I’ve mentioned before that the owner and semi-regular author of Fountain Shots is a friend and fellow attorney. He covers midwestern sports with an emphasis on the Royals and K-State. Both suck a great deal or maybe he’d post more often? Anyway, he’s set up his first podcast here. It’s geared towards the Big 12 football race. He’s obviously put a great deal of time into the production value and it’s worth a listen.
What can be better than a track and field controversy? A dental visit? 8:30 in-custody criminal docket call? Mowing in the rain? The first problem is that T&F is nearly unbearable to watch, the second is that no one cares who wins. Think NASCAR without the marketing department… And then just when someone comes along and starts to dominate they get popped for some type of doping, sometimes involving horse drugs(!?!)…
So why are we even talking about it? Because when the controversy is over the gender of the winner we’re interested. Caster Semenya is competing and dominating as a woman but there may be some doubt… Take a look:
Photo courtesy of Olivier Morin, AFP/Getty Images
It appears that officials from the IAFF are concerned as well. Spokesman Nick Davies claimed it was a, “medical issue, not an issue of cheating”. Apparently the testing is complicated and could take some time.
His/her coach Michael Seme uncorked this gem:
We understand that people will ask questions because she looks like a man. It’s a natural reaction and it’s only human to be curious. People probably have the right to ask such questions if they are in doubt. But I can give you the telephone numbers of her room-mates in Berlin. They have already seen her naked in the showers and she has nothing to hide.
I know, two sports posts in two days… but this was just too good not to post:
The Trey Hillmans and Dayton Moores of the world always tell us about the magical and mystical world of baseball. They describe it as a game played in a kind of manly tableau of romance, a strange concoction of male heroism — you have to look into a guy’s eyes now and then — and a well-wrought detective novel. Little things, things that don’t show up in the boxscore, are of course, supremely important. And it makes them feel intelligent, although they are at root anti-intellectual, to adhere to this sort of gnosticism. Not everybody really knows the game, like those who really know the game. Scouts, it goes without saying, are part of the initiated, the wizard sleuths who know what to notice and how to interpret the signs. The oracles of this creed speak as all oracles do, in circles designed to confuse outsiders. Thus, we are sometimes told things seemingly empty: he’s a ballplayer, he plays the game the right way, and so on.
It is, fundamentally, a world enchanted by magic. A mythical world. Symbols and signs abound. Beginnings and endings, naturally, are of the utmost importance. How the first inning of the game starts, for the offense, is most important. Proper supplications must be made. If a good “bat-handler” can be found to bat second, much good fortune will be generated. His groundouts to second will be recorded by the spirit world approvingly. A dirty uniform, even if dirtied in missing a flyball or in being thrown out in a steal attempt, is both a sign of piety and a talisman of good tidings.
KANSAS CITY (RotR) – In a stunning and unconventional move, the Royals announced today that closer Joakim Soria had been sent home and would not pitch the remainder of the season.
“He’s too rested to pitch,” manager Trey Hillman announced prior to Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays. “If he’s too rested to pitch today, then obviously we can’t pitch him today. And if he doesn’t pitch today, then he’ll be even more rested tomorrow, so he can’t pitch then either. After sitting down and doing the math, we realized that if you extend this line of reasoning into the future, that Soria will be too rested to pitch for every game the rest of the season. So we felt it was best to send Soria home and have him rest up for next year.”
Catch you later. While I’m gone, make sure to root for Tommy. He’s a hunter, a gentleman, and a Kansan. If you don’t know who I’m talking about check the British Open.
I love quirky sports stats, particularly in baseball. I can’t explain it, but this type of thing makes me smile:
[Royals catcher Miguel] Olivo is responsible for two of the most amazing stats of the year. As one brilliant commenter on Royals Review pointed out, Olivo has reached base on a wild pitch following a strikeout three times – and has also walked three times. Olivo has reached base on a strikeout as often as he has reached base on a walk. Just as impressively, for the season Olivo has 71 strikeouts to go along with those 3 walks. No one in the history of baseball has ever struck out that many times with so few walks. The previous record holder, Rob Picciolo (with 63 Ks and 2 BBs in 1980) is probably the most infamous hacker in major league history.
