Imponderables: Fun and Games

by David Feldman

  Basketball manufacturers make two kinds of seams, narrow and wide. National Basketball Association professionals prefer the narrow-channel seams, while many amateurs, particularly young people with small hands, use wide-channel seams.

  IN BASEBALL SCORING, WHY IS THE LETTER “K” CHOSEN TO DESIGNATE A STRIKEOUT?

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  Lloyd Johnson, ex-executive director of the Society for American Baseball Research, led us to the earliest written source for this story, Beadle’s Dime Base-Ball Player, a manual published in 1867 that explained how to set up a baseball club. Included in Beadle’s are such quaint by-laws as “Any member who shall use profane language, either at a meeting of the club, or during field exercise, shall be fined _____ cents.”

  A chapter on scoring, written by Henry Chadwick, assigns meaning to ten letters:

  A for first base

  B for second base

  C for third base

  H for home base

  F for catch on the fly

  D for catch on the bound

  L for foul balls

  T for tips

  K for struck out

  R for run out between bases

  Chadwick advocated doubling up these letters to describe more events:

  H R for home runs

  L F for foul ball on the fly

  T F for tip on the fly

  T D for tip on the bound

  He recognized the difficulty in remembering some of these abbreviations and attempted to explain the logic:

  The above, at first sight, would appear to be a complicated alphabet to remember, but when the key is applied it will be at once seen that a boy could easily impress it on his memory in a few minutes. The explanation is simply this—we use the first letter in the words, Home, Fly, and Tip and the last in Bound, Foul, and Struck, and the first three letters of the alphabet for the first three bases.

  We can understand why the last letters in “Bound” and “Foul” were chosen—the first letters of each were already assigned a different meaning—but we can’t figure out why “S” couldn’t have stood for struck out.

  Some baseball sources have indicated that the “S” was already “taken” by the sacrifice, but we have no evidence to confirm that sacrifices were noted in baseball scoring as far back as the 1860s.

  Submitted by Darin Marrs of Keller, Texas.

  HOW DO FOOTBALL OFFICIALS MEASURE FIRST DOWN YARDAGE WITH CHAINS, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY GO ON FIELD TO CONFIRM FIRST DOWNS?

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  In professional football, careers and millions of dollars can rest on a matter of inches. We’ve never quite figured out how football officials can spot the ball accurately when a running back dives atop a group of ten hulking linemen, let alone how the chain crew retains the proper spot on the sidelines and then carries the chain back out to the field without losing its bearings. Is the aura of pinpoint measurement merely a ruse?

  Not really. The answer to this Imponderable focuses on the importance of an inexpensive metal clip. The National Football League’s Art McNally explains:

  If at the start of a series the ball was placed on the 23-yard line in the middle of the field, the head linesman would back up to the sideline and, after sighting the line of the ball, would indicate to a member of the chain crew that he wanted the back end of the down markers to be set at the 23-yard line. Obviously, a second member of the chain crew would stretch the forward stake to the 33-yard line.

  Before the next down is run, one of the members of the chain crew would take a special clip and place that on the chain at the back end of the 25-yard line. In other words, the clip is placed on the five-yard marker that is closest to the original location of the ball.

  When a measurement is about to be made, the head linesman picks up the chain from the 25-yard line and the men holding the front end of the stakes all proceed onto the field. The head linesman places the clip on the back end of the 25-yard line. The front stake is extended to its maximum and the referee makes the decision as to whether or not the ball has extended beyond the forward stake.

  Thus the chain crew, when it runs onto the field, doesn’t have to find the exact spot near the 23-yard line where the ball was originally spotted, but merely the 25-yard line. The clip “finds” the spot near the 23-yard line.

  Submitted by Dennis Stucky of San Diego, California.

  WHY HAVE MANY MOVIE THEATERS STOPPED POPPING THEIR OWN POPCORN?

  * * *

  The popcorn business in the United States ain’t peanuts. Americans, the largest per capita consumers in the world, eat over 10 billion quarts of popcorn annually, thus generating over $1 billion for the popcorn industry.

  About 70 percent of all popcorn is consumed in the home and approximately 30 percent is bought in theaters, carnivals, amusement parks, stadiums, etc. But over 75 percent of the revenue from sales comes from popcorn bought outside of the home. About $250 million, or around one-quarter of all popcorn sales, is delivered by movie theater concession sales.

  To understand how crucial popcorn sales are to the movie industry, consider the economic facts of life for the movie theater exhibitor. Each owner tabulates his “nut,” the total fixed costs and overhead needed to keep the theater open. In a large city, with a medium-sized house in a nice district, that nut might be about $12,000 a week. Let us assume that this theater, the Rialto, shows first-run movies and has booked the latest James Bond thriller for the Christmas season. The owner has committed the theater to this picture many months in advance. Often, because distributors want to place their movies in houses that can run them for a long time, he might be forced to stick with an already faded movie in his theater until James Bond comes to the rescue. If Friday the Thirteenth Part Thirteen is grossing only $8000 a week, the owner must eat the $4000 difference between his nut and his gross.

