July 2008 - Posts
I know this is a big series beginning today between Chicago and Milwaukee, as big as any baseball has seen this year. And I’m trying to get worked up about it, I really am. But my brain refuses to hear “Cubs” and “Brewers” in the same sentence without telling me to yawn.
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The Brett Favre morass is an embarrassment for Green Bay and Favre and the kind of publicity the NFL doesn’t think it needs. And for those reasons, you have to congratulate commissioner Roger Goodell for leaning on the team to move their un-retiring quarterback to another team and end the madness.
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I yell at the TV a lot. I was at it again Sunday morning, inspired by the sage advice being offered Greg Norman by the analysts in the booth.
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Reggie Jackson threw out the first pitch before the 2008 Home Run Derby. Then he stayed on the field to take a few cuts, not at a baseball, but at the guys who don’t want to enter the derby because it might mess up their swings. No names were mentioned, but every fan in the park knew that hometown hero Alex Rodriguez was one of those people.
“It wouldn’t have bothered me, because every time I went to the plate, I was trying to get the ball in the air for three or four seconds,” Jackson told Michael Kay, Yankee broadcaster and P.A. announcer for the derby. “Anytime I hit the ball on the ground, it was a mistake.”
Jackson would have loved the home run derby, and it’s a shame baseball didn’t have it when he was in his prime 30 years ago. Unlike A-Rod and other top sluggers who bypass the derby, he didn’t worry about his swing, and he certainly didn’t worry about the pressure.
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It’s official: There’ll be no fettuccini al fido on the menu in Beijing during the Olympics. Nor will the adventurous tourist be able to get nice beagle with lox, a bowl of Irish setter stew, a water spaniel cress salad or German shepherd’s pie.
This is the news from Chinese tourism officials, who have told Beijing restaurants to take dog meat off their menus for the duration of the Games. This is the same order that Korean officials gave restaurants in Seoul during the 1988 Olympics.
For this, I am grateful for two reasons. The most obvious is that I view dogs as wonderful pets and great friends, which makes the thought of eating them as repulsive as the thought of dining on leg of Aunt Clara. The other is that I’m just the sort of lunk who would probably end up sampling a nice Bowser bisque if I spotted it on a menu.
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You’ve got to feel sorry for Alex Rodriguez. The poor guy can’t even pay a social visit on Madonna without the whole world knowing about it.
It’s just like last year, when he decided on a whim to visit a strip joint in Toronto and decided to take along a friend. The New York Post, nosy nest of gossip mongers that it is, felt obliged to tell its readers about it. It was thoughtful enough to describe the friend:
“His tight-bodied, bleach-blonde gal pal was clad in a snug pair of blue jeans, a shiny, light T-shirt and wedge-heeled shoes.”
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