Anyway I stumbled upon this post where Pro-bowl NFL tight end Chris Cooley found a dead cow on his ranch and lit it on fire. Not any big deal right? Probably something every Wyoming Rancher does.
Props to him for standing up to some potential criticism… Looking at the pictures I’m not sure he’s too accurate on that, “… been dead more than a year…” thing. I’d say his ranching skills have a ways to go.
Aside from the flaming ungulates he has some other interesting material on his blog. Take a look here.
I’ve played soccer my whole life. I’m one of the few Americans that are following the National Team as they play their way towards the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (I hope to attend). Today was the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup against the best team in the world, Spain. The US picked up a solid goal early in the game and then played incredible defense for the rest of the game, adding a counter attack goal midway through the second half. After losing the first two games in round robin play and getting throttled a few weeks ago by Costa Rica it’s good to see the US play well. Spain had not been defeated in its last 15 games. Now it would be nice if people took notice of the finals on Sunday at 2:25 EST on ESPN2.
The wife’s brother had this big idea to go to the Royals game for Father’s Day. Ok, not an obviously terrible idea except:
- It was a 1:00pm day game
- It’s June 21 in Eastern Kansas
- On average, it’s like 183 degrees on June 21 in Eastern Kansas
- The Royals really suck
- It was against the Cardinals who always fill the stadium with their idiot fans
- Royals “manager” Trey Hillman publicly stated that he would pitch to Albert Pujols as some type of manliness-pain threshold-test
Of course you know what happened. The 7 months pregnant wife was uncomfortable in the 98 degrees with 75% humidity and no shade. We left in the 5th. Better yet, Pujols had 2 homers, 6 RBIs and NO WALKS. Apparently Trey won by losing? Happy Father’s Day btw!
So this evening I was checking up on my favorite baseball writer’s blog to see if he had any gems about the 3-0 series we just lost in comically bad fashion. I found this post:
*Brilliant reader Jeff brings up a completely unrelated point that I actually spent a great deal of time thinking about Thursday night. With the score tied in the top of the ninth, with Cleveland’s Kerry Wood pitching, Royals manager Trey Hillman decided to pinch-hit for first batter Tony Pena Jr. Well, it only makes sense. You need to do whatever you can to get your leadoff hitter on base in the ninth.
But here’s what Trey did: He pinch hit Luis Hernandez. For those of you that don’t know: Luis Hernandez can’t hit. No, I’m serious, he can’t hit. Best I can tell, you couldn’t pick Luis Hernandez out of a lineup filled with Tony Penas. Hernandez is a lifetime .246/.292/.316 hitter … in the MINOR LEAGUES. To be fair to him, Luis Hernandez never claimed the ability to hit, he (like Tony Pena) is a good defensive shortstop and his value is as a late inning defensive replacement and day-game-after-a-night-game stand-in. There are worse things.
This is the man Trey Hillman decided to use as a pinch hitter to lead off the ninth inning with a tie score. Trey did this even though he had Mike Jacobs and Mark Teahen on the bench, both left-handed hitters, both a million times better than Luis Hernandez and both (as Jeff pointed out) hit home runs off of Kerry Wood just a couple of weeks earlier in the Royals stunning ninth inning comeback. I stared at the television blankly, like I was looking at one of those magic eye puzzles and I couldn’t see the sailboat.
My friend Joel Goldberg was filling in for the hoarse Ryan Lefebvre as TV announcer, and so it was left to him to try to explain this mystery — it was like asking a Coca Cola employee from another department to explain the strategies behind New Coke. I thought Joel tried hard: He suggested that Trey was probably “saving” Teahen (and, presumably, Jacobs) for a situation when they might drive in a run.
“We looked in all the usual places: third place, fourth place, even fifth place, and we didn’t see our name anywhere,” said Royals GM Dayton Moore, who added that he even peeked at the AL West standings to see if perhaps the team had been moved to a different division.
