Difference between men's and women's basketball? Besides dunking (men) and passing (women)? The O.J. Mayo/USC scandal involves thousands of dollars, flat-screen TVs, airline tickets and stuff like that. (Pat Forde at ESPN even calls for USC to be stripped of a team for a year.)
How Did I Not Know About Moe Berg? Tooling around Barnes & Noble before seeing "The Forbidden Kingdom" this past weekend, I read the first few pages of The Catcher was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg. Berg was a back-up catcher for the Red Sox in the late 30s, then a coach for a couple years, and (as you may have guessed) eventually a spy working for the OSS during WW2. One of his assignments was to attend a lecture by Werner Heisenberg, determine if the Germans were close to developing an A-Bomb, and shoot him if they were. Fascinating stuff. [Moe Berg Wikipedia page]
The most important thing I want to see right out the gate is Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery healthy. They both left the floor injured during UConn's sweet sixteen win over ODU. UConn has been saying they're fine, but that's probably what they'd say if they were banged up. They "practiced," but did they practice with other players or a stationary bike? Having already lost two starters during the season, UConn can't afford this.
The other storyline for UConn fans is the end of Brittany Hunter and Charde Houston's careers. Hunter, troubled by a chronic sore knee, turns in amazing stat lines - 9 pts/6 rbs/2 blk 11 min - and won't be able to play basketball after this. Houston has been alternately electrifying and horrible. She's been great for the last handful of games, even got the MVP of the Big East tournament. Hunter can leave everything out there and Houston can erase all those "what if" stories.
Rutgers isn't that deep either, and they play a shovey, grind it out, aggressive (trash-talky) sort of defense so officiating will also be key.
The biggest story seems to be "Just how good can Maya Moore be?" At this point, the only comparisons that make sense are Taurasi (best ever) or Lobo (taking a program to another level - and UConn already is at the top tier). Believe the hype. And since she's come through every time I've typed it, I'll type it again - if you haven't watched Moore play, here's your chance.
(Update: Did I mention Ketia Swanier? On a night when absolutely nothing went right, the Huskies come back from 14 down to win. Rutgers is not a team I'd like to spot 14. As an optimist, I'm going to regard this as a get-it-out-of-your-system game. Too bad for ESPN both this and Tennessee's game were fairly ugly. Tennessee should thank the NCAA. No way they'd be in the Final Four if they were facing Rutgers last night. I thought UConn was the top seed overall.)
The UConn women get a chance to avenge their only loss tonight against Rutgers - 7, ESPN2. Also, the Big East regular season title is on the line.
Of course, UConn is lucky to be in this position after being down 17 versus DePaul and winning on Maya Moore's steal with 7 seconds left and Ketia Swanier's bucket with 2. I wrote this game off as lost about six times. I happened to be at a party and had to turn so I couldn't see the TV. I only started watching when I noticed people intensity level picking up near the TVs. She's come through every time I've said it so once again - if you haven't seen Maya Moore yet, check out tonight's game.
Big Game Coming UConn Women play #6 LSU tonight at 7 on ESPN2. UConn's one loss came in their last big game, versus Rutgers, but I'm looking to the Patriots and saying it's better to have a regular season loss. (UConn regained the number one ranking after Tennessee had two losses - although one counts as a clock-assisted win.)
LSU's a great team, making four of the last Final Fours. They knocked UConn out last year - Tina Charles has been keeping a picture of LSU's Sylvia Fowles in her locker since then. If you haven't caught Maya Moore yet this season, check out tonight's game. She's poised to break Svetlana Abrosimova's record for freshman scoring, Diana Taurasi's record for consecutive games in double figures and Rebecca Lobo's record for "Freshman of the Week" honors. That's the company she's in already. Update: Well, that was quite a game. Not to overlook Moore's 29 pts. or Charles' 18, but McLaren's 11pts/12reb combined with solid defense was crucial and Swanier was clutch. If they can bring this game for Rutgers, and the tourneys, they'll be fine.