  Even James Bond does not guarantee the exhibitor endless riches, for the film distributor wants his piece of the 007 action. And it is a rather large piece. The exhibitor does not pay cash for the right to run a movie; he gives the distributor a percentage of his gross, after the nut is deducted. In the case of most first-run movies, exhibitors must pay the distributor 90 percent of the net. If James Bond grosses $62,000 the first week, a superb showing, the exhibitor deducts the $12,000 nut from the gross (leaving $50,000), keeps a measly 10 percent, or $5000, for himself, and then sends the rest of the money to the film’s distributor (usually, but not always, the company that produced the movie). By the fifth week of James Bond’s run, the theater might be lucky to clear $1000 a week from the ticket receipts.

  But do not cry for the theater owner. He has a secret weapon: the concession stand. Popcorn. Soft drinks. Candy. The movies may pay the bills, but the concession stands send the family to Florida in the winter.

  Let’s look at how concession sales affect the bottom line of the Rialto. In large cities, about 15–20 percent of all customers will stop at the concession stand (in smaller towns, even more customers eat), and the theater owner figures to gross about $1.25 for every customer who walks through the turnstile, meaning that the average purchase is over $5. The key to making money in the concession area is maintaining a high profit margin, and the items sold do a terrific job. The average profit margin on candy—77 percent; on popcorn—86 percent; on soft drinks—a whopping 90 percent. For every dollar spent at the concession counter, the theater operator nets over 85 cents.

  This is the theater’s average cost for a large bucket of “buttered” popcorn that might retail for two to three dollars:

  Popcorn—8 cents

  Butter Substitute—4 cents

  Bucket—30 cents

  Yes, the bucket itself is the most expensive component of your popcorn purchase. Even if the Rialto were to use “real” butter, which most consumers can’t distinguish from imitation, it would only add five more cents to the cost.

  Remember that the Rialto has netted $5000 from the admissions to the first week of the James Bond movie. But it will gross almost $1
0,000 and will net over $8000 from the concession stand. And on the fifth week, when the Rialto nets only about $1000 from admissions, it will earn almost $3000 extra from food and drink sales.

  Considering the importance of popcorn, the largest grossing concession item in profits, why would exhibitors deny the tradition of popping their own corn? Even in the twenty-first century, a good majority of theaters still pop their own. Many exhibitors believe that popping their own corn adds luster to what is an impulse item. The sound of the popping and the aroma of fresh corn and (usually) fresh oil is tantalizing to the vulnerable. And it is slightly cheaper for theaters to buy kernels rather than purchase already popped corn from a food distributor.

  But the crucial question remains: Does on-site popping increase sales? A growing number of concession experts at the big movie chains believe that there is no evidence that on-site popping affects purchases one way or the other. Most of the big chains do not have a strict policy at all on the question. While one theater chain, Walter Reade, told Imponderables that its sales are higher in sites with on-premise popping, a representative from Loew’s disagreed strongly, arguing that none of the research and none of Loew’s internal experiments support the contention that consumers are driven into even a frenzy-ette by their proximity to exploding kernels.

  There are plenty of reasons why managers dislike on-premise popping. Equipment can get messy and smelly, offending both workers and potential customers. Poppers can also break down, and as simple as it may sound, managers must constantly train high-turnover employees how not to wreck the equipment. Commercial prepopped corn is uniform in size and taste, whereas homemade popcorn is subject to the vagaries of oil temperature and stubborn kernels refusing to pop. Most important, theaters never run out of prepopped corn. No manager wants to see his sales force frantically loading the popper while customers wait impatiently in line, contemplating bolting for the theater.

  If there were much consumer resistance to prepopped corn, you would see machines in every theater lobby in America. But the quality of packaged corn can be as good as fresh-popped. The crucial element in consumer acceptance of popcorn is its moisture content. Moisture is the enemy of popcorn, and “old” popcorn can be restored by being placed in the heating chambers that virtually every concession stand possesses. Left at room temperature, popcorn reabsorbs moisture from the atmosphere. In the warmer, at an ideal 135–155 degrees, the moisture is driven out. The lesser moisture in theater popcorn is what makes it taste better than its packaged, unheated counterpart found at supermarkets or ball games.

  If concessions are the crucial moneymaker for theaters, why aren’t stands more adventurous in their offerings, and why don’t they offer more choices?

  The key to this answer is a favorite word of all food purveyors—turnover. The theater owner wants to be able to process as many customers as possible in a short period of time. Now that double features have become a thing of the past for most theaters, concession stands must brace themselves for an onslaught of customers arriving at approximately the same time. More than 80 percent of all concession sales are completed immediately after the ticket purchase, before the customer has taken a seat in the theater. Nothing will turn off a potential customer more than long lines at the food stand. The fewer choices a customer has to make, the less anxiety the customer feels and, most important, the faster the customer is likely to decide what to buy. Most concessionaires have found that when they introduce new products, such as chocolate chip cookies or frozen yogurt, it eats into the share of money that their old products would have garnered but does not generate additional revenue or attract patrons who didn’t previously buy food at the theater.

