Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona is the world's second highest-paid player receiving a salary of £29.6 million (over US$45 million) a year after income taxation and which also includes the incomes of Messi's bonuses and endorsements. In the Spanish La Liga, the average salary for the players of Lionel Messi's club FC Barcelona was €6.5 million for the 2010–2011 La Liga season, up from €5.5 million for the 2009–2010 La Liga season.


title: Professional sports

text: The average salary of a player in the English Premier League was about £2.6 million in the 2017–18 season, compared with about £1.2 million in 2007–08 and £676,000 in 2006–07. Even as early as 2010–11, top players such as John Terry and Steven Gerrard could make up to £7 million per year with the players of Premier League club Manchester City F.C. receiving an average salary of £2 million in that season. Premier League salaries have boomed in more recent years thanks to massive television deals and wealthy new investors in clubs. Terry's and Gerrard's 2010–11 salaries would not have placed them among the top 25 earners in 2017–18. In that season, more than 20 players earned more than £10 million, led by Alexis Sánchez (£21.5 million) and Mesut Özil (£20.9 million). The Premier League's two Manchester clubs had the highest average salaries in 2017–18, with players for both Manchester United and Manchester City averaging over £5.2 million.


title: Professional sports

text: Players in lower divisions make significantly less money. In 2006–07 the average salary of a player in the Championship (the second tier of the English football pyramid) made £195,750 while the average salary for League One and League Two (tiers 3 and 4) combined were £49,600.


title: Professional sports

text: The highest salary in Major League Soccer in 2019 was the $14 million paid to former Swedish international Zlatan Ibrahimović, who played for the LA Galaxy in that season. Ibrahimović was signed to his 2019 contract under MLS' Designated Player Rule, which was instituted in 2007 for the express purpose of attracting international stars. Now-retired English star David Beckham was the first player signed under its provisions. When the rule was instituted, each team had one "Designated Player" slot with a salary cap charge of $400,000, but no limit on actual salary paid. Since then, the number of Designated Players per team has increased to three, with each counting for $530,000 of cap room in 2019. The league's average salary was about $283,000 per year in 2015, but the median salary was then closer to $110,000. MLS' minimum player salary in 2019 is $70,250 for most players, and for players on the reserve roster (slots #25-28) the minimum salary is $56,250.


title: Professional sports

text: In 1970, the average salary in Major League Baseball in the U.S. and Canada was $20,000 ($ inflation-adjusted). By 2005, the average salary had increased to $2,632,655 ($ inflation-adjusted) and the minimum salary was $316,000 (adjusted: $). In 2012 the average MLB salary was $3,440,000, the median salary was $1,075,000, and the minimum salary had grown to four times the inflation-adjusted average salary in 1970 ($480,000).


title: Professional sports

text: In the Indian Premier League in 2019, players earn an average of $101,444, and a median salary of $72,450, per week. The top-paid players in international cricket in 2017 across the (at the time) 10 Test cricket nations earned anywhere from $90,000 to $1,470,000 (when looking only at contract and match fees).


title: Rina Hidaka

text: She became interested in the entertainment industry during kindergarten when she was watching television, and wrote on a script during Tanabata. Her grandfather, who saw the script, applied her to the Theater Academy, and Hidaka entered the entertainment industry.


title: Rina Hidaka

text: At the beginning of the program, she was mainly in extra roles to get used to the field. She became more dedicated when she passed the audition for "Apparesanma Dai-sensei" and "Yokoko no Mikata", in her first year of elementary school.


title: Rina Hidaka

text: Started performing as a voice actress when a voice actor selection lesson was opened at the Theater Academy. In 2008, she made her debut in the web animation "Penguin Musume", and since then her main focus shifted to voice acting. In 2009, Hidaka voiced Anne Shirley in "" when she was 14 years old.


title: Rina Hidaka

text: From April 4, 2015 to March 31, 2017, she worked with Natsuki Hanae as radio personalities for A&G TRIBAL RADIO Edison, a two-hour program for cultural transmission.


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: In statistical hypothesis testing, the alternative hypothesis is one of the proposed proposition in the hypothesis test. In general the goal of hypothesis test is to demonstrate that in the given condition, there is sufficient evidence supporting the credibility of alternative hypothesis instead of the exclusive proposition in the test (null hypothesis). It is usually consistent with the research hypothesis because it is constructed from literature review, previous studies, etc. However, the research hypothesis is sometimes consistent with the null hypothesis.


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: In statistics, alternative hypothesis is often denoted as H or H. Hypotheses are formulated to compare in a statistical hypothesis test.


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: In the domain of inferential statistics two rival hypotheses can be compared by explanatory power and predictive power.


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: The "alternative hypothesis" and "null hypothesis" are types of conjectures used in statistical tests, which are formal methods of reaching conclusions or making judgments on the basis of data. In statistical hypothesis testing, the null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis are two mutually exclusive statements.


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: "The statement being tested in a test of statistical significance is called the null hypothesis. The test of significance is designed to assess the strength of the evidence against the null hypothesis. Usually, the null hypothesis is a statement of 'no effect' or 'no difference'." Null hypothesis is often denoted as "H".


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: The statement that is being tested against the null hypothesis is the alternative hypothesis. Alternative hypothesis is often denoted as "H" or "H".


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: In statistical hypothesis testing, to prove the alternative hypothesis is true, it should be shown that the data is contradictory to the null hypothesis. Namely, there is sufficient evidence against null hypothesis to demonstrate that the alternative hypothesis is true.


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: One example is where water quality in a stream has been observed over many years, and a test is made of the null hypothesis that "there is no change in quality between the first and second halves of the data", against the alternative hypothesis that "the quality is poorer in the second half of the record".


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: If the statistical hypothesis testing is thought of as a judgement in a court trial, the null hypothesis corresponds to the position of the defendant (the defendant is innocent) while the alternative hypothesis is in the rival position of prosecutor (the defendant is guilty). The defendant is innocent until proven guilty, so likewise in a hypothesis test, the null hypothesis is initially presumed to be true. To prove the statement of the prosecutor, evidence must be convincing enough to convict the defendant; this is analogous to sufficient statistical significance in a hypothesis test.


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: In the court, only legal evidence can be considered as the foundation for the trial. As for hypothesis testing, a reasonable test statistic should be set to measure the statistic significance of the null hypothesis. Evidence would support the alternative hypothesis if the null hypothesis is rejected at a certain significance level. However, this does not necessarily mean that the alternative hypothesis is true due to the potential presence of a type I error. In order to quantify the statistical significance, the test statistic variables are assumed to follow a certain probability distribution such as the normal distribution or t-distribution to determine the probability of obtaining test results at least as extreme as the results actually observed, under the assumption that the null hypothesis is correct, which is defined as the p-value. If the p-value is smaller than the than the chosen significance level ("α"), it can be claimed that observed data is sufficiently inconsistent with the null hypothesis and hence the null hypothesis may be rejected. After testing, a valid claim would be "at the significance level of ("α"), the null hypothesis is rejected, supporting the alternative hypothesis instead". In the metaphor of a trial, the announcement may be "with tolerance for the probability "α" of an incorrect conviction, the defendant is guilty."


title: Alternative hypothesis

text: The concept of an alternative hypothesis in testing was devised by Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson, and it is used in the Neyman–Pearson lemma. It forms a major component in modern statistical hypothesis testing. However it was not part of Ronald Fisher's formulation of statistical hypothesis testing, and he opposed its use. In Fisher's approach to testing, the central idea is to assess whether the observed dataset could have resulted from chance if the null hypothesis were assumed to hold, notionally without preconceptions about what other models might hold. Modern statistical hypothesis testing accommodates this type of test since the alternative hypothesis can be just the negation of the null hypothesis.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Abu Ahmad Abdallah ibn al-Mustansir Billah (; 1213 – 20 February 1258), better known by his regnal name al-Musta'sim Billah () was the 37th and last caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, ruling from 1242 until his death in 1258. He was the last caliph to rule from Baghdad.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Abu Ahmad Abdallah al-Musta'sim was son of penultimate Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir, and his mother was Hajir. He was born in 1213. After the death of his father, al-Musta'sim succeeded to the throne in late 1242.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: He is noted for his opposition to the rise of Shajar al-Durr to the Egyptian throne during the Seventh Crusade. He sent a message from Baghdad to the Mamluks in Egypt that said: "If you do not have men there tell us so we can send you men." However, al-Musta'sim had to face the greatest menace against the Abbasid caliphate since its establishment in 750: the invasion of the Mongol forces that, under Hulagu Khan, had already wiped out any resistance in Transoxiana and Khorasan. In 1255/1256 Hulagu forced the Abbasid to lend their forces for the campaign against Alamut.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: News of the murder of al-Muazzam Turanshah and the inauguration of Shajar al-Durr as the new Sultan reached Syria. The Syrian Emirs were asked to pay homage to Shajar al-Durr but they refused and the Sultan's deputy in Al Karak rebelled against Cairo. The Syrian Emirs in Damascus gave the city to an-Nasir Yusuf the Ayyubid Emir of Aleppo and the Mamluks in Cairo responded by arresting the Emirs who were loyal to the Ayyubids in Egypt. In addition to the Ayyubids in Syria, the "Abbasid caliph" al-Musta'sim in Baghdad also rejected the Mamluk move in Egypt and refused to recognize Shajar al-Dur as a Sultan. The refusal of the Caliph to recognize Shajar al-Durr as the new Sultan was a great setback to the Mamluks in Egypt as the custom during the Ayyubid era was that the Sultan could gain legitimacy only through the recognition of the Abbasid Caliph.<ref name="Shayyal, p.115/vol.2">Shayyal, p.115/vol.2</ref> The Mamluks, therefore, decided to install Izz al-Din Aybak as a new Sultan. He married Shajar al-Durr who abdicated and passed the throne to him after she had ruled Egypt as sultan for about three months. Though the period of Shajar al-Durr's rule as a sultan was of short duration, it witnessed two important events in history: one, the expelling of Louis IX from Egypt, which marked the end of the Crusaders' ambition to conquer the southern Mediterranean basin; and two, the death of the Ayyubid dynasty and the birth of the Mamluk state which dominated the southern Mediterranean for decades.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: To please the Caliph and secure his recognition, Aybak announced that he was merely a representative of the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. To placate the Ayyubids in Syria the Mamluks nominated an Ayyubid child named al-Sharaf Musa as a co-sultan. But this did not satisfy the Ayyubids and armed conflicts between the Mamluks and the Ayyubids broke out. The Caliph in Baghdad, preoccupied with the Mongols who were raiding territories not far from his capital, preferred to see the matter settled peacefully between the Mamluks in Egypt and the Ayyubids in Syria. Through negotiation and mediation of the Caliph that followed the bloody conflict, the Mamluks who manifested military superiority reached an agreement with the Ayyubids that gave them control over southern Palestine including Gaza and Jerusalem and the Syrian coast. By this agreement the Mamluks not only added new territories to their dominion but also gained recognition for their rule.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: In 1258, Hulagu invaded the Abbasid domain, which then consisted of only Baghdad, its immediate surroundings, and southern Iraq. In his campaign to conquer Baghdad, Hulagu Khan had several columns advance simultaneously on the city, and laid siege to it. The Mongols kept the people of Abbasid Caliphate in their capital and executed those who tried to flee.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Baghdad was sacked on February 10 and the caliph was killed by Hulagu Khan soon afterward. It is reckoned that the Mongols did not want to shed "royal blood", so they wrapped him in a rug and trampled him to death with their horses. Some of his sons were massacred as well. One of the surviving sons was sent as a prisoner to Mongolia, where Mongolian historians report he married and fathered children, but played no role in Islam thereafter.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: "The Travels of Marco Polo" reports that upon finding the caliph's great stores of treasure which could have been spent on the defense of his realm, Hulagu Khan locked him in his treasure room without food or water, telling him "eat of thy treasure as much as thou wilt, since thou art so fond of it."


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Hulagu sent word to al-Musta'sim, demanding his acquiescence to the terms imposed by Möngke. al-Musta'sim refused, in large part due to the influence of his advisor and grand vizier, Ibn al-Alkami. Historians have ascribed various motives to Ibn al-Alkami's opposition to submission, including treachery and incompetence, and it appears that he lied to the caliph about the severity of the invasion, assuring al-Musta'sim that, if the capital of the caliphate was endangered by a Mongol army, the Islamic world would rush to its aid.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Although he replied to Hulagu's demands in a manner that the Mongol commander found menacing and offensive enough to break off further negotiation, al-Musta'sim neglected to summon armies to reinforce the troops at his disposal in Baghdad. Nor did he strengthen the city's walls. By January 11, the Mongols were close to the city, establishing themselves on both banks of the Tigris River so as to form a pincer around the city. Al-Musta'sim finally decided to do battle with them and sent out a force of 20,000 cavalry to attack the Mongols. The cavalry were decisively defeated by the Mongols, whose sappers breached dikes along the Tigris River and flooded the ground behind the Abbasid forces, trapping them.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: The Abbasid Caliphate could supposedly call upon 50,000 soldiers for the defense of their capital, including the 20,000 cavalry under al-Musta'sim. However, these troops were assembled hastily, making them poorly equipped and disciplined. Although the caliph technically had the authority to summon soldiers from other sultanates (caliphate's deputy states) to defence, he neglected to do so. His taunting opposition had lost him the loyalty of the Mamluks, and the Syrian emirs, who he supported, were busy preparing their own defenses.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: On January 29, the Mongol army began its siege of Baghdad, constructing a palisade and a ditch around the city. Employing siege engines and catapults, the Mongols attempted to breach the city's walls, and, by February 5, had seized a significant portion of the defenses. Realizing that his forces had little chance of retaking the walls, al-Musta'sim attempted to open negotiations with Hulagu, who rebuffed the caliph. Around 3,000 of Baghdad's notables also tried to negotiate with Hulagu but were murdered.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Five days later, on February 10, the city surrendered, but the Mongols did not enter the city until the 13th, beginning a week of massacre and destruction.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Many historical accounts detailed the cruelties of the Mongol conquerors. Baghdad was a depopulated, ruined city for several decades and only gradually recovered some of its former glory.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Contemporary accounts state Mongol soldiers looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Priceless books from Baghdad's thirty-six public libraries were torn apart, the looters using their leather covers as sandals. Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground. The House of Wisdom (the Grand Library of Baghdad), containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Claims have been made that the Tigris ran red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed. Citizens attempted to flee, but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who killed in abundance, sparing no one, not even children.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: The caliph Al-Musta'sim was captured and forced to watch as his citizens were murdered and his treasury plundered. According to most accounts, the caliph was killed by trampling. The Mongols rolled the caliph up in a rug, and rode their horses over him, as they believed that the earth would be offended if it were touched by royal blood. All but one of Al-Musta'sim's sons were killed, and the sole surviving son was sent to Mongolia, where Mongolian historians report he married and fathered children, but played no role in Islam thereafter.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: The historian David Morgan has quoted Wassaf (who himself was born 7 years after the razing of the city in 1265) describing the destruction: "They swept through the city like hungry falcons attacking a flight of doves, or like raging wolves attacking sheep, with loose reins and shameless faces, murdering and spreading terror...beds and cushions made of gold and encrusted with jewels were cut to pieces with knives and torn to shreds. Those hiding behind the veils of the great Harem were dragged...through the streets and alleys, each of them becoming a plaything...as the population died at the hands of the invaders."


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Hulagu left 3,000 Mongol soldiers behind to rebuild Baghdad. Ata-Malik Juvayni was later appointed governor of Baghdad, Lower Mesopotamia, and Khuzistan after Guo Kan went back to the Yuan dynasty to assist Kublai's conquest over the Song dynasty. Hulagu's Nestorian Christian wife, Dokuz Khatun, successfully interceded to spare the lives of Baghdad's Christian inhabitants. Hulagu offered the royal palace to the Nestorian Catholicos Mar Makikha, and ordered a cathedral to be built for him.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Initially, the fall of Baghdad came as a shock to the whole Muslim world; after many years of utter devastation, the city became an economic center where international trade, the minting of coins and religious affairs flourished under the Ilkhans. The chief Mongol darughachi was thereafter stationed in the city.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Berke, who had converted to Islam in 1252, became enraged that Hulagu destroyed Baghdad. Muslim historian Rashid al Din quoted Berke Khan as sending the following message to Mongke Khan, protesting the attack on Baghdad, (not knowing Mongke had died in China): "He (Hulagu) has sacked all the cities of the Muslims. With the help of God I will call him to account for so much innocent blood."


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Although hesitant at first to go to war with Hulagu out of Mongol brotherhood, the economic situation of the Golden Horde led him to declare war against the Ilkhanate. This became known as the Berke–Hulagu war.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Al-Musta'sim was killed by Hulagu. Al-Musta'sim ruled from 5 December 1242 to 20 February 1258, for a period of 15 years, 2 months and 15 days. His death marked the final end of the caliphate as a political and religious entity in the Middle East.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: The Mamluk Sultans of Egypt and Syria later appointed an Abbasid prince as caliph of Cairo, but these Mamluk Abbasid caliphs were marginalized and merely symbolic, with no temporal power and little religious influence. Even though they kept the title for about 250 years more, other than installing the Sultan in ceremonies, these caliphs had little importance. After the Ottomans conquered Egypt in 1517, the caliph of Cairo, al-Mutawakkil III was transported to Constantinople.


title: Al-Musta'sim

text: Centuries later, a tradition developed saying that, at this time, al-Mutawakkil III formally surrendered the title of caliph as well as its outward emblems—the sword and mantle of Muhammad—to the Ottoman sultan Selim I, establishing the Ottoman sultans as the new caliphal line. Some historians have noted that this story does not appear in the literature until the 1780s, suggesting that it was advanced to bolster the claims of caliphal jurisdiction over Muslims outside of the empire, as asserted in the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca.


title: AK-9

text: The AK-9 is a Russian 9×39mm compact rifle. Its development began when Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant (IZHMASH), now known as Kalashnikov Concern started working on a new silent, flame-less, compact AK rifle in the early 2000s. When creating the new weapon, the manufacturers have tried to surpass all available competitors, such as the AS Val and SR-3M. The basis for the silent, flame-less shooting complex rifle was designated as the AK-9, where it uses a quick-detachable suppressor. It uses the 9×39mm subsonic cartridge.


title: AK-9

text: The AK-9 is primarily designed for special units of the Interior Ministry and the Russian Army. It is one of the latest models of the popular Kalashnikov rifle series. It is based on the AK-100 series, which is a modernization series of Kalashnikov assault rifles. A unique feature of the rifle is the use of the SP-5 and SP-6 special 9×39mm subsonic cartridges.


title: AK-9

text: According to its characteristics it competes against the 9A-91, AS Val and SR-3M, but has seen limited use compared to these counterparts, which have already seen service in Russian military and police units.


title: AK-9

text: In 2006, Russian authorities wanted the Izhmash factory to design a rifle with Kalashnikov properties, but suitable to be used in special operations. Factory manager Vladimir Grodetsky stated that the rifle was for special forces for anti-terrorist operations. Alexei Dragunov, one of the designers of the AK-9, says "It shoots virtually without a sound and it can go through a bullet-proof vest". The AK-9 is also lighter than earlier Kalashnikov models.


title: AK-9

text: We are working on an entire line of various small arms based on the AK-12. These would be submachine guns and compact assault rifles, automatic carbines and hand-held machine guns. On the basic AK-12 platform a series of special-purpose weapons is being developed. For example, the AK-9 was transferred to this platform. The weapons are going to be tested this spring.


title: AK-9

text: The AK-9 is based on the so-called "hundred series" of Kalashnikov assault rifles, such as the AK-104, but with certain improvements. It is a selective fire compact assault rifle chambered in 9×39mm subsonic cartridge.


title: AK-9

text: The AK-9 features the same tried and proven gas operated, rotary bolt action and same "Kalashnikov-style" controls including reciprocating bolt handle, safety/fire selector lever and overall layout with side-folding polymer buttstock. The Polymer furniture is improved with the addition of accessories such as a Picatinny rail on the bottom of the forend and the left side of the receiver is fitted with a Warsaw Pact rail. The barrel can be fitted with a specially designed quick-detachable suppressor (sound moderator), which is especially effective with the 9×39mm subsonic cartridge. The magazine is made of black polymer, holds 20 rounds of ammunition and appears to be of proprietary design, making it not compatible with other (competing) weapons of the same caliber, which are already in service with Russian military and law enforcement.


title: AK-9

text: The AK-9 supports wide range of attachments such as a mounted grenade launcher, laser sights, tactical lights and other tactical accessories. The trigger mechanism allows it to fire in semi-automatic fire and fully automatic fire. The firing module is similar to that of the Kalashnikov assault rifle and is located on the right side of the weapon.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Nearest neighbor search (NNS), as a form of proximity search, is the optimization problem of finding the point in a given set that is closest (or most similar) to a given point. Closeness is typically expressed in terms of a dissimilarity function: the less similar the objects, the larger the function values.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Formally, the nearest-neighbor (NN) search problem is defined as follows: given a set "S" of points in a space "M" and a query point "q" ∈ "M", find the closest point in "S" to "q". Donald Knuth in vol. 3 of "The Art of Computer Programming" (1973) called it the post-office problem, referring to an application of assigning to a residence the nearest post office. A direct generalization of this problem is a "k"-NN search, where we need to find the "k" closest points.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Most commonly "M" is a metric space and dissimilarity is expressed as a distance metric, which is symmetric and satisfies the triangle inequality. Even more common, "M" is taken to be the "d"-dimensional vector space where dissimilarity is measured using the Euclidean distance, Manhattan distance or other distance metric. However, the dissimilarity function can be arbitrary. One example is asymmetric Bregman divergence, for which the triangle inequality does not hold.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Various solutions to the NNS problem have been proposed. The quality and usefulness of the algorithms are determined by the time complexity of queries as well as the space complexity of any search data structures that must be maintained. The informal observation usually referred to as the curse of dimensionality states that there is no general-purpose exact solution for NNS in high-dimensional Euclidean space using polynomial preprocessing and polylogarithmic search time.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: The simplest solution to the NNS problem is to compute the distance from the query point to every other point in the database, keeping track of the "best so far". This algorithm, sometimes referred to as the naive approach, has a running time of "O"("dN"), where "N" is the cardinality of "S" and "d" is the dimensionality of "S". There are no search data structures to maintain, so the linear search has no space complexity beyond the storage of the database. Naive search can, on average, outperform space partitioning approaches on higher dimensional spaces.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: The absolute distance is not required for distance comparison, only the relative distance. In geometric coordinate systems the distance calculation can be sped up considerably by omitting the square root calculation from the distance calculation between two coordinates. The distance comparison will still yield identical results.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Since the 1970s, the branch and bound methodology has been applied to the problem. In the case of Euclidean space, this approach encompasses spatial index or spatial access methods. Several space-partitioning methods have been developed for solving the NNS problem. Perhaps the simplest is the k-d tree, which iteratively bisects the search space into two regions containing half of the points of the parent region. Queries are performed via traversal of the tree from the root to a leaf by evaluating the query point at each split. Depending on the distance specified in the query, neighboring branches that might contain hits may also need to be evaluated. For constant dimension query time, average complexity is "O"(log "N") in the case of randomly distributed points, worst case complexity is "O"("kN"^(1-1/"k"))


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Alternatively the R-tree data structure was designed to support nearest neighbor search in dynamic context, as it has efficient algorithms for insertions and deletions such as the R* tree. R-trees can yield nearest neighbors not only for Euclidean distance, but can also be used with other distances.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: In the case of general metric space, the branch-and-bound approach is known as the metric tree approach. Particular examples include vp-tree and BK-tree methods.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Using a set of points taken from a 3-dimensional space and put into a BSP tree, and given a query point taken from the same space, a possible solution to the problem of finding the nearest point-cloud point to the query point is given in the following description of an algorithm. (Strictly speaking, no such point may exist, because it may not be unique. But in practice, usually we only care about finding any one of the subset of all point-cloud points that exist at the shortest distance to a given query point.) The idea is, for each branching of the tree, guess that the closest point in the cloud resides in the half-space containing the query point. This may not be the case, but it is a good heuristic. After having recursively gone through all the trouble of solving the problem for the guessed half-space, now compare the distance returned by this result with the shortest distance from the query point to the partitioning plane. This latter distance is that between the query point and the closest possible point that could exist in the half-space not searched. If this distance is greater than that returned in the earlier result, then clearly there is no need to search the other half-space. If there is such a need, then you must go through the trouble of solving the problem for the other half space, and then compare its result to the former result, and then return the proper result. The performance of this algorithm is nearer to logarithmic time than linear time when the query point is near the cloud, because as the distance between the query point and the closest point-cloud point nears zero, the algorithm needs only perform a look-up using the query point as a key to get the correct result.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: An approximate nearest neighbor search algorithm is allowed to return points, whose distance from the query is at most formula_1 times the distance from the query to its nearest points. The appeal of this approach is that, in many cases, an approximate nearest neighbor is almost as good as the exact one. In particular, if the distance measure accurately captures the notion of user quality, then small differences in the distance should not matter.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Proximity graph methods (such as HNSW) are considered the current state-of-the-art for the approximate nearest neighbors search.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: The methods are based on greedy traversing in proximity neighborhood graphs formula_2 in which every point formula_3 is uniquely associated with vertex formula_4. The search for the nearest neighbors to a query "q" in the set "S" takes the form of searching for the vertex in the graph formula_2.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: The basic algorithm – greedy search – works as follows: search starts from an enter-point vertex formula_4 by computing the distances from the query q to each vertex of its neighborhood formula_7, and then finds a vertex with the minimal distance value. If the distance value between the query and the selected vertex is smaller than the one between the query and the current element, then the algorithm moves to the selected vertex, and it becomes new enter-point. The algorithm stops when it reaches a local minimum: a vertex whose neighborhood does not contain a vertex that is closer to the query than the vertex itself.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: The idea of proximity neighborhood graphs was exploited in multiple publications, including the seminal paper by Arya and Mount, in the VoroNet system for the plane, in the RayNet system for the formula_8, and in the Metrized Small World and HNSW algorithms for the general case of spaces with a distance function. These works were preceded by a pioneering paper by Toussaint, in which he introduced the concept of a "relative neighborhood" graph.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Locality sensitive hashing (LSH) is a technique for grouping points in space into 'buckets' based on some distance metric operating on the points. Points that are close to each other under the chosen metric are mapped to the same bucket with high probability.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: The cover tree has a theoretical bound that is based on the dataset's doubling constant. The bound on search time is "O"("c" log "n") where "c" is the expansion constant of the dataset.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: In the special case where the data is a dense 3D map of geometric points, the projection geometry of the sensing technique can be used to dramatically simplify the search problem.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: This approach requires that the 3D data is organized by a projection to a two-dimensional grid and assumes that the data is spatially smooth across neighboring grid cells with the exception of object boundaries.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: These assumptions are valid when dealing with 3D sensor data in applications such as surveying, robotics and stereo vision but may not hold for unorganized data in general.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: In practice this technique has an average search time of "O"("1") or "O"("K") for the "k"-nearest neighbor problem when applied to real world stereo vision data.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: In high-dimensional spaces, tree indexing structures become useless because an increasing percentage of the nodes need to be examined anyway. To speed up linear search, a compressed version of the feature vectors stored in RAM is used to prefilter the datasets in a first run. The final candidates are determined in a second stage using the uncompressed data from the disk for distance calculation.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: The VA-file approach is a special case of a compression based search, where each feature component is compressed uniformly and independently. The optimal compression technique in multidimensional spaces is Vector Quantization (VQ), implemented through clustering. The database is clustered and the most "promising" clusters are retrieved. Huge gains over VA-File, tree-based indexes and sequential scan have been observed. Also note the parallels between clustering and LSH.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: There are numerous variants of the NNS problem and the two most well-known are the "k"-nearest neighbor search and the ε-approximate nearest neighbor search.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: "k"-nearest neighbor search identifies the top "k" nearest neighbors to the query. This technique is commonly used in predictive analytics to estimate or classify a point based on the consensus of its neighbors. "k"-nearest neighbor graphs are graphs in which every point is connected to its "k" nearest neighbors.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: In some applications it may be acceptable to retrieve a "good guess" of the nearest neighbor. In those cases, we can use an algorithm which doesn't guarantee to return the actual nearest neighbor in every case, in return for improved speed or memory savings. Often such an algorithm will find the nearest neighbor in a majority of cases, but this depends strongly on the dataset being queried.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Algorithms that support the approximate nearest neighbor search include locality-sensitive hashing, best bin first and balanced box-decomposition tree based search.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Nearest neighbor distance ratio does not apply the threshold on the direct distance from the original point to the challenger neighbor but on a ratio of it depending on the distance to the previous neighbor. It is used in CBIR to retrieve pictures through a "query by example" using the similarity between local features. More generally it is involved in several matching problems.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Fixed-radius near neighbors is the problem where one wants to efficiently find all points given in Euclidean space within a given fixed distance from a specified point. The distance is assumed to be fixed, but the query point is arbitrary.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: For some applications (e.g. entropy estimation), we may have "N" data-points and wish to know which is the nearest neighbor "for every one of those N points". This could, of course, be achieved by running a nearest-neighbor search once for every point, but an improved strategy would be an algorithm that exploits the information redundancy between these "N" queries to produce a more efficient search. As a simple example: when we find the distance from point "X" to point "Y", that also tells us the distance from point "Y" to point "X", so the same calculation can be reused in two different queries.


