Thursday, September 18, 2008

Time to check in on the reclamation efforts

A couple of days ago we saw this update on recordnet.com. We read it and came up with one pressing question. The same question we ask when we see an article about the NBA and don't see a Kings mention (which is often). "That's nice and all, but how are we doing?" Yes, we're horribly vain.

Considering the FBI isn't going to even compile that information for a while, we won't find out until next year. But what that article did do was give us the itch. That kind of itch you get when it's April and the NFL draft rolls around. It's not actual football, but it's something. And I'll be damned if we weren't all holed up at Chitivas watching the draft coverage while the rest of the city enjoyed the Asparagus Festival. (The dollar beers helped)

So without any real new information coming out, we have to make due with what we got. This site helped for a bit. Right up until crime stopped cold on August 19th. (Who runs that site? El Duké?)

Fortunatly, the man that drove a grand total of 7 unique hits (as of last night) to us, Christian Burkin comes to the rescue. While we're amazed the Record has to figure out the violent crime rate rankings themselves (Note: Journalism degrees and math don't mix. Or so all our degree having friends say), we're also amazed at how fucking glorious this spreadsheet is. (Note: Glorious to nerds like us. [Note: How many notes is one sentence allowed?])

Never before has someone so easily visualized our violent crime rate title reclamation efforts. We're working on bringing in Ron Jaworski to break it down for us. But until then, let's hit the basics.

The defending champion Oakland averaged a little bit more than 19 violent crimes per 1,000 people. While Stockton averaged just a skosh more than 14 per 1,000.

Fuck. That's a bit of a difference. I guess I now know how Raider fans feel after they read training camp reports. (Sorry, couldn't help myself. Although to be honest, we knew that feeling the second we saw "J.T. O'Sullivan named first week starter" scroll across the news feed.)

So if our math is correct (which it isn't), we need 5,000 more violent crimes in order to have a shot at reclaiming our title. Cue the Rocky theme.

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