Sad day for every baseball lover

Harmon Killibrew has passed away after a 5-month battle with esophageal cancer. He's much loved here. A street near the Mall of America (built on the grounds of the old Met Stadium where Harmon played) is named for him. The grounds of the new stadium, Target Field, is home to statues of Twins greats, including Harmon.

Cancer, you suck extra badly this week.

You're a King, BUT

This is brilliant.  The idea.  The execution.  Perfect.  (And a great marketing ploy for the ad agency itself, Leo Burnett.)

RE: Tiger

Of course it was scripted. Bazillionaires' speeches are ever so. And of course we can never know what goes on in another's heart. What I meant was there was very little in the way of weasel words for the actual apology part:

Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in.

I know people want to find out how I could be so selfish and so foolish. People want to know how I could have done these things to my wife Elin and to my children. And while I have always tried to be a private person, there are some things I want to say.

Elin and I have started the process of discussing the damage caused by my behavior. As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time.

"...I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in [emph. mine; dangling preposition his]" and "my real apology to her will not come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time [emph. mine]."

While I haven't gone back amd listened or viewed or read again, in the meat here there is none of that "if I offended" type of bologna that puts the fault on the victim or the fan.

Tiger

A few weeks late but an apology even Michael could agree was a real one.

McGwire

When I heard the story on the radio yesterday that Mark McGwire admitted steroid use, I was so confused, because I thought we already knew this. I had to have my memory refreshed that he had declined to come clean earlier.

The better headline is not that he used steroids, but that he's shown himself to be completely delusional:

Still, McGwire told Costas he “absolutely” could have broken the record without using steroids, pointing to his home run prowess going back to Little League.

I'll give him this about his prowess. It takes a special kind of douchebaggery prowess to wait until after the most recent round of Hall of Fame voting to make the admission.

As a North Dakota girl, I'm obliged to note that Roger Maris, born in Minnesota, grew up in Grand Forks and Fargo, ND. Maris held the single-season home run record prior to baseball's steroid period.

Could not have been more wrong

I didn't think Favre would be effective: "He's old and he hasn't practiced," I said .  I was wrong; he's been plenty good.  Regardless of what happens during the playoffs, he deserves props for getting the Vikings there.

I remain ambivalent about this season.  The success seems merely purchased or borrowed.  That's probably ridiculous; all the teams' successes are purchased.  But winning with Green Bay's quarterback is just still very awkward to me.

Open, An Autobiography

For a tennis fan, Andre Agassi's autobiography, is simply necessary. A huge slice of contemporary tennis history belongs to him. This is a fascinating peak into the thoughts of a champion.

I've been a fan of Andre's since before he shed the wig and shaved his hair. For a decade, I watched nearly every one of his televised matches. I got up in the middle of the night to watch live coverage of his matches from the other side of the globe.  I took time off of work to watch his matches. I preferred him and rooted for him over every competitor he faced, except Patrick Rafter when I was neutral. I believed he could win every one of the matches I watched, but now I know he did not believe he could win every one of those matches. (For some matches, he didn't even care about winning as much as I cared about him winning.)

It's stunning really to read about the degree of misery he was in and to observe the fragility of his confidence. By ALL measures, he was one of tennis' best players. There'd be some debate about where exactly he should place among the best, but no one would dispute he makes the top 15 of all time.  (He'd make most people's Top 10.) That's top 15 out of the thousands, or tens of thousands, of people who've played pro tennis. He won 8 Major titles. He was the first man to win all four majors on three surfaces (grass, clay and hard) and the only man to win a career golden slam (all four slams plus an Olympic gold).  (Incidentally, Andre's wife, Stefanie Graf, was the only woman to win a golden slam; she won them all within a calendar year.)

Surely, someone who is THAT good at what they do for a living should feel accomplished at their profession. But no, he was constantly addled with frustrations about not being good enough. His struggle to find satisfaction without finding perfection will resonate with people in all kinds of professions. This is one of the universal themes of Andre's story.