title: Nearest neighbor search

text: Given a fixed dimension, a semi-definite positive norm (thereby including every L norm), and "n" points in this space, the nearest neighbour of every point can be found in "O"("n" log "n") time and the "m" nearest neighbours of every point can be found in "O"("mn" log "n") time.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: James Calvin Rollins (born November 27, 1978), nicknamed "J-Roll", is an American former professional baseball shortstop, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Phillies (–), Los Angeles Dodgers (), and Chicago White Sox ().


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: After growing up in Alameda, California, and attending Encinal High School, Rollins was drafted by the Phillies in the second round of the 1996 MLB draft. After spending most of five seasons with Phillies minor league teams, he made his big league debut on September 17, 2000.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: At the major league level, Rollins quickly earned recognition as an excellent defensive shortstop. In , he became the Phillies' leadoff hitter, a role he retained for almost ten years. Rollins made three All-Star Game appearances in his career. While with the Phillies, he compiled a 38-game hitting streak, which spanned the end of the 2005 season and the start of the 2006 season, the longest in team history. Rollins was named the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) in , as the Phillies won their division in the first of five consecutive seasons. He was also a key component of the 2008 World Series champion team that defeated the Tampa Bay Rays.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: In his career, Rollins led the NL four times in triples, and once each in runs, stolen bases, and stolen base percentage. As of 2021, he is the Phillies career leader in at bats (8,628), hits (2,306), doubles (479), and power-speed number (292.5), second in games played (2,090) and stolen bases (453), and third in runs scored (1,325), triples (111), and stolen base percentage (82.66). Rollins won the Gold Glove Award four times, as well as the Silver Slugger Award, and the Roberto Clemente Award (once each).