Bleech I have to say, as Patriots fan, I was worried right from the start. Brady seemed off with his passes and unable to slide away from the rush like he often does. And the rush was relentless. Standing for so long, 7-3 seemed to tempt an upset. Stupidly, I wasn't worried during the Eli scramble and bomb/helmet catch by Tyree. I saw the ball touch the ground and thought, "It's under two minutes. You can't demonstrate control of the ball with your helmet. That's getting overturned." Also stupidly, I wasn't worried earlier during the same drive when Eli fumbled and somehow recovered it with his legs and we didn't get the call. "That's okay," I thought. "They're not moving it downfield and we'll get the next call." No and no.
I was worried when I should have been happy and happy when I should have been worried. Also sober when I should have been drunk.
Making matters worse, many people are thrilled with the Patriots' defeat because of how jerky Red Sox fans have been. Makes it hard for us Yankees/Patriots fans.
Can't complain too much considered up until last night I've been following two perfect seasons. Go Huskies.
New England, Where We're Slow to Accept New England The Land of Steady Habits took a long time to embrace the Patriots over the New York Giants. I like that the article also points out that Connecticut's location breeds combo fans that seem strange to outsiders. Many Giants fans who are also Red Sox fans. And those like me, who root for the Yankees and the Patriots. I was nine or so when I picked the Patriots as my favorite team. There were so few Patriots fans around (none) I had no idea they were also the "local" team. I hadn't quite figured out that I lived in the same New England. They happened to win the game I was watching when it was time to pick a favorite team and - more importantly - they wore red. It all worked out.
Someone figured out that exactly halfway between Foxborough and the Meadowlands lies my town of Durham, CT. (Go Google Earth.) HBO came to town yesterday to film a Patriots/Giants rally on the town green. When they air this, you can expect to hear the phrase "sleepy little town" at the beginning, middle and somewhere towards the end. I do take issue with the woman in the video who says this is the biggest thing to happen in Durham in a decade. I mean, that crowd wouldn't even make a decent morning line at the Durham Fair giant donut stand.
I remember way back in the day, I just about never saw another Patriots fan. Just as well, considering how ugly the old logo was. The fan base grew in the 90s. Toss in the bandwagon of the last few years with the sagging fortune of the Giants over the last few years and it is pretty much an even split around here.
Welcome to New England Brrr... It's cold now. And looks to be even colder Sunday for the Patriots-Chargers game.
I'm not sure what the advanced, technical rules of sportsmanship are anymore. Don't hit anyone during soccer. I get that. All the trash talk coming from the Chargers strikes me as poor sportsmanship, but also strange. Let me get this straight - Shawne Merriman likes to do a dance after a good play. Tackle someone, a little dance and taunt. Whatever. Now they have issues with the Patriots for doing the very same dance after a good play in last year's playoff game. What's the sportsmanship issue? Copying? You can do a dance, just not mine?
Another Hurt Husky Mel Thomas' torn ACL means the end of her UConn career. Sad and bad. Knicknamed "Baby Shea" early in her career for her tendency to hit the floor after loose balls, Mel was fun to watch and a great contributor. She finishes fourth in UConn history for three pointers and over 1,000 points for her career. The floor leadership, assists and hustle will also be missed.
A month ago it was like a sportswriting mandate that the phrase "national championship" had to appear in any article about UConn. They were blowing out quality teams by 40. Now, without Kalana Greene and Thomas and with Hunter's knee acting up more than usual, they get to be a #1 ranked underdog. First big test will be the annual Martin Luther King Day game. This year it's North Carolina. Catch it if you can. Thomas will be getting a ball for going over 1,000 points. Expect about a five minute (and well-deserved) standing O.
Why four? Because sometime soon I'll be back with my top six novels of the year and this saves me from shuffling them together into a top ten.
4) About Alice, Calvin Trillin (2006) - This expands a lengthy essay Trillin wrote for the New Yorker about his late wife Alice. He recounts a letter he received after the original essay's publication from a young woman worried that her fiance doesn't love her "the way Calvin loves Alice," which sums up the feel of the book. About Alice is an ode to love itself. A bone-deep sadness pervades this humorist's book. Although she led a long, full life, this is not a "well, at least she led a long, full life" eulogy. What happens after you lose your soulmate? About Alice will give you empathy for those old couples you see shuffling along. And it will make you, like that young letter-writer, want to eventually become one of those old couples shuffling along.
3) Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990) - This book is ridiculously good. In any other year, it would top my non-fiction list. The TV show, even in its superb first season, is no substitute. And forget about the movie. Written before "A Year in the Life of X, Y or Z" books became a cliche, Friday Night Lights is more about the locale than the kids and more about the kids than about football. The chapter about the use of "nigger" in Odessa should be essential reading in American high schools. With the corrupt and arrogant boom and bust oil business of west Texas as a backdrop, Friday Night Lights also marginally qualifies as the first in my string of anti-Bush books.
2) Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2007) - It's amazing this book could be so readable when it's basically the same story over and over. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld again and again picked loyalty over experience, ideology over practicallity, and P.R. over reality when it came to choosing leaders to rebuild Iraq's health-care, business, education, industry and government. And then they stumbled supporting these Bushies who were already doomed to fail. Guess what? It didn't work. Again and again. The chapter about a handful of guys trying to privatize Iraqi factories is this close to being a living Tom Tomorrow cartoon.
"Yeah, we've got this factory for you to buy and privatize. We think it makes olive oil. Hard to tell, because of the bombing. I bet it'd be real productive too, once the electricity gets turned on. Now, you can't visit it because of the security situation and there's a good chance that whatever government eventually runs this hell-hole will just nationalize it again. You also have four times the number of workers you need but if you fire anybody, they'll blow the place up, but other than that, you're good to go! Two hundred million sound about right?"
1) The Greatest Story Ever Told: The Decline and Fall of Truth in Bush's America, Frank Rich (2007) - There are a lot of anti-Bush books out there and I've read my share. If you're looking for screeds, rants, insults, etc. they're out there and many of them are certainly justified given the tragedy that is the Bush administration. Rich's book tops my list first of all because of the scope. There are good books about the military mistakes (Fiasco), the intelligence manipulation (Hubris) or the rebuilding incompetence (see above), but The Greatest Story Ever Told covers a lot of the flim and the flam behind selling the Iraq war in succinct fashion. It's also well-written. It's easy to fall into hyperbolic rants and cheap insults when discussing Bush (again, many justified). Rich lets the facts do the damning. Even if you have scandal fatigue and wish to ride out the last 385 days with low blood pressure, you should check out this book.
All I Want for Christmas ... Here's a great gift idea that can't be beat, but can't be given because it doesn't exist. I want a remote control more special than the one I have. Mine has approximately a hundred and fifty buttons. I use maybe nine. But if there were a button that you could point at the screen and get a pop-up window telling you who an actor is, what he's been in, and where you know you know him from, I'd use it all the time. The mental energy saved by this button would be enormous, and you could return your concentration to the show instead of going, "Was he that patient on E.R. that time?" Also, I have a button that skips a recording or paused TV ahead thirty seconds at a time. I use it a lot to skip commercials. I also use it during football to skip ahead from one play to the next. If I hit the button just as the tackle is being made I usually land right on the snap of the ball. (Thirty second play clock.) However, I often miss and land two or three seconds into the next play. How cool would it be if you had a twenty second skip? Or if you could adjust the time of your skip button? There are probably other set intervals for other sports that viewers are dying to skip. Forget Marv Albert and Phil Simms, I want a button.
(I should add the idea for the "That Guy" button was Mrs. BoneDaddy's, the play clock button was mine.)
The Moore the Merrier For those of you who couldn't watch UConn win the Paradise Jam championship let me just say UConn is very, very good. Also fun to watch. They dismantled then #4 Stanford and #9 Duke (74-48!) and neither game was really that close. UConn ran them right off the court and freshman Maya Moore, named tournament MVP, appears to be everything advertised. Watching her in just four games, I'm already trying to calibrate where she'll land in the pantheon of UConn greats. Catch 'em if your TV or court gets 'em.
