I did not see all of the Olympics’ Opening Ceremonies by a long shot but I did see most of the introductory performances prior to the parade of nations. If you did not see this, find a video on the web or ask around among your friends to see who recorded it. It really is worth your time to watch it.
In the men’s’ 4X100 freestyle relay, it sure looked to me as if the US swimmer was trailing the world record holder in the 100 meter freestyle by a full body length with about 40 meters to go. I saw the US swimmer on the final leg closing the gap but never thought he could actually catch the leader – - until about the final 10 meters. The world record in the event was broken by a full four seconds and the fifth place team broke the existing world record for the event. I would say that qualifies as a “classic Olympic moment”.
The US men’s basketball team played a game based on defense and getting the ball to the open man. In doing so, they beat China in an opening round game by more than 30 points. Every NBA coach should take that video, break it down, and make his team watch it analytically. It really is amazing how easy the game can be if the man with the ball does not have a horde of defenders around him and when your team is playing tough defense based on hustle. Of the jillions of NBA games played each season, I suspect you might find one or two where a team played that well – - but I would not want to be the person who had to wade through the slag-heap of other games to find those couple of gems.
Speaking of the NBA, can someone explain to me why the LA Clippers went out and signed Jason Williams and Ricky Davis? Greg Cote of the Miami Herald gives perspective on this matter:
“The Heat lost Jason Williams to the Los Angeles Clippers, filling the Clippers’ need for an injury-prone, broken-down point guard in severe career decline.”
Baseball is at the point in the season where the pennant races have been defined and the contending teams are also keeping an eye on the wild-card slots. This is the time when games for about half of the teams all matter a lot; for lots of teams there will be no “days off” until the end of their season. Nevertheless, the fans in a few cities seem not to have caught on.
I know that the Tampa Bay Rays have been awful for all of their existence and their fans have grown accustomed to failure and futility. However, the Rays hold the second best record in baseball at the moment and they are tied with the Cubs for the best home record in baseball. Yet, attendance is still miserable. Average attendance for the year in Tampa is only up about 4000 per game – to an anemic level of 21,500. The Rays rank 26th in overall attendance in MLB. What more do those fans want the team to do? Levitate themselves?
The Washington Nationals have the worst record in MLB. It is not unusual for the team with the worst record to have sagging attendance and the Nationals attendance in their new stadium has not been impressive at all. As I have pointed out here many times, Washington DC is not a good sports town and is certainly not a baseball town; MLB should have known that when the put the Expos here in the first place. But the news gets worse…
The Neilsen folks say that the Nationals television audience on the local cable sports channel (MASN) averages a paltry 9,000 people. That means the Nationals not only don’t draw fans to the stadium in any quantity but that people who stay home don’t even bother to turn on their TV set to see what is happening. Can it be that a major league baseball team actually draws more fans to the park than they do to the TV sets to see a game? I cannot believe that happens anywhere else – - even in Tampa.
Meanwhile, in Miami the chronic attendance woes continue. Once again, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald gives you a perspective on the situation down there:
“The Marlins took two of three in Philadelphia, finally defeating Jamie Moyer, and return home Monday to face St. Louis. It begins a huge homestand in an exciting playoff race, meaning the stadium might be one-third full instead of the usual one-fifth.”
The latest object of hyperbole is Yankee Stadium. It has been described as a shrine, a cathedral and a national historical landmark. Take a breath for a moment and focus on what’s going on and maybe you will want to ask the poets making such claims a simple question:
If any of those things – let alone all of them – happens to be close to correct, why is it being torn down?
At the end of the last college football season, there were some really bad football teams. If these were not the ten worst, then they were surely in the bottom 20.
Idaho 1-11
FIU 1-11
Duke 1-11
Minnesota 1-11
N Texas 2-10
Syracuse 2-10
Utah State 2-10
UAB 2-10
SMU 2-10
N. Illinois 2-10
So, which of these teams has a shot to improve in a significant way this year? My guess would be N. Illinois because five of their ten losses were by less than a TD last year.
Finally, let’s make today an homage to Greg Cote of the Miami Herald:
“FIU [Florida International University] has a new football stadium, new logo and new mascot. After a combined 1-23 record the past two years, I would say what FIU mostly needs is a new team.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…