George William James is an American baseball writer and statistician whose work has been influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books devoted to baseball history and statistics, his approach, which he termed sabermetrics in reference to the Society for American Baseball Research, scientifically analyzes and studies baseball through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose. In 2006, Time named him in the Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world, he was most a senior advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox. James was born in Kansas, his father was a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971, he was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there. Instead, he spent two years stationed in South Korea, during which time he wrote to KU about taking his final class, he was told he had met all his graduation requirements, so he returned to Lawrence in 1973 with degrees in English and economics.

He finished an Education degree in 1975 from the University of Kansas. An aspiring writer and obsessive fan, James began writing baseball articles after leaving the United States Army in his mid-twenties. Many of his first baseball writings came while he was doing night shifts as a security guard at the Stokely-Van Camp's pork and beans cannery. Unlike most writers, his pieces did not recount games in epic terms or offer insights gleaned from interviews with players. A typical James piece posed a question, presented data and analysis written in a lively and witty style that offered an answer. Editors considered James's pieces so unusual. In an effort to reach a wider audience, James began self-publishing an annual book titled The Bill James Baseball Abstract, beginning in 1977; the first edition, titled 1977 Baseball Abstract: Featuring 18 categories of statistical information that you just can't find anywhere else, presented 68 pages of in-depth statistics compiled from James's study of box scores from the preceding season and was offered for sale through a small advertisement in The Sporting News.

Seventy-five people purchased the booklet. The 1978 edition, subtitled The 2nd annual edition of baseball's most informative and imaginative review, sold 250 copies. Beginning in 1979, James wrote an annual preview of the baseball season for Esquire, continued to do so through 1984; the first three editions of the Baseball Abstract garnered respect for James's work, including a favorable review by Daniel Okrent in Sports Illustrated. New annual editions added essays on players. By 1982 sales had increased tenfold, a media conglomerate agreed to publish and distribute future editions. While writers had published books about baseball statistics before, few had reached a mass audience. Attempts to imitate James's work spawned a flood of articles that continues to this day. In 1988, James ceased writing the Abstract, citing workload-related burnout and concern about the volume of statistics on the market, he has continued to publish hardcover books about baseball history, which have sold well and received admiring reviews.

These books include three editions of The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract James has written several series of new annuals: The Baseball Book was a loosely organized collection of commentary, historical articles, occasional pieces of research. James' assistant Rob Neyer was responsible for much of the research, wrote several short pieces. Neyer went on to become a featured baseball columnist at SB Nation; the Player Ratings Book offered statistics and 50-word profiles aimed at the fantasy baseball enthusiast. The Bill James Handbook provides past-season statistics and next-season projections for Major League players and teams, career data for all current Major League players. Results for the Fielding Bible Awards, an alternative to the Gold Glove Awards voted on by a 10-person panel that includes James, are included; the Bill James Gold Mine was a collection of new essays and never-before-seen statistics, as well as profiles of players and teams. Playing off the name of the earlier series, Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom was a mixed collection of both baseball-related and miscellaneous pieces, culled from the Bill James Online archives.

In 2008, James launched Bill James Online. Subscribers can read James's new, original writing and interact with one another —- as well as with James —- in a question-and-answer format; the web site offers new "profiles" of teams and players full of facts and statistics that hope to one day map what James has termed "the lost island of baseball statistics." In an essay published in the 1984 Abstract, James vented his frustration about Major League Baseball's refusal to publish play-by-play accounts of every game. James proposed the creation of Project Scoresheet, a network of fans that would work together to collect and distribute this information. While the resulting non-profit organization never functioned smoothly, it worked well enough to collect accounts of every game from 1984 through 1991. James's publisher agreed to distribute two annuals of essays and data – the 1987 and 1988 editions of Bil