The other universal theme is Andre's search for a purpose for his tennis career, in spite of hating tennis. He found purpose and motivation when he found a reason to play that wasn't about him, but instead was about service to others. In the last years of his career, he found satisfaction in playing to be able to deliver financial backing to the charter school in Las Vegas that bears his name.

I was delighted to read about his very fond memories of his match against James Blake at the U.S. Open in the quarterfinals in 2005. (Contemporaneous news stories about it: WaPo, AP.) That match was my all-time favorite tennis-watching memory.  K and I watched at a sports bar downtown.  It was empty except for us;  in the beginning the staff peaked in now and then, mildly curious to see the score, but by the end they were watching and whooping with us.  The match was drama-packed, with Andre coming back from two sets down, and every single point was top quality tennis.

The book is missing some of the details I would have enjoyed, but that may not have been interesting to anyone else. How many hours a day did he work out? How many hours of tennis practice? Who did he practice with? What drills did he do? What did he eat? How many calories a day did he eat? His very close friend and former business manager Perry Rogers sued Stefanie in December 2008 for management fees. What's that story? What kind of deals did he have with sponsors (e.g. there were stories that in his later years, he made them contribute to his school)? He mentions that Nike dropped him along the way; was there any drama with that? Does anyone continue to sponsor him? He says they have no tennis court and that the kids will not play tennis, but what are they doing (because it'd be surprising if they weren't athletes with those genes)? His serve improved markedly after his comeback; how? why? what did he adjust?  Why meth, of all drugs? It'd have to be a multi-volume set to satisfy my curiosity.

There are lots of interesting tidbits, though:

• Pete Sampras was comically stingy with tips;
• Jimmy Connors was particularly douchey to Andre;
  
• Jeff Tarango was a jerk when he was 8 years old (I could have guessed that. We saw Tarango play pro doubles at a tournament in Arizona and that man just oozes bile);
  
• Rafter and Federer actually are the class acts they seem to be;
• Show Andre a picture of your kids, mention that you're worried about how you'll pay for college and he'll write you a check. (Bless him; he's a trusting soul, but cynical readers will observe several people in Andre's life taking advantage of him while he seems oblivious. Still, it was this act of funding college for someone and feeling really happy about being able to do it that gave him the spark of the idea to start the school, so cheers to un-cynical oblivion.)
  
• Andre is a herd creature:  he is miserable being alone and competing alone.  He needs people around him.  Oh, the irony, that his dad channeled him into one of the only sports that you play entirely alone -- with no team and no coaching breaks.  Even the opponent in a tennis match is physically remote.
• He's still claiming that he didn't even notice Pres. Clinton's arrival during his loss to Grosjean in 2001 at the French Open.  And I still don't believe him, although I can't fathom why he'd lie about that when he's come clean about the wig and the meth.  

Tiger on-line game

I know this is wrong...but oh so funny at the same time.

"Jerry World" (aka "The Death Star)

Last Saturday, my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks renewed an old rivalry with Texas A&M. We began a 10 year series with them, with all the games being played here in DFW at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. We don't live too far from the stadium and on a clear day, you can drive just a few miles to the south and see it on the horizon. The ticket prices for the Ark-A&M game were fairly high, especially for a college football game. I'm not sure we'll go every year, but I definitely wanted to go to the first game and wanted a chance to check out the stadium. The Razorbacks won rather easily, proving once again our dominance over A&M and our conference, the SEC. But I wanted to share some pictures and comment about the stadium itself, which has come under some ridicule for what it lacks, even thought the price tag was around $1.1 billion.

It is beautiful and spacious and very fan friendly (in regards to # of bathrooms, # of concession areas, wide concourses, friendly staff). All chair back seats with cup holders, and amble leg room between rows. And, of course, the video board over the field is truly amazing. Not just the size of it, but the quality of the picture. However, there are a couple of glaring problems which have have received a lot of press here in the DFW area and I wanted to see if the complaints were warranted.

