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I'd like to get football data out of Wolfram|Alpha and into Mathematica 9, but I'm having some minor difficulty. Naturally, I'd like to know how to accomplish this task (details below), but I'm more interested in learning how I should have figured it out on my own.

TeamNames = {"Giants", "Redskins", "Cowboys", "Eagles", "Packers", 
   "Bears", "Vikings", "Lions", "Falcons", "Saints", "Panthers", 
   "Buccaneers", "49ers", "Seahawks", "Rams", "Cardinals", "Patriots",
   "Dolphins", "Bills", "Jets", "Ravens", "Bengals", "Steelers", 
   "Browns", "Texans", "Colts", "Titans", "Jaguars", "Broncos", 
   "Chargers", "Raiders", "Chiefs"};
Table[WolframAlpha[ TeamNames[[i]] <> " in 2010", 
   {{"Schedule:NFLTeamData", 1}, "ComputableData"}], 
   {i, 1, 32}]

This code gets the schedules for all but three teams (Cardinals, Bills, Texans). I'm unable to get schedules for those teams through the "WolframAlpha" command, although they are available through the web interface.

So here's the (big) question in a nutshell: how do I figure out how to phrase a WolframAlpha query so that it gets exactly what I want? Of course that question is too broad, but I mean that a best answer will not be a simple command that gets the data I want, but a route by which I could have figured it out myself.

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    $\begingroup$ No expert an Alpha, but my guess is trial and error is the only way. This question may be not constructive since your (big) question is rather broad in scope (although I hope someone can answer with authority - it would also be very interesting to hear about longterm stability of such queries). $\endgroup$
    – Yves Klett
    Jan 14, 2013 at 15:53
  • $\begingroup$ The "big question" is completely unanswerable. Suggest the OP edit his query to remove it because it is both subjective ("What I want") and too broad (OP wants answer the cover any possible query). $\endgroup$
    – m_goldberg
    Jan 14, 2013 at 16:16

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Although WolframAlpha is a pretty clever engine it has troubles when dealing with ambiguous information. In your example, WolframAlpha interprets "Bills" as a given name, "Texans" as a US state and "Cardinals" as a MLB team.

enter image description here

By just adding "NFL" in your query you get the schedules of all teams:

Table[WolframAlpha[
    TeamNames[[i]] <> " in 2010 NFL", {{"Schedule:NFLTeamData", 1}, 
    "ComputableData"}], {i, 1, 32}]
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  • $\begingroup$ Hmm .. so WA does not give a list of catholic cardinals extant in 2010? :) $\endgroup$
    – image_doctor
    Jan 14, 2013 at 16:35
  • $\begingroup$ It worked for those three "problem" teams this morning, but now this is not working for some other teams, which really punctuates the question. Could it be an issue of timing out? The web form gives an "Input Interpretation", is there some way to give input in this form (to avoid misinterpretations)? $\endgroup$
    – Kevin O'Bryant
    Jan 15, 2013 at 19:22
  • $\begingroup$ @KevinO'Bryant Try to match the way "input interpretation" stores different datasets. What I mean is that when you ask WolframAlpha to search for "Cardinals in 2010 NFL" the "input interpretation" field displays "Arizona Cardinals" and you could use this as a hint on how to ask for this sort of information. Redefine your TeamNames by substituting the team names with the longer version that matches the "input interpretation", e.g. "Arizona Cardinals" instead of just "Cardinals". $\endgroup$
    – VLC
    Jan 16, 2013 at 7:50

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