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins grew up in Alameda as a member of an athletic family. His mother played competitive fastpitch softball, and he credits the experience with helping him develop a cerebral approach to the game, as well as a passion for the middle infield. His father was a wrestler and weightlifter. Rollins has been described as having "a near-photographic memory of games and at-bats and pitches". Rollins' brother, Antwon, played with minor league affiliates of the Texas Rangers. His sister, Shay Rollins, was a starter on the University of San Francisco's women's basketball team, and he is the cousin of former MLB player Tony Tarasco. Despite the athletes in his family, his father encouraged Rollins to pursue music as well as baseball. Rollins played the trumpet while growing up, and participated in various MC Hammer and Mavis Staples music videos during his adolescent years. Rollins was an Oakland Athletics fan growing up and regularly attended games at Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: In 1996, Rollins graduated from Encinal High School in Alameda. His parents refused to let him continue playing football, instead directing him to focus on baseball. He finished his high school baseball career as the holder of 10 school records, including highest batting average (.484), and most stolen bases (99). For his performance, "USA Today" named him a member of its All-USA High School Baseball Team, and "Baseball America" named him the top infielder in Northern California, as well as a second-team All-American. The American Baseball Coaches Association and Rawlings also named Rollins to their All-America Second Team. He committed to play college baseball at Arizona State University on a scholarship, but after "effusive" praise from Phillies' Bay Area scout Bob Poole, the team drafted him in the second round of the 1996 Major League Baseball draft.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: After being drafted by the Phillies in the second round of the 1996 draft, Rollins was assigned to the rookie-league Martinsville Phillies. He led the team in walks and stole 20 bases, but batted only .238/.351/.285.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: However, Rollins still earned a promotion to the low-A Piedmont Boll Weevils for the 1997 season. The youngest player on the team at age 18, he led the team in games played, at-bats, runs (94; 5th in the league), hits (151; 4th), triples (8; tied for 4th), stolen bases (46; 5th), and walks. Rollins batted .270/.330/.370 and had 560 at-bats, over 100 more than second-place Dave Francia. For his performance, he was named a co-winner of the Paul Owens Award, given to the Phillies' top minor league player. At the end of the season, Rollins played in the Florida Instructional League.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins was promoted to high-A Clearwater in 1998. While playing alongside future Phillies teammates Pat Burrell, Johnny Estrada, Adam Eaton, and Brandon Duckworth, Rollins batted .244/.306/.354 with 18 doubles and 23 stolen bases; once again, he was the youngest player on the team. Eaton, Burrell, and Rollins were all promoted to AA Reading together the next year, and Rollins led the team in games and at-bats, as well as hits. His 145 hits gave him an average of .273, and led to a late-season promotion to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he played four games. In 2000, he led Scranton in games played, doubles, and triples, and helped lead the team to the playoffs.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins received a September call-up to the Phillies. He debuted on September 17 Wearing #29 against the Florida Marlins and had two hits in four at-bats in the game, with his first MLB hit being a triple off of Chuck Smith of the Marlins. He batted .321 in 14 games, stealing three bases and batting in five runs. After the season, "Baseball America" named him the Phillies' top organizational prospect. He was a finalist for the United States national baseball team to participate in the 2000 Olympics.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins switched uniform numbers from 29 to what would be his permanent uniform number 11, despite wearing number 6 for the 2003 season only. Rollins spent the entire 2001 season with the major league Phillies and hit his first MLB home run on May 2 off of Brian Bohanon of the Colorado Rockies. He achieved several statistical milestones, including a "quadruple-double" (double digit doubles, triples, home runs, and stolen bases). Moreover, he led the National League in triples and stolen bases, becoming the first rookie to do so since 1951, as well as leading the NL in at bats. He was a member of the NL all-star team in the 2001 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the Phillies only representative. In July, he took over from Doug Glanville as the Phillies' leadoff hitter, a role he maintained for nearly a decade. At the conclusion of the season, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum named him the co-winner of the Cool Papa Bell Award, given to the stolen bases leader; MLB managers voted him to the Topps Major League Rookie All-Star team; and "Baseball America" named him the fifth-best rookie in MLB.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Entering the 2002 season, despite his youth, Rollins sought to be a leader in the Phillies' clubhouse; an article in "The Philadelphia Inquirer" said, "Rollins, even at just 23 years old, may now have the clout needed to be a stern voice that makes a difference in the clubhouse and on the field." Rollins' season was characterized by a strong first half, and a "sophomore jinx" at the plate that plagued him in the second half of the season. For his performance in the early months of the season, he earned his second consecutive selection to the MLB All-Star game, in doing so becoming the first Phillie and first MLB shortstop ever to reach the game in each of his first two seasons. After the all-star game, however, he struggled at the plate, striking out frequently and chasing many high pitches that were out of the strike zone. Ultimately, Rollins finished the season among the NL leaders in defensive statistics – he compiled a .980 fielding percentage (second in NL), 695 total chances (third in NL), 504 assists (fourth in NL), and 226 putouts (fifth in NL). Meanwhile, offensively, he regressed from his 2001 campaign, batting .245/.306/.380 with 11 home runs, but still leading the NL with 10 triples; he stole 31 bases, 15 fewer than he did in 2001. After the season, he participated in the Major League Baseball Japan All-Star Series.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Prior to the 2003 season, he worked with Tony Gwynn on skills at the plate, predominantly using the whole field and being more of a "slap hitter". However, he began the season slowly, sustaining a hamstring injury in spring training that hindered his progress, and ultimately struggling at the plate early in the season, causing manager Larry Bowa to drop him in the lineup. Throughout the season, he sought to maintain the focus that he admitted to having lost the previous season, and he eventually rebounded to post a "respectable" stat line – a .263/.320/.387 with eight home runs and 62 RBIs, though he stole what at the time was a career-low 20 bases. Among his season highlights were a game-winning RBI against John Smoltz in June, and stealing his 100th career base in September, both of which occurred in games against the Atlanta Braves.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: On January 15, Rollins signed a $2.4 million contract with the Phillies to avoid salary arbitration. According to one biography of Rollins,


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Overall, he achieved another "quadruple-double" (home runs, stolen bases, doubles, and triples in double figures in a single season), his first career grand slam and posted career highs in a plethora of offensive categories including batting average, slugging percentage, RBIs, and hits.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Under new manager Charlie Manuel, whose offensive strategy predominantly revolved around hitting many home runs, Rollins struggled to post a strong batting average early in the Phillies' 2005 season. Nevertheless, he was again selected to the NL All-Star team. His offensive strategy changed in early August, when he began a hitting streak that spanned the season's final 36 games; during the streak, he hit .379. It was the longest hitting streak in Phillies' history, surpassing Ed Delahanty, whose streak lasted 31 games. Throughout the streak, Rollins aspired to maintain a team-first mentality, and noted that he would trade the streak for a playoff berth: "If we lose and I keep the streak, what does that mean? The season is automatically over. The playoffs is everything. That's what we all want." Ultimately, the Phillies missed the playoffs by one game. Overall, Rollins compiled his fourth career quadruple-double, tying Johnny Damon for most among active players, and batted .290/.338/.431 with 12 home runs, 54 RBIs, and 41 stolen bases.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: The 2006 Phillies season began with much hype surrounding Rollins, and whether he could extend his hitting streak to pass Joe DiMaggio's record 56 games. He extended the streak two games into the season, but it ended on April 6 when he failed to get a hit in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. He struggled during the first half of the season, posting a batting average of just .259, but rebounded during the second half, ultimately posting strong cumulative numbers once again. He became the third player in Phillies' history to score at least 100 runs in three consecutive seasons (Chuck Klein and Bobby Abreu), and led all NL shortstops in RBIs, runs scored, extra-base hits, and total bases. He was just short, however, of another quadruple-double. Cumulatively, he hit .277/.334/.478 with 25 home runs and 83 RBIs (at the time, the latter two were career-highs) and 36 stolen bases. Once again, the Phillies barely missed the playoffs.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Before spring training, Rollins announced that the Phillies were the "Team to Beat" in the National League East:


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: It became a sports media sensation, especially given that the New York Mets had won the division in 2006 with relative ease. The claim was widely reported, often without the second part of the quote ("only on paper"). "USA Today" columnist Hal Bodley opined, "The Phillies have needed someone to light a fire, especially in April. Rollins' bold, if not arrogant, prediction might just do that." During the first half of the season, it appeared Rollins had spoken prematurely, as the Mets jumped out to an early divisional lead. On June 28, Rollins had a four-hit game against the Cincinnati Reds, including a game-tying triple. The triple was Rollins' 10th, which gave him his fifth career "quadruple–double".


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: In August, the Mets' lead began to dissipate, as the Phillies combined several solid series; Rollins was a key component of their success. Rollins was named the National League Player of the Week for August 27 to September 2, 2007. On September 25 against the Atlanta Braves, Rollins hit the home run that completed his 30–30 season. On the last day of the 2007 season, Rollins became the seventh player to collect at least 20 doubles, 20 triples, and 20 home runs in one season when he hit his 20th triple of the year in a 6–1 win over the Washington Nationals that clinched the National League East division championship for the Phillies, which confirmed Rollins' preseason assertion of the Phillies preeminence.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: For the 2007 season, he batted .296/.344/.531 and led the league in games (162), at bats (716), runs (139), and triples (20), was second in hits (212), total bases (380), extra base hits (88), and power-speed number (34.6), and had 30 home runs, 94 RBIs, and 41 stolen bases (5th in the league). The club advanced to the playoffs for the first time since their 1993 World Series loss; however, they were swept by the Colorado Rockies in the National League Division Series.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins was named the National League's Most Valuable Player. He also received the NLBM Oscar Charleston Legacy Award (NL MVP), and won the first of three consecutive Gold Glove Awards, becoming the first Phillies shortstop to win a Gold Glove since Larry Bowa in . He was the first player in MLB history to record 200 hits, 20 triples, 30 home runs, and 30 stolen bases in a season. Rollins also set a single-season MLB record for plate appearances with 778.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Unlike in spring training 2007, Rollins "made no guarantees heading into the next season, but that didn't mean the Phillies weren't confident" entering their 2008 season, despite the Mets' acquisition of Johan Santana and a "2007 Rollins-esque" guarantee of winning the division from Carlos Beltrán. After beginning the season by hitting a home run on opening day, Rollins landed on the disabled list (DL) for the first time in his career in early April, suffering an ankle sprain. He returned in May, and had a "productive" summer, ultimately posting a career-high 47 stolen bases, notwithstanding his batting average dropping to .277, and his home run and RBI totals dropping to 11 and 59 respectively. In the postseason, Rollins was a focal point of the team, which ultimately won the 2008 World Series; in the division series (NLDS), he hit a leadoff home run in game four, and in the championship series (NLCS), he hit a leadoff home run in game five, and despite struggles early in the World Series, he eventually contributed with strong situational hitting, helping the Phillies win the series in five games. At the conclusion of the season, Rollins was honored with a Fielding Bible Award for defensive excellence as the top MLB shortstop during the year.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins began 2009 by participating in the 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) as a member of Team USA; he hit .417 and was named to the all-tournament team. After setting a career high in stolen bases in 2008, he did not steal one in the season's first 17 games, his longest drought to begin a season since 2004. On May 21, he reached the 1500-hit milestone in a game against the Cincinnati Reds. As of the end of June, however, he was hitting just .205 (he went 28 consecutive at-bats without a hit from the end of June until July 2), and was benched for four games by Charlie Manuel in an effort to encourage him to regain the shorter, lower half-driven swing that he used in his 2007 MVP campaign. He did improve in the second half of the season, batting .288 from July 3 to the end of the year. Overall, he compiled an NL-leading 672 at-bats, finished fourth in doubles (43) and stolen bases (31), and tenth in runs (100); in addition, he had a .250 batting average, 21 home runs (five of which were leadoff, the most in his career), and 77 RBIs, also winning the National League Gold Glove award for shortstops. In the postseason, he helped the Phillies reach the 2009 World Series by hitting a walk-off double in game four of the NLCS. The Phillies failed to repeat as champions, however, losing to the New York Yankees in six games.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins's 2010 season was marked by injuries; he missed a total of 74 games, playing in only 88, the lowest total of his major league career. While warming up in the outfield prior to the Phillies' game on April 12, he strained his right calf, and eventually was placed on the disabled list. He spent April 13–May 16, and May 22–June 21 on the DL with that injury; Wilson Valdez served as his backup. When he returned, he hit his first career walk-off home run on June 23, powering the Phillies to a 7–6 victory over the Cleveland Indians. On July 3, he hit his 150th career home run in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and on October 1, he hit his third career grand slam in a game against the Atlanta Braves. Overall, he hit .243 with eight home runs and 41 RBIs. He maintained his strong defense despite poor offense, but after his third consecutive mediocre offensive season, some questioned whether his MVP campaign in 2007 was a fluke.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: 2011 was a contract year for Rollins, and his performance concurrently rebounded, insofar as he improved his batting average, and home run and RBI totals. He made his 11th consecutive opening day start, and, for the first time in several seasons, he was healthy at the beginning of the season, starting the season's first 49 games. Nevertheless, it took him 54 plate appearances to record his first RBI, the longest drought of his career. On July 20, for the second time in his career, he had a multi-home run game in which one home run came batting right-handed and the other left-handed, the first Phillies player to do it multiple times. His season was not entirely devoid of injuries; on August 22, a right groin strain landed him on the DL, causing him to miss 18 games. He returned in time for the playoffs, and set several Phillies records in the 2011 NLDS, including hits (9), doubles (4), and multi-hit games (4). Despite the records, the Phillies lost the series to the St. Louis Cardinals. Overall, he posted a .268 batting average with 16 home runs and 63 RBIs. At the season's conclusion, Rollins was selected as the shortstop on the "MLB Insiders Club Magazine" All-Postseason Team. On December 17, 2011, Rollins signed a three-year, $33 million deal with a vesting option for a fourth year, worth another $11 million. The option vested when he reached 1,100 plate appearances in 2013–14.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: In 2012, Rollins epitomized the Phillies' general "averageness" by posting a .250 batting average with 23 home runs and 68 RBIs. He hit poorly in the beginning of the season, and did not hit a home run until his 136th at bat of the season, the second-longest it had ever taken him to hit a home run at the beginning of a season. He missed three games from May 21–23 for the birth of his first daughter. On July 31, he hit his fourth career inside-the-park home run, which led active players. His hitting improved over the latter half of the season, and in September, he hit eight home runs. He missed the final three games of the season with a calf strain. During the season, he joined Craig Biggio, Barry Larkin, and Paul Molitor as the only players in MLB history to record 2000 hits, 350 stolen bases, and 150 home runs as a member of one team. It was his fourth career season during which he hit at least 20 home runs and stole 30 bases, which trailed only Bobby and Barry Bonds.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Prior to the 2013 season, Rollins played for Team USA in the 2013 World Baseball Classic (WBC), and was the only player from Team USA to make the event's all-star team; it was his second WBC, and second placement on the all-star team. He was back to the Phillies in time for opening day, and made his 13th consecutive start on opening day. Overall, he tied for fifth in the NL in games (160), and led the team with 600 at-bats, 151 hits, 36 doubles, and 59 walks. He achieved several career milestones during the season, including his 800th RBI (April 22), his 433 double (breaking Ed Delahanty's record on May 15), and his 45th career leadoff home run (fourth most in MLB history; hit on July 20). Despite the achievements, overall, the season was a decline from previous years; his isolated power (ISO) was among the worst in the major leagues, he attempted to steal the fewest bases in his career, and his defense "tanked" according to fielding metrics. He "struggled mightily" and ultimately posted a .252 batting average with six home runs and 39 RBIs.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins attracted media attention in the offseason prior to 2014 when he supposedly expressed disinclination or lack of motivation after commenting "who cares" in regards to spring training; Buster Olney penned a column suggesting that there was a sentiment within the Phillies' organization that he should be traded (the rumors were dispelled by Rollins and Phillies general manager Rubén Amaro, Jr. as ridiculous). He opened the season by hitting a grand slam against the Texas Rangers, which was also his 200th career home run. After two games, Rollins left the team on paternity leave to be with his wife as the couple had their second child. On June 14, Rollins singled to right field for his 2,235th hit to surpass Mike Schmidt as the Phillies' all-time leader in hits. The game paused as Schmidt and the remainder of the Phillies congratulated Rollins at first base. Following the season, Rollins and recently retired Chicago White Sox captain Paul Konerko became the first ever co-winners of the Roberto Clemente Award.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: On December 19, 2014, Rollins was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for minor league pitchers Tom Windle and Zach Eflin. Rollins waived his no-trade clause and stated that he was expecting to take on a leadership position with his new team.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins played his first game with the Dodgers during opening day against the San Diego Padres on April 6, 2015, hitting a 3-run homer off of Shawn Kelley, giving the Dodgers a 6–3 victory over the Padres. He struggled offensively with the Dodgers, hitting a career low .224 (the lowest batting average among all qualified major league batters)/.285/.358 with 13 homers and 41 RBI. He also stole 12 bases. In September, he lost his starting job to rookie Corey Seager. For the final game of the season, manager Don Mattingly designated Rollins to be the 2015 player manager.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: On February 22, 2016, Rollins signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox that included an invitation to major league spring training. He competed with Tyler Saladino for a starting role at shortstop. At the end of spring training, the team announced that Rollins would serve as their Opening Day shortstop. Due to Rollins' familiar number 11 already being retired in honor of Luis Aparicio, Rollins wore number 7 for the White Sox, which the following year would be worn by the man who replaced Rollins at shortstop, Tim Anderson.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins batted .221/.295/.329 with 2 home runs and 5 stolen bases in 41 games for the White Sox. On June 10, he was designated for assignment so the White Sox could promote Tim Anderson from the minor leagues.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: On December 19, 2016, Rollins signed a minor league contract with the San Francisco Giants that included an invitation to spring training. He was released on March 31, 2017.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins through 2018 was 20th all-time among MLB players in career power-speed number (309.8), 31st in stolen base percentage (81.74), 42nd in assists (6,139), and 46th in stolen bases (470). In his career, he led the National League four times in triples, and once each in runs, stolen bases, and stolen base percentage. As of 2018, he was the Phillies career leader in at bats (8,628), hits (2,306), doubles (479), and power-speed number (292.5), second in games played (2,090) and stolen bases (453), and third in runs (1,325), triples (111), and stolen base percentage (82.66).