Problem #1 - the sound system is awful. I could not understand one word the PA person was saying, nor could I understand anything said on any video's shown. It just sounded like garbled noise. The roof was closed and I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not, but the same complaints have been lodged when the roof was open. From the very first event at the stadium (a concert), this has been the #1 complaint. U2 is playing there next Monday and with the ticket prices being charged, I would be extremely p*ssed if the sound wasn't straightened out.

Problem #2 - scoreboards, or lack thereof. You really have to be paying attention to the game, because even with the 2 little scoreboards I could see, you don't get basic information. Like down and distance, # of timeouts remaining, what yard line the ball is on. And it didn't even say ARK A&M - it was just small logos of the schools. Also, no stats and no scores from other games. This has also been a big complaint here, because if the PA guy is telling you this (as the Cowboy officials claim), you can't understand anything being said and you have no clue. One would think that if you're already spending $1 billion, what's another hundred thousand or so for a decent sound system and a couple basic scoreboards.

Here are a few pictures inside the stadium:












As for the title of this post, the media here in DFW all call the stadium "Jerry World", while the guys on The Ticket (local sports station) call it "The Death Star".

Serena

I expect that by now even people who don't follow tennis have heard about Serena William's tirade that handed a point -- matchpoint, specifically -- to Kim Clijsters at the U.S. Open in their semi-final match over the weekend. This site has a good recap with transcripts (to the extent a transcript can be generated from the available video).

Here's the key portion of tirade, directed at a LINE JUDGE, from an angle where you can read Serena's lips at least in spots:



Serena swears to God she can or will "take this [f***ing or m*f***ing] ball and shove it" somewhere in the linesperson's f***ing anatomy. It's been reported she said "down your throat". The words conveyed a physical threat, and the words were amplified by her pointing a racquet aggressively at the line judge while stomping toward her.

Michael Kimmel, writing at HuffPo, claims that the line judge was intimidated, or the umpire and referee interpretted Serena's behavior as intimidating, because Serena is a large black woman. He blames it on a mix of racism and sexism. He says that McEnroe and Connors displayed similar behavior and got away with it. Uh, no. No they did not, as far as I remember. I wasn't following tennis when they played, but I've seen the clips of their tantrums. They swore. They yelled at the CHAIR UMPIRE (big difference). But I haven't seen a single incidence of them threatening physical harm to anyone, let alone a line judge.

Kimmel would have a point if Serena's behavior had been on par with McEnroe's and if more serious consequences were meted out for her than they were for him. But those aren't the facts here. Serena's behavior was worse than McEnroe's and it was the worst on-court behavior I've ever seen from a tennis player. It was absolutely a rule violation. Since she'd received a warning earlier for breaking a racquet, this second violation carried a mandatory point penalty. It's Serena's fault this happened. Serena is not a victim here. The $10k fine is completely appropriate.

The most unfortunate thing about the incident is that Clijsters was robbed of the opportunity to win the match of her own volition. She had it in hand, had played a beautiful match, and deserved to get that win without the point penalty.

It was, by the way, a foot fault called by the line judge that started the episode and I say that if the line judge clearly saw a foot fault, she ought to call it, no matter where in the match it occurred and no matter the color or gender of the player. It would not, however, be right for a line judge to selectively call foot faults.

Serena has issued two statements about the incident. The first did not contain an apology but the second did. Though she typically gives her god Jehovah credit for her tennis wins, she did not credit her god Jehovah for making the tirade possible.

Favre

Favre becoming a Viking is just odd. I grew up a Packers fan and I still root for them except when they play the Vikings. So I feel bad for Packer fans. And I can't get excited for the Vikings since I don't think Favre will be very effective. (He's old and he hasn't practiced.) It's a win for Favre's bank account, I guess and maybe the Vikings ticket sales will be improved for a few games. I must say I enjoyed his press conference yesterday. It's been eons since the Vikings had a quarterback who spoke in paragraphs.

Paris Rosen's front flip attempt

at the Summer X Games 15:


As I mentioned earlier, he's from the Twin Cities.

The front flip

Paris Rosen, a man from a suburb of Minneapolis, will attempt a front flip on a motorcycle on Friday at the Summer X Games.

On how he got a spot to compete, as a newcomer:

After interviewing Rosen, Taublieb made the announcement: Rosen was an alternate for the X Games. Three days later, Cam Sinclair was hospitalized after a double back-flip went wrong, turning Rosen from alternate to X Games competitor.

Finally, he had his break, his chance at fame.

ICU, bad pun.

Here's the mentioned YouTube video:


Update: I see there are rumors that others may bring a front flip to the Summer X Games, too. Ambulances, stand by.

Update II: Walk down memory lane. Here's Jim De Champ's front flip bail from last year:

Outdoor college Big Ten football, a lovely fall day, a cold beer...

Nope. No cold beer. There will be no alcohol served in the TCF Bank Stadium, the new home for the University of Minnesota's football team.

I hadn't realized that the Big Ten had previously banned sales of alcohol to students at Big Ten sporting events, so even that old-news part of this story is news to me. College football without beer (or hot chocolate with peppermint Schnapps for cold days). Does not compute.

UT baseball

A Twitterer's observation:

Go Longhorns

I hear (from one of my partners who is a UT alum and who has a daughter now at UT) that UT's baseball team has a college world series game tonight against Arizona State.

How studly is Austin Wood?

Well, let me tell you.

Per the Austin American Statesman on UT’s 3-2 25 INNING victory the regional over Boston College this weekend:

He [Wood] has never thrown a complete game [he’s a reliever] but logged 13 mind-boggling innings and rendered the Boston College bats silent for 12 1/3 frames. He threw 169 pitches, not the healthiest thing for a 22-year-old arm, but that piece of jelly attached to his left shoulder gave Texas a huge advantage in this regional.

Holy Smokes! 37 batters without a hit. He faced 46 batters and gave up 2, count 'em, 2 hits.

RIP: Fighting Sioux

The University of North Dakota has decided to drop its "Fighting Sioux" nickname and mascot.

North Dakota's Board of Higher Education voted 8-0 yesterday in Dickinson to retire the nickname starting October First.

The nickname and logo could be kept if the Standing Rock and Spirit Lake Sioux tribes endorse them by October First and agree to let the university use them for at least 30 years.

But tribal officials say that possibility is remote. Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Ron His Horse Is Thunder strongly opposes the nickname.

This has been a hot button issue for several years. The decision by the Board reflects a settlement with the NCAA which had decided not to allow schools with "abusive" nicknames to use their logos in post-season play, but agreed to allow UND to continue to use their name if they got permission from a couple Sioux tribes. UND is a perennial hockey powerhouse; if not for that, I'm not sure their teams get to the post-season.

Generally, I'm all in favor of doing away with the mascotting of groups' identities and misappropriation of their culture without their permission, particularly when the use is demeaning (e.g. Redskins). Still, it's sad for me to see the Fighting Sioux name go, and I wonder if it isn't really good PR for the tribes for people to have the constant reminder of their existence that comes with the use of the name.

An interesting episode in UND's battle over its name is that there was a donor who donated money to UND on the condition that the school not change its name. From Wikipedia:

Former Fighting Sioux hockey player and wealthy alumnus Ralph Engelstad donated $100 million dollars for the construction of Ralph Engelstad Arena. This is one of the largest philanthropic donations ever made to a public institution of higher learning. One of Engelstad's conditions for his donation was that the University keep the Fighting Sioux name indefinitely.[6] Engelstad placed thousands of Fighting Sioux logos in numerous places throughout the arena to make physical removal of the logo very costly if attempted.

I wonder what consequence Ralph had in mind if UND were to change its name; must they tear the stadium down?

Best 4-iron hitter...ever

I think I saw him display his talents on Sunday. Also saw said player using only a 9-iron to make par on a par 3. The next Tiger????

Congrats

to UT fans.