Author: Vin

Vin is a Philly boy who shouldn't be invited into your house because he'll judge you on your book and music collection. He owns Dawkins, Utley, Iverson, and Lindros jerseys, which is all you really need to know about him. He can be reached at [email protected].

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All Other Sports

Now that’s some international trash talkin’

About a month ago, we told you about “the handbag incident” involving two members of the All Blacks, a New Zealand rugby team. (Here’s the short synopsis: two All Blacks go to a bar and one gets into a fight, one of them grabs a handbag and hits the other on the head, the hittee starts crying.) Well, the handbag rears its ugly head again.

Ahead of the Tri Nations rugby tournament, a television station has created a hilarious ad with footage of the All Blacks doing their bad-ass Maori war chant, the haka. However, they digitally added in some large womens handbags. Understandably, the All Blacks aren’t too happy with this.


It’s insensitive, I think, to Maori and disrespectful of the All Blacks,” New Zealand assistant coach Wayne Smith said.

Links:

[Sydney Morning Herald]: All Blacks cop a bagging
[You Tube]: Handbag Haka

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MLB General

The Full Count: Who will Ozzie start?

1. All Star start to Rogers?: Kenny Rogers won his 11th game yesterday, tying him with Tom Glavine for most wins in either league. But the bigger news is that his success this season could lead him to the All Star game start. That’s right, Ozzie Guillen said he was leaning towards Rogers to start the game over Jose Contreras, the White Sox’s undefeated right-hander. Rogers this year is 11-3 for the division-leading Tigers, though his ERA is just 3.85. But Guillen inferred that the choice was based more on what dates the pitchers would start. Rogers’ start yesterday is his last before the All Star game, while Contreras and most others have another start. Guillen also said that his closer for the game should he need one would be Mariano Rivera instead of Bobby Jenks.

2. First to 50: The American League has already had three teams with 50 wins for a while now, but the National League got their first yesterday. The team? The New York Mets, whose 11.5 game division lead is by far the largest in baseball. The Mets won 5-0 yesterday over the hapless Pirates, with all the scoring coming in the first inning. Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez had his best start of the season, shutting out the Pirates in 7 innings. The Mets are so good because they are so balanced; they have scored the 2nd most runs in the NL and allowed the 3rd fewest.

3. Team of the Future: The Mets may be on top of the NL East now, but the Marlins showed yesterday why they will be the class of the division in about 2 years. They trounced the Nationals 18-9, with all of their young stars coming through on offense. Miguel Cabrera hit a home run and had four RBIs, Dan Uggla went 4-6 with 4 driven in, and Josh Willingham went 4-6 with a homer and 3 RBIs. The Nationals scored some runs of their own, but their pitching completely broke down. Reliever Saul Rivera had one of the best lines of the year, allowing 8 hits and 8 runs in just 0.1 innings pitched. His ERA jumped from 3.44 to 6.75 as a result. The Marlins are 12.5 games back with a 36-45 record, though interestingly they have scored and allowed an identical amount of runs (383).

4. Payback: After the Cleveland Indians demolished the Yankees 19-1 on Tuesday, the Yanks responded with an offensive showing of their own. They beat the Indians 11-3, including an 8-run 4th inning. That inning included a grand slam by Melky Cabrera, who has filled in decently for Hideki Matsui. The Yankees stole 6 bases off Indians catcher Victor Martinez, and 6 different players drove in a run. Meanwhile, Mike Mussina won his 10th game of the year, the 15th year in a row that he has won double digits. Mussina didn’t make the All Star team despite a 3.24 ERA and 1.04 WHIP, both of which rank in the top 5 in the league.

5. A complete mess: That is the only thing that can describe the situation with Barry Bonds’ trainer, Greg Anderson. Yesterday Anderson was held in contempt of court and sent to prison for an undisclosed amount of time. Anderson, who served three months in prison last year, refused to testify to a grand jury. He was supposed to testify as to whether Barry Bonds committed perjury in December 2003, but he refused to cooperate with the jury. We have a feeling this won’t be the last prison sentence Anderson gets.

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MLB General

June 6 in Sports History: The First All-Star Game

In 1933: The first Major League All-Star Game took place in Chicago’s Comiskey Park (and the whole idea was proposed by a sportswriter nonetheless). The American League, featuring Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx defeated the National League squad, 4-2. Ruth hit the very first homer in al-star history in the third inning, with a blast into the right field bleachers.


and in 1983: The 50th Anniversary of the midsummer classic was also held in Comiskey Park. Once again, the AL won, this time a 13-3 rout over the senior circuit. Fred Lynn of the California Angels hit the first grand slam in the game’s history, once again in the third inning.

