1107: Sports Cheat Sheet

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Sports Cheat Sheet

[edit] Explanation

Randall presents a "cheat sheet" which is a handy reference guide for something that is generally expected to be memorized or known by someone familiar with the knowledge domain. Cheat sheets are commonly used in mathematical applications to list important formulas or for measurement conversions; but they may also be used in other applications.

This cheat sheet allows Randall to figure out what sport other people are arguing over on the basis of the time of year and the place the argument is occurring. The chart is based on the annual seasons (periods when the top professional and college leagues play) of each sport.

In the United States, the chart is divided among baseball, basketball and (American) football. Hockey is not shown, suggesting that he may not consider hockey a sport to compare with the three listed, he does not encounter arguments about hockey, or that he perhaps does not need a chart to determine when the argument is about hockey (they may be obvious for countless reasons, including the physicality of typical hockey confrontations). Also, golf is not shown as well implying Randall may not think it's an important sport. The chart suggests that football is the most popular of the three sports (or at least more popular to argue about).



The title text continues on the theme of this chart being for someone who doesn't know anything about sports. Randall imagines a Twitter feed where you receive a salient sports opinion each day, presumably so that you could repeat the opinion to your friends and appear knowledgeable about sports. As the feed is for those uninformed about sports, there are clarifications of important terms in brackets.

The suggested Twitter message mentioned in the title text is accurate for the date of the comic. On September 11, 2012 the baseball team Boston Red Sox played the New York Yankees and won, 4 runs to 3. The Red Sox were mathematically eliminated from the play-offs (meaning they needed to win more games than remained in the season to qualify). The Yankees were at the top of the standings, but were in a close race for the play-offs with the Baltimore Orioles (both teams had a win-loss record of 79 wins to 62 losses, with 21 games each remaining to play). To be guaranteed a spot in the playoffs, the Yankees had to win more of their remaining games than the Orioles. Losing to the Red Sox made this task harder. (For those wondering, both the Yankees and the Orioles made to the playoffs, but neither made it to the championships.)


This is not the first time Randall jokes about sport or his lack of interest therein (see for instance 904: Sports, 1480: Super Bowl and 1507: Metaball).

[edit] Transcript

Which sport are they arguing about?
-My cheat sheet-
[The second column, reproduced using approximate dates.]
Football [ovoid ball drawn in brackets]: Jan 1 - February 10
Basketball: February 10 - April 20
Baseball: April 20 - May 25
Basketball: May 25 - June 15
Baseball: June 15 - August 20
Football [ovoid]: August 20 - October 5
Baseball: October 5 - October 20
Football [ovoid]: October 20 - December 31
[The third column, reproduced using approximate dates.]
Football [truncated icosahedron, 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons]: Jan 1 - December 31




What point in the season do hockey sticks get bandages? I used to think at about the half way point they started using them as repairs but now I am wondering if they start off the season with bandages as padding until the players get seasoned. I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 19:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


Cricket is a south Wales sport. It is only as popular in north Wales as it is in England. Cricket was once a gentleman's game as it was more akin to watching people shooting at target ...in a game related to chess.

But now that cheating is widespread in Asia and even the British are getting caught at it, nobody watches it these days. People still interested in cricket go to their local clubs and have a pint with friends while reality goes on in the back-ground.

I get the impression that nobody is interested in American Rugby because they all wear padding and the rules are either too complex to follow or too stupid to believe. Probably both. Basketball looks interesting but hard work. Why not just play a longer game outside, with your feet? (Nobody is going to watch men play rounders, its too gay.) I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 19:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


I would suggest that after two or three days having the same (tweeted) opinion, two people in that situation would begin to suspect they are soulmates, and fall in love - I mean recognize the strange similarities and figure out a way to indicate their source subtly and then agree they don't have to be posers -- Brettpeirce (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2015 (UTC)












I'm not sure if it was your intent, but it is funny that you say the consequence of this sort of US centric view is to just "ignore Canada"... -Pennpenn 01:26, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I deleted a very nice wiki markup version of the comic, useless fror the blind, and copied the official transcript from the source code of the comic <div id="transcript" style="display: none">. This [1] was apparently useful, but in fact was detrimental to the function of a transcript 20:39, 14 October 2015 (UTC)


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