Ken Griffey Jr. played 22 Big League seasons, yet he’ll always be known as “The Kid.”

Now, Arizona Nation will get to further know the Kid’s kids.

Taryn Griffey, the hot-shot basketball phenom of Griffey Jr., committed to the University of Arizona this week, eschewing much more dynamic programs in the process.

Junior’s junior was the Florida High School Athletic Association’s Class 8A player of the year and a two-time state champ at Orlando’s Dr. Phillips High School, (that’s a real school) before tearing her ACL. Despite the injury, she still drew interest from some of the sport’s biggest programs.

That’s a major coup for an Arizona program that went 12-18 (4-13 Pac-12) last season. Things are looking up in Tucson, however. This spring the Wildcats saw their first player (Davellyn Whyte) drafted into the WNBA.

Part of the lure of the Old Pueblo for Taryn certainly was a chance to attend school with her older brother Trey, a wide receiver on Rich Rodriguez’ football team.

FAMILY TIES

It can be argued that Griffey Junior — who jumped to The Show right out of Cincinnati’s Moeller High School — can now be considered an honorary Wildcat alum.

Where do the Griffey’s rank among Arizona’s family lineages?

Damon and Salim Stoudamire: Cousins dominated the hardwood in Tucson, before taking their games to the NBA.

Lute Olson, Julie and Matt Brase: Julie and Matt, played their college ball on a court named after their grandparents.

Rob and Chris Gronkowski: The brothers Gronked Tucson before becoming cult icons in the NFL.

Nic and Dondre Wise: PG Nic continues his hoops career overseas, while walk-on brother is seeking coaching gigs.

Ron and Brad Hassey: Ron was a slugging,  MLB, journey-man catcher in the 80s and 90s with the Yankees, White Sox and Indians. Brad manned shortstop for the Wildcats.

TARYN GRIFFEY

Twitter-view: Interviewing characters in 140 characters or less.

Courtney Karst has inked a deal to play professional volleyball in Indonesia. The former University of Arizona outside hitter played in every set for the Wildcats in 2011, leading the team in kills (360) en route to All Pac-12 Honorable Mention honors. We caught up with the former Wildcat outside hitter for a quick Twitter chat…

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“It’s official! I signed a contract this morning to go play professional volleyball in Indonesia! Still not sure when I leave though!” – Courtney Karst @courtyk23

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@courtyk23 Congrats, Courtney. Can I talk you into a Twitter-view? A few interview questions via Twitter for TucsonCitizen.com? – Chris W

— Christopher Wuensch (@BearDownAndBlog) January 17, 2013

@courtyk23 How would you describe the outpouring of support today?

— Christopher Wuensch (@BearDownAndBlog) January 17, 2013

@beardownandblog it’s amazing! You never know how many people really support you and this really opens my eyes to it!

— Courtney Karst (@Courtyk23) January 17, 2013

@beardownandblog started playing rec Vball when I was 7 club volleyball when I was 12! And no definitely never thought I’d be a pro!

— Courtney Karst (@Courtyk23) January 17, 2013

(more…)

Misty May-Treanor, right, of Team USA’s women’s beach volleyball team, blows out candles on a birthday cake(s), one day after turning 35 on July 30 in London. Photo by Ryan Pierse – Getty Images

Thank u soooo much to all those that wished me a Happy Birthday.I truly am blessed by having such great fans people in my life! #TeamUSA

— Misty May-Treanor (@MistyMayTreanor) July 31, 2012

There’s one song being played at the XXX London Olympics more than any other ditty — more than the anthem’s of gold-medal leaders China and the United States combined.

It’s the traditional celebratory jingle “Happy birthday.”

There are 32 Olympic athletes — from USA’s Tia Brooks to Poland’s Lukasz Zygadlo — who will go out to dinner tonight and pray their teammates don’t employ the waiters to sing for them.

It’s called the Birthday Paradox, although it’s more of a mathematics equation than an absurd coincidence.

You don’t have to be Neil Degrasse Tyson to figure out the odds of someone sharing a birthday in a sample size of 10,960 athletes from 205 countries.

In fact, all you need is a pool of 75 athletes for a 99.9 percent chance that two of them will end up running around the Olympic Village in their birthday uniforms.

(Although, it sounds like just about everyone runs around the Olympic Village in their birthday suits at night).

A sample size of 75 competitors is nothing. There are twice that many athletes and coaches (158 total) on Team USA’s track & field team alone.

Even with as little as 23 people, the odds of a birthday match are 50-50.

You only need a dozen players from Team USA’s women’s basketball squad to find a match. Maya Moore and Diana Taurasi were born seven years apart on June 11.

According to BetterExplained.com:

With 23 people we have 253 pairs:

23 X 22 / 2 = 253

The chance of 2 people having different birthdays is:

1 – 1/365 = 364/365 = .997260

Makes sense, right? There’s 364 out of 365 birthdays that are “OK.”

Having all 253 pairs be different is like getting heads 253 times in a row (well, sort-of: let’s assume birthdays are independent). We use exponents to find the probability:

 (364/365) 253 = .4995

99.7260% is really close to one, but when you multiply it by itself a few hundred times, it shrinks. Really fast.

The chance that we have a match is: 1 – 49.95% = 50.05%, or just over half! If you want to find the probability of a match for any number of people n the formula is:

P(n) = 1 – (364/365) c(n,2) = 1 – (364/365) n(n-1)/2

Honestly, for a math dolt such as myself, that doesn’t better explain anything for me. Simply dividing 10,960 by 365 gives us 30 people — a simple, yet likely flawed, equation that surely makes mathematicians cringe. What I do know is, over the course of the first week of the Olympics, the number has been in the ballpark of 30 every day.

What BetterExplained.com doesn’t equate, is the odds of winning a gold medal on your birthday.

Daniele Molmenti probably doesn’t care about those odds.

Don’t know who Molmenti is? He’s the Italian kayak slalom champ running around the Olympic Village on Aug. 1 with nothing but his brand new gold medal hanging around his neck. Happy 28th birthday, Daniele.

HOW TO SAY “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” IN 25 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES