2009 Prognostication Quiz: Questions 11 of 14, Baseball

The Yankees Suck Win! They bested the Phillies in the World Series last night, which means that the answer to Question 11 of the 2009 Prognostication Quiz is C. American League in 6 games.

Answer C was by far the most popular answer for Question 11, chosen by 18 of the 43 entrants:

Pete C.
Zoe
Larry
Ben
Stephanie
Adrian
Michael
Missy
Jan
Kevin
Leanne
Ellen
Zhiqi
Sarah
Cameron
Russell
Greg
Eric

Eliminations

Four people were eliminated by question 11:
Ekrem
Pamela
Ana
Jeremiah

And while the hurricane season doesn't officially end until the end of the month (and despite Ida's upgrade to hurricane strength), we would still need three more hurricanes to get out of answer A. I can tentatively eliminate these five (though a miraculous concentration of hurricane activity this month would resurrect some):
Stephanie
Grant
Missy
Tina
Leanne

Leaderboard

That brings us down to just five people with a chance of winning based on Question 13 (Dow Jones Index) and Question 14 (Minnesota Snowfall):

7 Ted
6 Matthew
6 Pete C.
6 Zoe
5 Larry

Zoe was tied with her husband Ted until he pulled away on Question 9, but she has stayed within striking distance. To win, though, she needs the Dow to drop back below 8500, which doesn't seem likely. Pete C. has had an impressive run, too, but he would also need the Dow to fall quite a bit (to under 9000). Additionally, both Pete and Zoe picked E on question 14 along with Ted, so they will need tiebreaking help, too.

My father, Larry, has had the longest run of any member of my family in this year's quiz (my three siblings were eliminated with the current question), but he is a very dark horse. He needs to get both of the final answers correct just to tie Ted and then has to best him in the tiebreaker.

Most likely, then, this has come down to a final fight between Ted and Matthew. Ted will win outright (no need for tiebreaking) if the Dow ends the year where it is right now (between 9500 and 10,000). If the Dow continues to climb and ends the year over 10,000, Matthew has the advantage because he picked a lower snowfall amount (Minnesota has had less than average snowfall to date) which makes him more likely to win either by getting both answers correct or by winning the tiebreaker. It should be an exciting finish! Hold on to your hats!

The Basement

Sadly, Rachel H. did not correctly predict the World Series result and thus seems rather unlikely to win even a single point in this year's quiz. She would need either a precipitous drop in the Dow or a slightly above average year of snowfall for Minnesota. If she holds on, she would beat the current record holder for low score in a quiz. (I have the dubious distinction of having scored just one point last year.) Rachel's feat would be all the more impressive since there are two additional questions this year, too. Go, Rachel, go!