In 2002: Daryle Ward of the Houston Astros hit PNC Park’s first and only home run into the Allegheny river on the fly (many have bounced in off of the walkway behind the bleachers). Ward’s 479-foot grand slam helped pace the Astros to a 10-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The event was significant to me for two reasons. First, I was at the game; and second, Ward would be my neighbor for a brief period while with the Pirates during the 2005 season, before later signing with the Washington Nationals in the offseason. I moved into the apartment next to Ward on July 6 of last year.

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Soccer

Odds and Ends: Italy 8:11 favorites to win the World Cup

Ladbrokes has set the Italians as a slight favorite to win the World Cup Finals at 8/11. The Italians haven’t given up a goal in a game for the entire World Cup except an own goal to the United States. However, after watching the old French team run through the tournament, is it really smart to bet against Zidane and the boys?

In other news…

[China Daily]: 100 arrested in Pakistan for World Cup betting

[Reuters]: Pranksters fill soccer balls with concrete

[Reuters]:FIFA to fly Shaolin temple abbot to final

[AZ Central]: Landon Donovan proves he’s a good player against mediocre opposition

[Detroit Free Press]: Boy, 8, gets once in (early) lifetime ace

[Border Battle]: Eddie Griffin: Multi-Tasker Extraordinaire

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MLB General

Dusty Baker is on his way out



Wish almost granted

We’ll never forgive Dusty Baker was completely mismanaging Game 6 of the 2002 World Series and then hightailing it out of town after the season. So we knew it was a matter of time before the Cubs figured out that Dusty is a horrible manager that had the benefit of coaching a team with Barry Bonds at the prime of his career.

On July 4th, Cubs GM Jim Hendry announced that he would use the All-Star break to determine whether the club needed a complete overhaul. Hmmm… at 30-53 and a $95M payroll, the inevitable answer is: Yes. It looks like Baker and coaches Gene Clines, Larry Rothschild, Gary Matthews, and Juan Lopez will be gone as early as next week. Dusty Baker’s contract will expire in 133 days (thanks to the folks at FireDustyBaker.com for that countdown clock.) but that’s not soon enough to get rid of him.

Here are some reactions from the Cubs blogosphere:

“I still maintain that it is absolutely pointless to put some interim guy — and it’s been suggested that if Baker and the coaching staff were dumped, Chris Speier might be the only one retained and he’d be that “interim” guy — in to finish out this morass of a year, and then conduct a search in the offseason, as they did in 2002. Is that what you all want? Three months of another Bruce Kimm? What’s the point?” — Bleed Cubbie Blue

“I am anxiously awaiting the firing of the Dusty Bunch, but I also want to see my Cubbies start playing well again. I am conflicted internally, because if the team does really well, I worry that Dusty will keep his job. On the other hand, I feel like a traitor for hoping that the Cubs do so miserably that Hendry can’t possibly justify holding onto Baker for another minute. The reality is that I truly can’t stand the lame politics that are keeping the Dusty Bunch in power. It is all about Hendry/Tribsters saving face, and nothing to do with what is best for the team, and that is that saddest part of this entire mess of a season.” — Chicago Cubs Online

“But it is not all Baker’s fault. Hendry is not innocent as well. He had to know that Wood and Prior was shaky at best. If he knew that. A good arm was need to be added. Instead he relied on young pitching and it showed. The Cubs really slowed down after Maddux hot start finally and predictably cooled off. Marshall,Williams and Rusch was not enough. And if Hendry thought otherwise, well he was just fooling himself.So he is as much at fault as Baker. Except on difference, Hendry has stated publicly that he was wrong for doing what he did with this team. But I’ve yet to hear Baker condemn himself for the bad play of this team in the last two and half months.” — Firing from the Bullpen

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All Other Sports

She’s a screamer

Shrieking, grunting, whatever you call it, Sharapova certainly does it. And does it loudly. Yesterday, her opponent Elena Dementieva said that she needed to turn it down a notch.


Personally I think it’s a little bit too much. I think the umpire should calm down her a little bit. Next time I beat her, I will say something. But when you losing…it doesn’t look good if you go to the umpire and talking about how loud she screaming on the court.

Perhaps Dementieva was distracted by the streaker that ran onto the court and did some cartwheels for the fans. For her part, Sharapova said that if she were told to tone it down a bit, she “wouldn’t change a thing.”

Links:

[MSNBC]: Streaker can’t stop Sharapova from semis
[MSNBC]: Sharapova vows to carry on shrieking

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All Other Sports

Controversy at the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest!



