Big Data – "Dangerous" (2014)

How could they know? 

How could they know

What I’ve been thinking?

Here’s one of the questions from my pub trivia game this week: 

While it might seem to be impossible, this major-league baseball team actually postponed a game due to rain after flooding from a tropical storm caused a 1976 game to be rescheduled.  For your wager, what was the name of that team?

To say that my teammates and I were nonplussed by that question is an understatement.  Baseball games get rained out all the time – why would you describe one particular 1976 rainout as seemingly “impossible”?

We wondered if the fact that the flooding that necessitated the postponement was the result of a tropical storm was significant.  Perhaps the rainout seemed like an impossibility because it took place in a city that was so far from the usual route of tropical storms – say, for example, Minneapolis or Kansas City.

But even if we had been on the right track, we needed to identify the specific city that had an MLB team in 1976 to get our wager – and there are a number of cities in the middle part of the United States that would seem equally unlikely to have been within range of a tropical storm.

So we kept talking, getting more and more desperate as the time allowed for us to respond to the question ticked away.  Finally one of my trivia teammates wondered whether the answer might involve a domed stadium – and the penny dropped.

*     *     *     *     *

I was a law student in 1976, and spent the summer of that year in Houston, interning with a large law firm.  At that time, Houston was home to the world’s only domed baseball stadium – the Astrodome, which had hosted the Houston Astros’ home games since 1965:

When my teammate said “domed stadium,” I thought about the Astrodome, where I had attended a number of baseball games.  And suddenly I remembered that there had been an Astros game rained out while I was there in 1976. 

I hadn’t thought about that bizarre incident in almost 50 years, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t immediately recollect that event. 

*     *     *     *     *

Houston summers are characterized by high temperatures, high humidity, and afternoon thunderstorms.  On June 15 of that summer, a torrential storm hit Houston around noon and dumped over ten inches of rain on the Astrodome.  

The Astros players started arriving for the 700p game with the Pittsburgh Pirates about an hour after the rain started falling.  The Pirates’ team bus showed up shortly thereafter.  Both teams assumed the game would start on time – they were playing in a roofed stadium, of course, so why would they think any different?

The stadium’s original roof had been replaced before the 1976 season, and the new roof performed flawlessly.  But the parking lots were under water, and the streets leading to the Astrodome became impassable hours before the game was supposed to start:

At about 500p, the Astros decided to call off the game.  Given that the umpires for the game had been unable to get to the Astrodome – they had abandoned their cars when they stalled out in the high water, and waded back to their hotel – they really had no choice.

*     *     *     *     * 

The Astros set up tables in the vicinity of second base and treated players from both teams – who were in uniform by that time – to a buffet dinner.

The handful of fans who had somehow made it to the game were treated to a meal in one of the stadium’s restaurants.

The rain started slacking off about the time the game was supposed to begin but it took hours for the flooding to subside.  The Pirates’ bus was able to get back to the team hotel, but it was a very slow trip through the submerged streets.  Some of the Astrodome employees and Astros players drove home while others chose to spend the night at the stadium.

The 1976 Astros uniforms

One Astro who slept in the clubhouse described what things were like the following morning:

The drive home was surreal.  No one was on the roads.  As I got on the interstate by the ’Dome, I had to weave through abandoned cars [that had been] left right where they stalled the night before.  I couldn’t shake the feeling I was in some kind of world-ending disaster flick.

Click here to read more about the 1976 Astrodome rainout.

*     *     *     *     *

I seriously doubt that any of the other trivia teams who competed that night knew the answer to that question.  (What are the odds that any of the other players playing trivia in suburban Maryland that night had spent the summer of 1976 in Houston?)

It astonishes me that I was able to dredge up the memory of that rained-out baseball game.  I didn’t attempt to go to that game, so any knowledge I had of what happened would have come from watching the local news that night or reading the next day’s newspaper.

If I had recounted the story of that game to friends and family members over the years, it wouldn’t be surprising that I remembered it.  I’ve told a lot of stories about other events that took place when I was a law student, but I’ve never told anyone about that game – I would have guessed that it was so deeply buried in the inner recesses of my brain that it was irretrievable.  But somehow I came up with it in the two minutes that are allowed for us to answer trivia questions.

*     *     *     *     *

Today’s featured recording was brought to the attention of 2 or 3 lines by one of its many devoted fans.  (Most of the recordings those fans suggest that we feature are pretty lame, but even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while – and this is one of those times.)

Big Data is an electronic music “project” that is best known for its 2014 single, “Dangerous.”

Here’s how the man behind Big Data described the “Dangerous” music video described it to a interviewer:

The video follows the launch of a fictional sneaker by Big Data Shoes, from its initial conception and testing, through its marketing phase, to the actual TV commercial advertising the sneaker, and cutting back and forth seamlessly between each world.  The central twist is that the lifestyle being marketed along with the Big Data Shoe is one of pure evil – the shoe subconsciously encourages its wearers to head-butt unsuspecting victims, causing their brains to explode in a Scanners-style orgy of blood and guts.

But the fictional TV commercial doesn’t rely solely on violence.  The creative team behind the commercial also throws in plenty of sexy slow-motion shots of women running in the shoes before ending it with some serious lesbian kissing.   

Click here to watch the “Dangerous” music video.

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.