  Loew’s has found that by decreasing its number of food and drink options, it can generate faster turnover without causing any consumer resistance. It purposely does not emphasize its candy display and provides only 12 options, since it has found that any more choices only tend to befuddle the customer and slow down his or her decision-making process. Even so, candy provides about 20 percent of Loew’s concession sales.

  Hot dogs provide about the same profit margin as popcorn, but their gross sales are minuscule in comparison. Hot dogs are provided partly as a meal substitute for those taking in a movie at the lunch or dinner hour. Hot dogs are problematic because, unlike popcorn, they can’t be resold the next day. Concession stands can sell only a limited number of hot dogs efficiently. With the rotogriller, the horizontal contraption with rotating silver tubes, hot dogs cook quickly but can shrink during movies considerably shorter than Lawrence of Arabia. The pinwheel cooker, the ferris wheel arrangement where spiked hot dogs rotate over a heating element on the bottom, cooks fewer dogs more slowly but at least doesn’t turn quarter-pounders into cocktail franks.

  Frozen desserts are a particular bane to concessionaires. They represent about only 1 percent of sales. Bon Bons are the biggest frozen item only because the theaters can sell them with a hefty profit margin. If theater owners tried to sell gourmet ice cream cones, they would have to charge several dollars a scoop to maintain their profit margin, and then pay for it in messier theater floors. Freezer cases are particularly vulnerable to employee ineptitude. If a worker turns off the freezer switch by mistake, profits melt along with the ice cream.

  If Brussels sprouts would sell in theaters, concessionaires would find a way to cook and sell them. American audiences simply reject the attempt to foist any products other than the big three (popcorn, soft drinks, candy) on them. The concessionaire merely responds to what the consumer wants. If we really cared that popcorn be popped at the theater itself, it would be.

  WHY DO GOLFERS YELL “FORE” WHEN WARNING OF AN ERRANT GOLF SHOT?

  * * *

  This expression, popularized by former President Gerald Ford, actually started as an English military term. When the troops were firing in lines, the command “’ware before” indicated that it might be prudent for the front line to kneel so that the second line wouldn’t blow their heads off.

  “Fore” is simply a shortened version of the “before” in “’ware before.”

  Submitted by Cassandra A. Sherrill,

  of Granite Hills, North Carolina.

  WHY ARE TENNIS BALLS FUZZY?

  * * *

  The core of a tennis ball is made out of a compound consisting of rubber, synthetic materials, and about ten chemicals. The compound is extruded into a barrel-shaped pellet that is then formed into two half shells.

  The edges of the two half shells are coated with a latex adhesive and then put together and cured in a double-chambered press under strictly controlled temperature and air-pressure conditions. The inner chamber is pressurized to thirteen psi (pounds per square inch), so that the air is trapped inside and the two halves are fused together at the same pressure.

  Once the two halves have been pressed together to form one sphere, the surface of the core is roughened so that the fuzz will stick better. The core is then dipped into a cement compound and ovendried to prepare for the cover application.

  The fuzzy material is felt, a combination of wool, nylon, and Dacron woven together into rolls. The felt is cut into a figure-eight shape (one circular piece of felt wouldn’t fit as snugly on a ball), and the edges of the felt are coated with a seam adhesive. The cores and edges of the two felt strips are mated, the felt is bonded to the core, and the seam adhesive is cured, securing all the materials and for the first time yielding a sphere that looks like a tennis ball.

  After the balls are cured, they are steamed in a large tumbler and fluffed in order to raise the nap on the felt, giving the balls their fuzzy appearance. Different manufacturers fluff their balls to varying degrees. The balls are then sealed in airtight cans pressurized at twelve to fifteen psi, with the goal of keeping the balls at ten to twelve psi.

  The single most expensive ingredient in a tennis ball is the felt. Many other sports do quite well with unfuzzy rubber balls. In the earliest days of tennis, balls had a leather cover, and we
re stuffed with all sorts of things, including human hair. So why do tennis ball manufacturers bother with the fuzz?

  Before the felt is added, a tennis ball has a hard, sleek surface, not unlike a baseball’s. One of the main purposes of the fuzz is to slow the ball down. The United States Tennis Association maintains strict rules concerning the bound of tennis balls. One regulation stipulates, “The ball shall have a bound of more than 53 inches and less than 58 inches when dropped 100 inches upon a concrete base.” The fluffier the felt, the more wind resistance it offers, decreasing not only the bound but the speed of the ball. If the felt were too tightly compacted, the ball would have a tendency to skip on the court.

  A second important reason for fuzzy tennis balls is that the fluffy nap contributes to increased racket control. Every time a tennis ball hits a racket the strings momentarily grip the ball, and the ball compresses. With a harder, sleeker surface, the ball would have a tendency to skip off the racket and minimize the skill of the player.

  A third contribution of fuzz is the least important to a good player but important to us refugees from hardball sports like racquetball and squash. When you get hit hard by a fuzzy tennis ball, you may want to cry, but you don’t feel like you’re going to die.