Relishing the moment

Kobayashi won his sixth title yesterday at the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating contest by eating 53 3/4 hot dogs. That’s about 12 pounds of hot dogs and buns. However, not to be outdone by questionable officiating in the World Cup, the hot dog eating contest had some controversy of its own.

After the 50th hot dog, Kobayashi appeared to throw up some some hot dog and bun, a disqualification in competitive eating. However, he quickly gulped it back down. While his main competition Joey Chestnut pointed it out and was hoping for a DQ, the judge ruled in Kobayashi’s favor.


The effluvia never touched the table,” Kuntzman said, a distinction he claimed was part of the International Federation of Competitive Eating’s official rules.

“When the hot dog came up, and some of it came out his nose, Kobayashi sucked it back down. To me, that’s the testament of a champion and great athlete.

That’s the first time we’ve ever heard an official use the word effluvia. It looks like Kobayashi got the benefit of the call for being a world champion. For those who don’t think eating is a sport, it sounds exactly like what would happen in the NBA.

Links:
[SFGate]: Controversy dogs eating contest
San Jose challenger’s dreams ground down as 5-time champ from Japan sets world record

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MLB General

The Full Count: No birthday present for George

1. Happy Birthday, Boss: George Steinbrenner celebrated his 76th birthday last night. So did the Yankees’ opponent, the Indians. Cleveland’s offense came alive for a 19-1 bashing of New York, the second-most runs scored by any team in a game this season. Travis Hafner demonstrated why he should be on the All Star team by crushing 2 home runs and 4 RBIs. Catcher Victor Martinez, one of the league’s most underrated players, went 5-6 and drove in 3. Six Indians had 2 or more hits, and six also had 2 or more RBIs. Shawn Chacon took the bulk of the beating for the Yankees by allowing 7 runs in less than 2 innings. The Indians also featured some good pitching in the rout: Jake Westbrook went 7 innings and allowed no earned runs. Cleveland is no stranger to blowing out the Yankees; in August 2004 they crushed them 22-0.

2. Tying it up: The Blue Jays have been creeping up on the Yankees for almost two months now, and they finally tied them in the standings yesterday. Roy Halladay, the Blue Jays’ All Star pitcher, became the first AL starter to reach 11 wins on the year. Halladay worked 7.2 scoreless innings to capture what eventually became a 3-2 win over the Rangers. That’s because BJ Ryan almost blew the game in the 9th inning. Ryan, whose ERA has been well below 1 for most of the season, allowed 2 runs in the ninth but escaped with the save. Both the Blue Jays and the Yanks are now 4 games back of the Red Sox in the East, and that’s with Boston losing yesterday. Meanwhile, the Rangers fell to 42-42 but are still in 2nd place in the awful AL West division.

3. Make it 17: Jose Contreras, the AL’s likely starter in the All Star game, remained undefeated with one of his best outings in a while yesterday. Contreras, who posted a 6.21 ERA in June but escaped 3-0, worked 6.2 scoreless innings last night to improve to 9-0. Contreras needed little run support but he got plenty of it; the White Sox offense blew up the Orioles for 13 runs. Paul Konerko hit his 21st homer of the season as every Sox starter scored a run and got a hit. At 54-29, Chicago remains 1.5 back of the Tigers for the AL Central lead.

4. A three-way tie: The NL West has been the most competitive division in the majors ever since the season started. Teams move in and out of first very quickly in this division, in which currently all 5 teams are separated by just 3.5 games. Right now three teams are tied for the lead: the Rockies, the Padres, and the Dodgers (43-40 each). The Giants are just a half game back, while the struggling Diamondbacks are bringing up the rear. The division could be called the NL’s best or worst depending on how you look at it. While all teams are close, the 43-40 mark is the worst in the majors for any division leader. Which team should emerge from this mess? We’ll take the Dodgers, whose offense surprisingly leads the NL in runs scored.

5. LLLLLLima time!!!: In one of the most entertaining stories possible, the Mets recalled Jose Lima from AAA. Lima, who posted an 8.79 ERA in three starts earlier this year, will look to further the Mets’ recent struggles. Or maybe not, considering his 3.86 ERA in seven starts in the minors. Either way, we’ll get to say “Lima Time” one more time.

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MLB General

July 5 in Sports History: Breaking the AL color barrier

In 1947: Larry Doby of the Cleveland Indians becomes the first black player to appear in the American League. Doby would join the Indians almost four months after Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers broke baseball’s color barrier. Doby was only a part-time player in his rookie season, but would go on to have a solid career with the Indians, White Sox and Tigers, hitting .283 lifetime with seven straight all-star game invites and two World Series appearances in 1948 and 1954.

In 1946: Two gentlemen named Jacques Helm and Louis Reard helped create what they called “four triangles of nothing.” Spring Break. Senior Week, Sports Illustrated and trips to my apartment complex pool would finally become interesting as the bikini was unveiled on a Paris runway; and it caught on in America shortly afterward. While the two-piece bathing suit had been around for centuries, it took Helm’s design and Reard’s marketing genius (as in,” lets get that thing on a model and show it off”) to help make the bikini what it is today.

In 1980: Sweden’s Bjorn Borg defeated American John McEnroe in the men’s final at Wimbledon in perhaps the most memorable and dramatic finals in tennis history (although we rank the one where Pete Sampras vomited and any of the combined 564 career professional appearances of Maria Sharapova and Anna Kournikova as personal favorites). The match not only see-sawed for five sets, it also featured a dramatic, 34-point tiebreaker in the fourth set won by McEnroe, 18-16. Borg, however, got the last laugh in the fifth, winning 8-6 and capturing a record fifth consecutive Wimbledon men’s singles title.

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MLB General

The Full Count: All-Star teams announced



Top NL and AL vote getters

1. All Star teams announced: The highly anticipated All Star game selections came last night, and for the first time in a while there appears to be no (major) snubs. The Mets and White Sox lead all teams with six selections, and the Red Sox and Yankees combined for 5 players in the AL starting lineup. The Mets will start 4, and 6 of the 8 NL starters will come from the NL East division. Almost every player who deserved a spot got on the rosters, available here. Those who didn’t could still earn a spot through final fan voting of five nominees. The AL nominees are Justin Verlander, Francisco Liriano, Travis Hafner, Ramon Hernandez, and AJ Pierzynski. The NL candidates will be Bobby Abreu, Billy Wagner, Chris Young, Chris Capuano, and Nomar Garciaparra. Unfortunately only one of those players can make it from each league, and the ballots are available online. We’d take Liriano and Garciaparra.

2. A-Rod over Mets: Alex Rodriguez had his best game of the season on a huge stage, almost single-handedly upstaging the Mets on Sunday Night Baseball. A-Rod hit 2 homers and drove in 7, including a grand slam in the 3rd that put the Yankees up for good. The Yankees scored 8 runs in that inning, and they cruised by the Mets 16-7. It was another attempt by Rodriguez to prove his doubters wrong, as many were wondering if he deserved the All Star start (which he got). A-Rod finished the series win over the Mets 5-12, with 3 homers and 9 RBIs. He is now on pace for 39 and 133 over the season, which sound like A-Rod numbers to me. It’s about time that Yankees fans just shut up about how disappointing he is. Sure, he was awful in the playoffs last year, but without his monstrous contributions in the regular season New York wouldn’t have gone that far.

3. Lightning lefty: Is there any question who the AL rookie of the Year will be? At least for now, it has to go to Francisco Liriano. He has so fully dominated his opponents this season, he even has a chance to win the Cy Young. After shutting out the Mariners last night in 8 innings and striking out 12, Liriano is 9-1 on the year. He has racked up 7 consecutive quality starts, and on the year has a 1.99 ERA and .97 WHIP. Liriano just defines unhittable–opponents have only batted .203 against him this year. The Twins are almost guaranteed a win 2 of 5 days with Liriano and Johan Santana in the rotation. The team has now won 10 in a row, and should be a strong contender for the AL Wild Card.

4. A pitcher’s nightmare: That described yesterday’s White Sox-Cubs game, which turned out to be one of the most high-scoring and crazy games of the year. Going into the game many expected a pitcher’s duel between Mark Beurhle and Carlos Zambrano, but they both got shelled. Beurhle allowed 11 runs in 5 innings, while Zambrano gave up 7 in 6 but escaped with the victory. The Cubs won 15-11 in the end, in a game in which four players homered for each side.

5. Start me up: The starting pitchers for each side in the All Star game has yet to be announced, but Brandon Webb has sure made his case in the NL. Though the Diamondbacks ace struggled in June, he returned to his dominant form yesterday. Webb fired a four-hitter against the A’s, striking out seven in a complete game. He outdueled Barry Zito, who allowed 1 earned run through 8.2. Webb finally earned his 9th win on the year after going 8-0 through May. He has been the best pitcher in a league where there has been no truly dominant starter. On the AL side of things, Johan Santana deserves the start but it will likely go to undefeated Jose Contreras. Contreras is 8-0 but is inferior to Santana is every aspect but winning percentage.