Iota Boötis is a star system in the constellation Boötes. It has the Flamsteed designation 21 Boötis, it is 95 light years from Earth. This star, along with the other Aselli and λ Boo, were Aulād al Dhiʼbah, "the Whelps of the Hyenas". In Chinese, 天槍, meaning Celestial Spear, refers to an asterism consisting of ι Boötis, κ2 Boötis and θ Boötis. Consequently,the Chinese name for ι Boötis itself is 天槍二 Iota Boötis has a companion at an angular distance of 38.6 arcseconds separated with binoculars. The primary component is a white A-type main sequence dwarf with a mean apparent magnitude of +4.75. It is classified as a Delta Scuti type variable star and its brightness varies from magnitude +4.73 to +4.78 with a stable period of 38 minutes. The companion, HD 234121, is a magnitude +8.27 main sequence star belonging to spectral class K0. It is separated from ι Boo by 1,100 AU; the Washington Double Star Catalog lists a 14th magnitude star at 90 arc seconds. HR 5350 CCDM J14162+5122 Image Iota Boötis The Constellations and Named Stars

Sheldon "Shel" Dorf was an American comic book enthusiast and the founder of the San Diego Comic-Con International. Dorf was a freelance artist and graphic designer, who lettered the Steve Canyon comic strip for the last 12 to 14 years of the strip's run. Born in Detroit, Dorf was a fan of comic books and comic strips Chester Gould's work on the daily strip Dick Tracy. Dorf studied at Chicago's Art Institute before moving to New York and beginning his career as a freelancer in the field of commercial design. In the 1960s, Dorf had made the acquaintance of a number of creators working in the two fields, among them Jack Kirby, upon whom Dorf would call. In 1964 back in Detroit, teenager Robert Brusch organised a convention for fans of the comics medium, which Dorf and Jerry Bails, the "father of comics fandom," attended; the next year Dorf and Bails took over the event, christening it the "Detroit Triple Fan Fair" and organizing it as an annual event. The Detroit Triple Fan Fair is credited as being the first held convention featuring comic books as a major component.

Dorf went on to produce the DTFF in 1968 as well. In 1970, Dorf moved to California, to take care of his aging parents, he organized a one-day convention "as a kind of'dry run' for the larger convention he hoped to stage," with Forrest J Ackerman as the star attraction. Dorf's first three-day San Diego comics convention, the Golden State Comic-Con, was held at the U. S. Grant Hotel from August 1–3, 1970, it would grow into the San Diego Comic-Con International, now considered the standard bearer for U. S. comic conventions. The convention moved in subsequent years to the El Cortez Hotel; as "'Founding Father' of San Diego Comic-Con," Dorf received an Inkpot Award at the 1975 San Diego Comic-Con. In 1984 Dorf began compilation and editing of the Dick Tracy comic strips in comic book format for Blackthorne Publishing, "proudly" publishing ninety-nine issues and collecting the material again in twenty-four collections. Chester Gould's daughter, Jean Gould O'Connell credits Dorf with bringing "Tracy out to another generation."

Comics historian Mark Evanier said Caniff "honored Shel by making him into a character. It was a well-meaning football player named "Thud Shelley" who appeared a few times in the Canyon strip. Jack Kirby made Shel into a character... a father figure named Himon who appeared in Mister Miracle. In 1990, Dorf was employed as a consultant on Warren Beatty's big-screen adaptation of Dick Tracy. Dorf would contribute interviews to the comics press and movie collector magazines, his conversations with Milton Caniff and Mort Walker have both been collected in the University Press of Mississippi's Milton Caniff: Conversations and Mort Walker: Conversations respectively, his interview with Wally Wood for TBG was reprinted in Comic Book Artist #14. Dorf died at age 76 on November 3, 2009, from diabetes-related complications in Sharp Memorial Hospital, San Diego, he was survived by Michael. Since 2010, the Shel Dorf Awards have been presented at conventions in Michigan, including Detroit Fanfare and C4. Shel Dorf at the Grand Comics Database Shel Dorf Tribute.com Shel Dorf at the Comic Book DB Remembering Shel Dorf Russ Maheras list of Shel Dorf interviews for "The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom"