Amerikanski Beisbul du Jour

Haven't been to RFK to see the Nationals yet this year. Rained out, haven't traded in the tickets yet.

This weekend get to add a new ballpark notch to my umbrella handle. Scenic Safeco in Downtown Skedaddle next to Uncle Pete's Railroad Yards. (That's the Union Pacific to you, pardner.) Got tickets to two separate Mariners games. Gonna use my Ichiro Starbucks card too.

Have now been in six separate major league ballyards i.e. viz. and to wit: Colt 45s Stadium, the Astrodome, Enron Field (now Minute Maid Park) all in Houston TX; Memorial Stadium and Orioles Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore MD; and RFK, Washington DC. Seattle'll make seven.

Only three minor league parks on my record: Frederick MD, Sioux Falls SD and Durham NC. Good spread though. Not sure I ever got to go to Buffs Stadium (short for Buffalos, just down South Main Street from its intersection with Buffalo Speedway) in Houston when we were a St. Louis farm team before the Colt 45s/Astros were a gleam in Judge Roy Hofeinz' scheming taxpayer-bilking eye.

Bet you didn't know Judge Hofeinz committed two public rapes. Not only did he secure the first taxpayer-supported bond-funded baseball stadium (wait! what about DC Stadium, now RFK, and Fulton County Stadium, later home of the Braves before Turner, both built 1961? Gonna hafta Google and Wikipedia this one...) he also caused that evil shit Astroturf/Tartanturf and all its despicable descendents to be invented and used.

(Someday, oh, please, someday, let there be a baseball field in Korea named Chan Ho Park.)

The Horror of Zizou

Corriere della Sera
Rome, 09 July 2006
Google Translation

The French has been expelled to the 5 ' of according to additional time
Zidane, career sluice with one head

It could be the evening that celebrated it as hero of the history of French soccer and instead Zidane is exited from the field to low head, to the fifth minute of according to additional time. Expelled, for one head to cold against Materazzi. A gesture that changes to the end of one career.

The head of Zidane

The arbitrator, than had not seen the episode, then has consulted itself with the fourth man who has reported the happened one to it. Zidane concludes therefore, with this spot, its sport career.

In the first time it had marked to its way, from the floppy disk: steps discs of a valve, without to watch the porter. Ball under the crosspiece that bounces above-the-line. In according to time, still low head, has gone instead against the chest of Materazzi. Beautiful and the ugly one of a champion without time, that it leaves soccer with a goal of its, pure class, and an expulsion fruit of a moment of madness. Franc-Algerian, 34enne, leaves soccer with an avalanche of prizes the shoulders and the admiration of all gets passionate to it to you, opposing included. Its showcase is strapiena: world-wide and a European with the National one, one Champions League, two Intercontinental ones, two European Supercoppe, two tito them of champion of Italy, one of champion of Spain, one Italian Supercoppa, two Supercoppa of Spain. To personal level, three times Fifa player of the year, Football of Gold '98, better player than Champions League 2001-02. These numbers.

Assassin of France

Le Monde With Agence France Presse
LEMONDE.FR | 10.07.06 | 01h00 Updated • 10.07.06 | 01h21
Google Translation

Zidane: its twelfth and last red paperboard

Exclu with the 109e minute of the finale of World-2006 against Italy, Sunday in Berlin, Zinédine Zidane bailed out then, for the last match of its career, of the 12th red paperboard of its career, all confused matches. This time the captain of the team of France cracked vis-a-vis the defender Marco Materazzi to which it gave a blow of head to the chest. It is imagined that this stroke could not intervene without reason and that the Italian had to cause the tricolour n°10.

The red paperboards received before by Zidane are distributed as follows: 3 in Bordeaux, 5 with Juventus, 2 with Madrid and 1 with the team of France, already out of World cup, against Saudi Arabia, in 1998.

Its most outstanding exclusion went back to October 2000 in League of the champions with Juve against Hamburg, when it had struck a blow of head to the Kientz German, bailing out then of five matches of suspension.

For Raymond Domenech, the referee excluded Zinédine Zidane, Sunday, on the faith of images vidéos viewed by the fourth referee, which the payment does not provide. “One has just founded the video arbitration because it is the fourth referee who came to say it. The referee of key does not have anything considering. It is a new rule which is installation, lives it video in football! ”, bitterly Domenech was ironical after the final of the World cup, lost by France with the shootings with the goal. The FIFA (international Federation of football) is however opposed vigorously to the use of the video for the arbitration.

France Sabotage Herself!

Guardian
London, 9 July 06
Guardian Unlimited Football
World Cup 2006
Final
Rob Smyth

Italy 1 - France 1 (5-3 pens)

excerpt:

109 mins: ZIDANE SENT OFF[...]! Oh. My. God. In his final professional match, Zidane had been sent off[....] He just rammed his head into Materazzi's chest; it was really firm and nasty. Horrible. Now that really is a headbutt. It was also completely off the ball and at first it seemed he'd got away with it, but after talking to his assistant - and possibly after an intervention from the fourth official - the referee was alerted to what happened, and sent Zidane off. He has always had a nasty streak, but this was just ridiculous. What on earth did Materazzi say to provoke that? Either way, it was a disgusting (sic), nasty, blackly comic headbutt, delivered with a Hitchcokian suddenness, and it's an unbelievable ending to Zidane's lustrous career. It was a JFK moment and a GBH moment rolled into one oh-my-giddy-aunt moment. And he could still end up lifting the World Cup!

[....]

115 mins Replays show that Materazzi's crime was to, erm, tweak Zidane's nipple. I kid you not. [Twit Brit TV announcer...] is now launching into the darker spots of Materazzi's CV, but he's a fool: Zidane is slap bang out of order, kinky nipple tweak or no nipple tweak.

Mondiale Semifinal Preview for Over-Fifties

Teams: Hitler v. Mussolini
Coaches: Dolf v. Nito
Nicknames: SS v. OVRA
Favorite: Hitler

The Axis Breakdown
Longtime allies Dolf & Nito go at it in a symbol-rife match for the right to contest Eurosupremacy. Dolf’s lads’ attacking style leaves his defense knackered and liable to crack. Nito’s boys’ fluid defensive flair is hampered by their lack of match fitness and a habit of playing while their hands are in the air. Winner will be overwhelmingly favored against next opponent.


Teams: Salazar v. Petain
Coaches: Toni v. Henri
Nicknames: PVDE v. LFC
Favorite: Petain

Wannabes’ Undercard
Minor-league imitators Toni & Henri hope to push their squads back to former glory (anyone remember the 13th or 17th centuries?) Tendencies of chaotic Gauls and sclerotic Iberians prevent the best quality play here. Sloppily mediocre elements contaminate the styles of each team, but derivative play will not prevent one of them from contending for mastery of all the concentration camps.


Futbol Feuhrer Sepp Dietrich Blather, speaking from his HQ in Malmedy, praised the last four squads for maintaining traditional European values of brutality, inequality, thuggery, timidity, gross deception, rigid order, lack of imagination and repeated betrayal of the weak. "Ve haff liqvidated zer schweinhunds off zer NKVD, Peronist, Falangist und Ashanti pretensions," Blather remarked with great satisfaction, "und of course ze Perfidious Albion, ze FBI/OSS und ein whole schmear off ozzer negligible peoples."

The Sports Mania Relief Act of 2006

Be it enacted:

Clause I: Pro Rules
No Professional Sport “Season” Lasts More than Two Calendar Seasons, or Six Months.

No Hockey before November
No Hockey after May

No Football Exhibition Games on TV or with Paid Admissions
No Football before September
No Football after January

No Baseball before Jackie Robinson Day (April 15) [1947]
No Baseball after Curt Flood Day (October 9) [1968]
Raise the Mound Back Up the Six Inches Removed in 1969
Season is 162 Games Long, Including World Series
Make the Commissioner a Joint Player/Owner/Sportswriter Appointment, for Life. (Bud “Invertebrate” Selig, Pete Rose or any Friend of Jerry Reinsdorf's are Ineligible.)

No Basketball before October
No Basketball after April

Footnote: No American Soccer Announcers on ESPN, ABC, etc. Ever. Hire Irishmen If You Must; They Work Cheap and Understand the Game.


Clause II: Semi-Pro (NCAA) Rules
No Semi-Pro (NCAA) Sport “Season” Lasts Longer Than One Academic Semester

No Basketball Before December 15
No Basketball After March 15
Footnote: Number of Duke Fouls Called Per Game Must Not Prove Lower than 2/3 of NCAA Per Game Average on Penalty of Mass Referee Demotions

No Football Before September (Not Even in Texas)
No Football After New Years’ Day (Not Even for Computer Ranking Settlement Purposes)