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins was included on the ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame class of when it was announced on November 22, 2021.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: In 2019, Rollins returned to the Phillies in two separate capacities: in January, as a special advisor for the team; and in March, as an on-air commentator for their television broadcasts. On May 4, 2019, a retirement ceremony honoring Rollins was held at Citizens Bank Park; the Phillies have not retired Rollins' uniform number 11, although it has not been reissued since he wore it.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: After advising the team since 2019, the Phillies announced on March 31, 2022, that Rollins had been named a special advisor to the president of baseball operations.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Growing up, Rollins admired Rickey Henderson, one of the best leadoff hitters in MLB history, and especially early in his career, he sought to emulate Henderson at the plate. This contributed to his propensity to swing early in the count, and chase high pitches, seeking to hit home runs rather than get on base, the stereotypical role of a leadoff hitter. Consequently, he struggled to make contact with the ball, striking out too much, and rarely walking. To help alleviate those predominantly negative tendencies, he worked with Tony Gwynn prior to the 2003 season on using the whole field, and hitting more ground balls than pop-ups. Overall, he "always had a hard time accepting that he is vertically challenged at 5-foot-8", which contributed to his inclination to strive to hit for power rather than contact, and to seek to pull the ball rather than use the whole field. Rollins is the Phillies all-time leader in hits, and has the second-most stolen bases in Phillies history.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: A "supreme defensive shortstop", Rollins won four Gold Glove Awards, and only Omar Vizquel has a better fielding percentage among shortstops who played at least 10 seasons. Rollins attributes some of his defensive prowess to experience, noting that he played in MLB for a long enough time to know most hitters' tendencies and to learn how to read swings, both of which helped him appropriately position himself to get to as many balls as possible. In their 2011 season preview, "Lindy's Sports" commented that Rollins was an upper-echelon shortstop "with soft hands, excellent agility and plus range left and right" and praised his strong throwing arm, especially from the hole.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: Rollins resides in the Tampa, Florida, area and is married to Johari Smith. They were married on January 23, 2010, in the Cayman Islands. On May 21, 2012, Johari gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Camryn Drew Rollins. Their second daughter, Logan Aliya, was born in early April 2014. When he played for the Phillies, Rollins resided in Woolwich Township, New Jersey. Osiris Johnson, a cousin of Rollins, is also a baseball player, and was drafted in the second round, 37th overall in the 2018 draft by the Miami Marlins.


title: Jimmy Rollins

text: An active philanthropist, Rollins and his wife Johari have participated in several charitable endeavors including the creation of The Johari & Jimmy Rollins Center for Animal Rehabilitation, which is located in Woolwich Township, New Jersey, and provides several medical rehabilitation services for animals and an annual BaseBOWL charity bowling tournament to benefit the Arthritis Foundation. Rollins is also active politically and campaigned for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. In 2020, he supported Bernie Sanders for president.


title: Helen Thomas

text: Helen Amelia Thomas (August 4, 1920 – July 20, 2013) was an American reporter and author, and a long serving member of the White House press corps. She covered the White House during the administrations of ten U.S. presidents—from the beginning of the Kennedy administration to the second year of the Obama administration.


title: Helen Thomas

text: Thomas worked for the United Press and post-1958 successor United Press International (UPI) for 57 years, first as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau manager. She then served as a columnist for Hearst Newspapers from 2000 to 2010, writing on national affairs and the White House. Thomas was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents' Association and the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She wrote six books; her last (with co-author Craig Crawford) was "Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do" (2009).