Oh no you didn't! Don Shula, coach of NFL's only unbeaten team (so far), talks a little smack about the Patriots and spygate. If every three weeks or so, some large media or NFL figure could make these sorts of comments, this Patriots fan would really appreciate it. Please everyone, make them mad.
Crazy ending to a Div III football game, involving 15 laterals. I've watched it three times and they all look legal. If the video were better, this would become a "The band is on the field!!" moment.
Good News, Bad News. Well, the Yankees lost, which means the Indians will have to knock the Red Sox out since you can't count on the National League to do anything. In good news, C-dog and I both won our bets with Phinster in the same week. C-dog picked the Red Sox to go farther than the Yankees and I picked a ticket other than Gingrich/Rice to win the 08 election. Gingrich is not running, which will make it really hard for him to win. (That's the second bit of bad news, by the way. A Gingrich campaign would have been hysterical. Dan Quayle level of comedy. And he had no chance to actually win and damage the country. There was no downside to Newt '08 so I'm sad tonight, except for winning $20.)
Sports Night, Villians Win Edition!As both a Patriots and Yankees fan, I'm one of the few New England sports fans who is all around happy about last night. The Patriots' dismantling of the Chargers showed that to their already stacked team they have added a chip on their shoulders. (Thanks, Jets!) I have mixed feelings about cameragate. I don't think any fan knows how bad the cheating was. If the cameraman had been in the stands, would this have been legal? Don't coaches assume they're being watched when the send the signals in? Isn't this why athletes and coaches always talk through their gloves or the play sheet? Did they store this for future information or use it during a game? Part of me doesn't get the big deal. Were the Patriots just more brazen about what everyone does?
Maybe there's more. Maybe the Pats defense was illegally wired. Maybe the Jets are right and the Patriots had tapped their radios. (See and everyone wondered what Tom Brady was doing at Bush's State of the Union. It wasn't anti-steriods, it was pro-illegal eavesdropping.)
The Yankees-Red Sox game, less hyped but more exciting, changed little in the grand scheme of things. The Sox are probably winning the division with the Yanks taking the wild card. Nice to see a great Jeter HR, take 2 of 3, and wonder what Red Sox Nation means when it chants "MVP! MVP!" for Papi. "We think in other years you have played like an MVP. Is it okay if we remind you of that during this, a rather non-MVP year?" This game did matter psychologically for the post-season. The Sox have had a much better year than the Yanks. Yet the season series ends at 10-8, Yanks. The Sox have yet to prove they can really handle the Yanks, which has to hurt should they meet again.
Mo Michael Vick, Tim Donaghy, Jason Giambi, Barry Bonds, Pacman Jones ... hard to find a story from the world of sports these past few weeks that wasn't about cruelty, corruption, cheating, or fake wrestling. Former Sox (Angels, Mets) slugger Mo Vaughn's work in Brooklyn was one of the few positive stories I saw this weekend.
In case you don't watch Sportscenter ... So Walpole, Massachusetts (representing New England) takes over the lead in the top of the 6th during a Little League World Series game over Ohio. Ohio's coming back in the bottom of the 6th (the last inning). They've brought the score to 3-2, knocked out the starting pitcher and have a guy on 3rd. The winning run is at the plate with two outs, setting up this. Watch the video that goes with the article. (Unfortunately the title gives away what happened. A better video or clip hasn't shown up on YouTube.) I happened to be watching this last inning live. It was one of those sports moments that made me - even with zero connection to either team or the league - jump out of my seat.
Spirit of '78 I have to say, I'm loving the Yankees, from the old guys like Rivera and Jeter to the young. I'm paying much more attention to baseball this season than I usually do because the Yankees were so bad and so far down. If they'd been hanging around 5-6 back all season, I wouldn't have gotten into it so much. That's how spoiled you can get as a Yankees fan. When your team is down 14, you think, "Wow, this would be a really cool way to win the World Series!"
I get a double shot of depression from the Michael Vick story>. The first shot is obvious - the stupid brutality of dog fighting. The debate around this story also depresses me. The question should not be "Should the NFL suspend him?" The question should be "Should the NFL suspend him after he gets out of jail?" (And the answer is yes.)
Deadly Arts Redux When I first saw Deadly Arts, I wished for a different host, and the History Channel has delivered -- Human Weapon puts a couple of guys (an MMA fighter and an ex-football player) in some of the same environs as Josette, but they're more able to compete against the fighters. The first episode is about Muay Thai.
Orange You Glad to See Me? I'm a little surprised by this. LSU's a top program as well ... but everybody marked UConn v. Tennessee on their calendar. I did anyways. Looks like they'll only dance in March for a few years.
The Legend of Jared Jordan [SI.com] Tracking the tiny point guard from Hartford from Kingswood-Oxford, to Marist, to the pre-Draft camp next week in Orlando. He's being called "the best point guard you never heard of" and "another John Stockton". Link via To Wit
I've finally gotten around to reading H.G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights, partially because I loved the show and partially because I was kind of sick of reading on the back of every book that follows something for a year "It's the Friday Night Lights of chess/scrabble/day trading/porn." Just like they always say about the show, it's so much more than football. The portrait of the boom and bust town of Odessa, Texas which has no constant except a love of Mojo Panther football is mesmerizing. It's also very much about race. Bissinger does not flinch or cover up for this town that finally integrated its schools in 1982. And when they had to, they grabbed as many blacks as they could (sending the Hispanics elsewhere) because, you know, who do you want as a running back, a black or a Hispanic? The chapter on the use of the word "nigger" in Odessa is pretty much essential reading on race in America. (It's like household cleaner, you can use it anywhere.)
I've never seen the movie and I have to believe it - like the show - kind of whitewashes some of Bissinger's book. I root for the Panthers on the show. The kids and the town in this book is frequently so ugly, conservative, racist and vain I often felt that losing would be good for them. Then you realize that the other team is often just as ugly and maybe nobody should win or maybe nobody should pour too much into this game.
The chapter on the Midland-Odessa rivalry becomes fascinating in light of the failed W administration. W grew up in Midland and wrecked his first businesses there. Friday Night Lights was published in 1990 and doesn't mention W at all - Bush the Greater gets a few pages - but the descriptions of Midland business culture are appalling when you consider this was W's environment.
"Greed, delusional visions of grandeur, the mercenary mercilessness that made every relationship expendable - Midland perfected all these long before they became the standard of the eighties around the rest of the country."
"Over at the country club, or in enormous corner offices with picture windows that seemed to deserve something more than wide-angle views of scrub brush and mesquite, [Midland oil executives] confused luck with business acumen. Instead of understanding that they were the beneficiaries of history, they began to believe they were the creators of it."
This is so much more than football. It's the Friday Night Lights of football.
When I asked his teammate David Ortiz, himself a borderline folk hero, how he would describe Ramirez, he replied, “As a crazy motherf----r.” Then he pointed at my notebook and said, “You can write it down just like that: ‘David Ortiz says Manny is a crazy motherf----r.’ That guy, he’s in his own world, on his own planet. Totally different human being than everyone else.” Ortiz is not alone in emphasizing that Ramirez’s originality resonates at the level of species. Another teammate, Julian Tavarez, recently told a reporter from the Boston Herald, “There’s a bunch of humans out here, but to Manny, he’s the only human.”
If you happen to be a TV poker viewer, you'll have to figure out where the Game Show Network is on your TV since that's where the World Poker Tour will be. I never really figured out why it was on the Travel Channel anyway. They never particularly toured the casinos, which are hermetically sealed from their communities anyway.
Big Game ComingUConn Women face LSU tonight in an Elite Eight matchup. If you haven't been watching the Huskies, at this point it's only a matter of where in the pantheon of UConn greats Tina Charles ends up. The N.C. State game was marred mainly by the announcers, who turned Kay Yow's inspirational story into something to something to link to each bounce of the ball. At one point they even compared UConn to the cancer Yow is fighting. Basketball announcers must be spread pretty thin now. During last night's Georgia-Purdue game, I heard one talk about the "exiler" of life, which probably won't help you as much as an elixer elixir will. Anyway, tonight's game should be good. Can't make any promises about the announcers though. (Update: Bleech. And it wasn't even a good game. And the announcers were terrible. The next time I hear "big, soft paws" no matter when I hear it will be too soon.)
"Just Like a Scot to Bring a Caber to Cricket Match" Yeah, this is a cricket post. For real. For real real. I know it's NCAA tourney time, but my brackets are blown, the men aren't playing, the women are still on cruise control, and baseball is still a few weeks away. The Cricket World Cup is being played in the West Indies and there's legit Cricket Fever going on up in here.
Cricket is huge in India. Tear-the-wicket-keeper's-house-down-if-they-lose huge. I mostly hang out with the Indian guys at work so I'm caught up in the fever. Ikram's Bangladeshi, actually, but that's part of the drama. Bangladesh pulled a stunning upset of India the other day and stands a chance of making the Super 8. If Bangladesh beats Sri Lanka today, they will be in great shape (and I will get a free lunch). So I'm getting pulled into the world of cricket here at work.
Scotland is in for the second time in the history of World Cup play. First time since 1999 when they got it handed to them. That seems to be happening again, but not much was expected of them. I'm pulling for my people to at least manage a draw in this Cup. The Irish managed to upset Pakistan -- a defeat that seems to have lead directly to the death of the Pakistani coach (heart condition or something more sinister?) -- so maybe Scotland can manage a shocker as well. Or not. The game is actually fun to watch and there are some good stories, Dwayne Leverock, for example. Finding a stream to watch is difficult but not impossible and tv coverage here is spotty to say the least. When you can track down CNN's World Sport show, you can get highlights, but otherwise it's pretty much a web only thing. The terminology is so different from what I'm used to, it took me a while to catch on, but I'm learning the game and the scoring well enough that I can tell what's going on. The Bangladeshis won the toss and have taken the field ... it's on.
As punishment for losing to Rutgers in the Big East championship, the UConn women keep a number one seed, but get shipped off to Fresno where Stanford, NC State and LSU (with its dark cloud of scandal) will likely wait. Not too bad. Tennessee got a tough bracket as well. They also lost in their conference championship. Still, this is not a bad year to pencil in all the number ones (including Duke and UNC) at the Final Four. I like UConn's chances anyway. As the men's season tanked, I stopped paying attention to that side so my men's bracket will be especially miserable this year.
Big Game Coming Having finished the regular Big East season undefeated, the UConn Women are all set to face Rutgers in tonight's Big East championship game, ESPN2 at 7. Catch it if you can. With Tennessee and Duke's recent stumbles, it would be nice for UConn to cruise into a number 1 seed with their third victory over Rutgers.
The UConn women probably played themselves into a number 1 seed for the NCAA tournament on Sunday, beating LSU on the road in their last regular season game against a top ten team. Given the strength of their schedule, and that their losses were close, against top three teams and in January, it will take a surprising loss to knock them out of a top seed. After poor games against Tennessee and North Carolina, Montgomery finally played huge against a top team - 5 of 7 threes, including two in the closing minutes that were downright Taurasi-esque. Tina Charles also had her freshman coming out party - 17 pts/ 9 rbs against one of the best centers in the country. Tonight's game against #20 Louisville can complete a four game sweep against ranked teams. Good news all around.
Lists, lists, lists ...Top 50 Loose Ends of Lost - I still like Lost, but dwelling on too many of these questions may change that. Premiere's 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time list is good because it's not particularly gentle. (American Beauty and Gone With the Wind are first ballot Overrated Movie Hall of Famers to me.) There's probably a movie or two you don't think should be there. While we're acknowledging things, we should note that James Bond has been uncool often enough for a list, which thankfully features a Connery moment. Lastly, this list of Worst Band Names helpfully comes with rules, such as "no prepositions." Archers of Loaf is a truly awful band name. Vanilla Trainwreck (unlisted) is almost as bad without violating any of the rules. I kind of like Death Cab for Cutie, though.
