Category Archives: Sports

We are the Champions

steve-yankees200.jpgSo the Yankees pulled it off! My team won!

I’m guessing ratings were pretty good this year. I didn’t watch the Series last year, because I didn’t care. But when the Yankees are in it, it’s more interesting. No, it’s not fair. But that’s the way it is. People like me watched every game this year, only because the Yankees–a collection of talented multi-multi millionaires–was contending.

I dug out an old, blurry Little League photo of me in my Yankees uniform. That would have been after my 4th grade year. Skinny little runt, wasn’t I?

In the Paxtonia league (thus the “P” on the cap), in the east suburbs of Harrisburg, Pa., we had the A and B teams, which played other leagues. And then there was the pony league, which consisted of four teams: Yankees, Dodgers, Tigers, Phillies. We played amongst ourselves. I was on the Yankees, and we won the league. (The next year, I made the B team, and the A team the year after that.)

I only remember two other members of that Yankees team: Jeff Kline and Scott Clark. They alternated between pitcher and catcher. I played shortstop. Must have had some other decent players, but I can’t remember them.

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My Disgusting Crush on the Yankees

I am, I admit, rooting for the Yankees.

I don’t watch baseball until October. It just doesn’t interest me. The game moves too slowly. But I watched the league champ games with great interest, and am now captivated by the World Series. After the Series ends, my interest ends, and it’s back to the NFL, my true love.

The Yankees represent much of what I hate. They are arrogant and wealthy. I hate the way they buy every good player they can get. They don’t build players. They buy players. And they spend obscene amounts to buy them.

And yet, the Yankees are so, uh, AMERICAN. Something deep in me insists they have a divine entitlement to win the World Series. If they’re in it, they should win. I disgust myself for feeling that way, but I do.

There may be another reason I favor the Yankees. When I played little league, we had four teams which played among themselves–the Dodgers, Phillies, Tigers, and Yankees. Guess which team I played for?

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Oh, There’s Baseball On?

It’s October, and we’re down to four teams. NOW I’m interested in baseball. The rest of the season, for me, might as well not exist.

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Hoop Dreams

We could have a very interesting, highly-watched NBA finals, Lakes vs. Cavs, Kobe vs. Lebron, dueling superstars.

Or, we could very well have the Denver Nuggets vs. the Orlando Magic. Just the thought makes me want to go to bed.

Which matchup you think TV execs are praying for?

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Michael Jordan and Audie Murphy

On the way to work, I listened on ESPN to yesterday’s press conference announcing the nominees for the NBA Hall of Fame. Michael Jordan seemed none to anxious for it, joking about putting his uniform back on and heading out onto the court. Going into the Hall of Fame, to him, meant officially admitting, “I’m done. I don’t have it anymore.”

Mike&Mike mused about what it must be like to have been the best in the world at something, but not the best anymore. A writer, painter, sculptor, composer can remain the best until he dies. But not an athlete. Can anything fill the void once filled with extreme adrenaline rushes, glory, and triumph?

audiemurphy.jpgFor some reason, I thought of Audie Murphy, America’s most famous soldier of World War 2. I read a superb article about him years ago in Esquire. Murphy enlisted at age 16, weighing 110 pounds and standing 5’5″. The Army tried to turn him into a cook, but he insisted on combat.

You see, Murphy was a natural warrior. He fought in numerous campaigns from Sicily to Italy to France, and won every medal available to an American soldier, some of them several times. Many men rise to the occasion in combat, but not many are natural warriors. 

After the war, Murphy received national acclaim for his heroics, and became a movie star, making 44 movies. But in the article, written during those Hollywood years, he talked about the emptiness, the dullness, of his post-war life. Nothing, for him, could match the adrenaline rush of combat, with every sense heightened, your life on the line, reaching your limit and still pushing forward, being wounded (three times!) yet battling on. He was the best; he was made for battle. To fill the void, Murphy turned to alcohol. He finally died in a plane crash in 1971. 

Michael Jordan seems to be doing just fine in filling the void. And yet, I’m sure he looks back over his playing career and thinks, “I was made for Game Seven, made for the last-second shot. Nothing I’ve done since, or will ever do, can equal that.”

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NCAA: Yearning for Buzzer-Beaters

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m a bit bored with the NCAA tournament. “Bored” is one of the last words you’d associate with March Madness. But while there have been some good games, we haven’t had the big upsets and buzzer-beaters that normally epitomize the NCAA tournament. 

After two rounds, I think that means 48 games have been played. You’d expect a little more excitement than there’s been.

Maybe this weekend will be better. I’d sure like to see a buzzer-beater.

On a good note: my Arizona Wildcats are still in the hunt.

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Jodie – This One’s For You

God_Jets_500.jpg

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Clamping Dissent During the Olympics

I’ve been following a Newsweek blog called “Beijing Beat,” which is focused on the Olympics. The two lead writers are Melinda Liu, an acclaimed American journalist who has specialized on China; and Mark Starr, another excellent writer.

On August 13, a writer named Mary Hennock posted an item about Christian activists called “Protestors Go Underground as Police Clamp Down.” Curiously, the post has been removed from the blog. However, I still had it in my RSS reader. I decided to print it here.

I spent much of Wednesday trying to speak to Hua Huiqi, a Beijing-based Christian activist who has disappeared since being arrested on his way to church on Sunday Aug 10. It was the same church President Bush was planning to attend (to show his support for religious freedom in China), and the police seemed to think that Hua’s presence was a bad idea.

They nabbed Hua and his elder brother Hua Huilin as they cycled towards the church around 6:00 A.M. and took them to a police post. Hua skipped custody sometime around midday, when he noticed his captors had dozed off, according to the letter he sent to Human Rights in China on Monday.

So as not to keep in you in suspense, let me tell you now that I didn’t track down Hua, and I can well understand why he might want to stay low. The phone was cut three times during our conversation with the pastor’s elder brother Hua Huilin, often an indication that the line is being monitored. Hua Huilin is also now on the run, afraid to go home because “there’s a lot of police in front of my house.” Although he’s not a Christian, he accompanied his brother to Kuanjie Protestant church because he couldn’t dissuade him and wanted to protect him. Before the two were put in separate rooms at the police post, he heard the police threaten to break Pastor Hua’s legs. He doesn’t know where his brother is now, only that he’s safe and is being cared for by fellow-Christians, he says.

Other Christian activists are under de facto house arrest. For instance, novelist Yu Jie told us that police are waiting outside his house and chauffeur him everywhere. “From July 31…I’m not allowed to go by taxi or drive my own car,” he said.

Human Rights Watch estimates about 30 people are under some kind of house arrest in Beijing–Yu Jie reckons about 10 are Christians. Most of them are also involved in other kinds of activism such as defending homeowners facing eviction by developers, say Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch. Repression is being driven by “an attempt to put a choke-hold on information” rather than a political clampdown based on fear of any particular groups of dissidents, he says.¬†

Christian lawyer Li Baiguang says small group worship in “house churches” outside the constraints of the officially-registered Three Self Church is still possible, though people knock on the door to complain. “[They] say they’re neighbors but I don’t think they are,” he says. Some of the bigger “house churches” have been closed down, including Pastor Hua’s, but most survive. Li says he is followed when he travels outside Beijing, and his law firm, Beijing City Common Trust, which handles anti-corruption cases, has had two recent visits from local officials querying his business license.

Before the Games began, there was much speculation about dramatic protests for many causes. So far, protests have been small-scale and almost all have been carried out by foreigners. “I think the Chinese government has succeeded very well in silencing not only well-known dissidents and activists but also NGO activists and academics who are outspoken, and lawyers, and basically pretty much everyone in addition to the usual suspects,” says Bequelin.

One sign of China’s effectiveness in stifling any protest movement is the hoopla over a brief kerfuffle outside the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, just south of the Olympic Green, and the 20-minute detention of a British journalist. John Ray of Independent Television News (ITN) was dragged along the ground, pushed in a van, and emerged with a bruised hand. It’s generated plentiful media coverage, and certainly breaches the Chinese government’s pledge to allow foreign journalists to report freely. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China has rightly objected. But the amount of attention to Ray’s case is also a reflection of the fact that here at last was someone‚Äî-a foreign broadcaster‚Äî-willing and able to speak freely about being man-handled by police.

Ray was reporting on a protest by Students For a Free Tibet, who’re proving to be the most active and best-organized opposition here, pulling off a stunt most days, with subsequent deportations. They staged a die-in on Tiananmen Square, and the five people involved were deported; a student displayed the Tibetan Snow Lion flag ringside at the equestrian events in Hong Kong and was carried off, and on Wednesday they scored their highest number of arrests so far‚Äî-eight-‚Äîby the simple tactic of handcuffing themselves together. Small groups of American and Dutch Christians have held protests on Tiananmen Square. The man who claims to have daubed hotel rooms with free speech slogans has announced he is in hiding in Beijing‚Äî-somewhat voluntarily, I feel‚Äî-and will give himself up on Aug 24.

The much-anticipated protest movement hasn’t really materialized, and it doesn’t look likely to. Frustrated foreign journalists on Wednesday were left fencing with International Olympic Committee (IOC) in its daily press conference about whether it has proved a willing dupe on China’s promises to improve human rights. The questions are justified. “This is a very, very large police effort to keep people away [from Beijing] and one that is actually working very well,” says Bequelin.

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The Olympics

I’ve been greatly enjoying the Olympics. Some thoughts.

  • The Chinese are doing a spectacular job. Still an authoritarian, politically repressive country. But give ’em credit for putting on a great show for the world.
  • I like NBC’s coverage. They’re showing lots of different sports, rather than obsessing over the popular gymnastics like they’ve done in the past.
  • Still waiting to see table tennis.
  • Usain Bolt is pretty amazing.
  • Watched some of USA Basketball’s trouncing of Spain on Saturday, but that’s all I’ve seen. Thirsty for more.
  • Really enjoying women’s beach volleyball. Walsh and Traynor are cruising.
  • The trampoline is boring.
  • When’s synchronized swimming?
  • Team handball is a really strange sport.
  • I like the version of “The Star Spangled Banner” recorded for Olympics medal ceremonies.
  • Haven’t seen any boxing yet. I assume it’s going on.
  • Saw some trap-shooting last week, and found it interesting.
  • Watching while on the treadmill at the YMCA makes time fly.
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The Olympics are Here (Actually, in China)

I’m really excited about the Olympics. Only comes around every four years, and there’s always plenty of drama and the unfolding of neat stories.

  • Right now, I’m watching Kerri Walsh and Misty May in beach volleyball.
  • Had men’s gymnastics earlier, but I didn’t care for it, so mainly read and book and sat outside while Jordi was in the grass.
  • Actually enjoyed women’s fencing earlier in the day (not sure I’d ever seen fencing before).
  • Cycling doesn’t work on TV, unless it’s one of those small oval tracks.
  • I generally dislike soccer–scoring so rarely happens. I like a sport where things happen. But I enjoyed watching some soccer earlier today.
  • Saw that Chinese girl win a gold in weight-lifting. Pretty impressive.
  • Of course, I love Olympic basketball.

Yeah, I’ll be addicted to this for the next two weeks.

The opening ceremonies were pretty impressive. But I was mainly interested–as I always am–in how the flame is lit. The Chinese did it pretty cool. But nothing beats that arrow shot in Barcelona. That’s still the best.

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