This is fun at Yard Barker, although more a typing test than a naming test...
After a couple of tries, I made it with :02 left to spare, but kept getting stuck on 49ers and Buccaneers. MLB is much harder.
Showing posts with label MLB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MLB. Show all posts
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
That Ebbets Field Feeling
It was tough to see images and read about the last game to be played at Dodgertown in Vero Beach on Monday. During my 14 years as a South Florida resident, I'd seen my Mets play in St. Lucie, and the Yankees in Ft. Lauderdale, far more times than I'd seen the Dodgers in Vero. Yet (although I've since moved up north and haven't seen Tradition Field, the renovated Mets facility that opened in 2004) I always thought Dodgertown was much nicer than the other Grapefruit League facilities I'd been to. Dodgertown had the "home park," "fan friendly" feel that most training parks lack. It wasn't just a temporary facility where the pros could keep warm until it was time to head north; it really felt like a place that loved its Dodgers, who had been there since 1948.
Now that the Dodgers are moving to more proximate digs in Glendale, Arizona, the longtime Florida residents who recall the days of Jackie, the Duke, and Pee Wee must have that same Ebbets Field feeling they had when their beloved Bums packed their bags and headed west in 1958. The last vestige of the East Coast Dodgers is gone. You can almost feel the long-since rusted pins being thrust into Walter O'Malley dolls for the first time since 1957.
Mixed Nuts:
• Trying to decide which is worse: watching the Mets fold like an origami accordion last September, or watching the Houston Rockets win 22 consecutive games while my Knicks have yet to win 20 all season.
• Really Extreme Makeover: Speaking of folding, after the reigning NCAA champion Florida Gators went 3-8 in their last 11 games, and missed the party for the first time in ten years, coach Billy Donovan got a little mad. He not only barred the players from entering UF's $12 million practice facility, he also banned them from wearing any Florida attire.
New in Sports Nuts...
Now that the Dodgers are moving to more proximate digs in Glendale, Arizona, the longtime Florida residents who recall the days of Jackie, the Duke, and Pee Wee must have that same Ebbets Field feeling they had when their beloved Bums packed their bags and headed west in 1958. The last vestige of the East Coast Dodgers is gone. You can almost feel the long-since rusted pins being thrust into Walter O'Malley dolls for the first time since 1957.
Mixed Nuts:
• Trying to decide which is worse: watching the Mets fold like an origami accordion last September, or watching the Houston Rockets win 22 consecutive games while my Knicks have yet to win 20 all season.
• Really Extreme Makeover: Speaking of folding, after the reigning NCAA champion Florida Gators went 3-8 in their last 11 games, and missed the party for the first time in ten years, coach Billy Donovan got a little mad. He not only barred the players from entering UF's $12 million practice facility, he also banned them from wearing any Florida attire.
New in Sports Nuts...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Surviving the Drought
Apologies for the long absence, sports fans. Sports Nuts News spent some time on the 30-day disabled list with a debilitating illness.
Sitting on the couch for a month during the Great Drought—that seemingly eternal period between the Super Bowl and Opening Day of MLB—isn't something I'd recommend for people in pain. You find yourself awake at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday and staring at the Venezuelan Women's X-treme Goat Milking Competition on The Deuce. (Looks like Lupe "The Tweaker" Valdez walks away with it this year.) Either that or yet another PGA invitational that should be renamed "Let's Just Give Tiger the Friggin' Trophy and Go Home Already." (Sorry, golf fans. I'm not big on golf; the athletic equivalent of checking the mail, in my opinion. But more on that in a future post.)
There's always NASCAR, but driving in a circle for six hours is only interesting to me when one of the cars has fewer than four tires touching the pavement. I tried to watch the Auto Club 500 from the California Speedway in Fontana on Feb. 24. The race started late because of rain and was delayed almost constantly due to the bad weather. There were so many flags, it looked like the U.N. had exploded. By lap 82 they'd already had seven cautions and they finally stopped the thing at 2 a.m. and postponed it to the next day. It was finally won by Carl Edwards, who, I think, wrote "Blue Suede Shoes."
Well I'm back on my feet and getting ready for March Madness and Championship Week. On the local front, it was good to see Albany's Siena Saints clinch a berth; winning the Metro this week by riding Rider 74-53. Looking forward to Orange vs. Nova this afternoon. But the most fun I've had is watching UNC-Asheville's 7-foot-7, 360-pound center, Kenny George, the country's tallest player. George has an inch and 50 pounds on Yao, half a foot and 35 pounds on Shaq, and, although he's the same height as Manute Bol was when he entered the NBA, George is nearly 130 pounds heavier than the Sudanese Skyscraper. Watching his opponents shooting futilely over his massive bulk was like watching preschoolers trying to fling rocks over a redwood tree. The Bulldogs didn't make the party this year but it may be worth catching the NIT just to see George slam without leaving the ground, and stand in the paint swatting away layups like so many gnats.
The latest Sports Nuts design...
Sitting on the couch for a month during the Great Drought—that seemingly eternal period between the Super Bowl and Opening Day of MLB—isn't something I'd recommend for people in pain. You find yourself awake at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday and staring at the Venezuelan Women's X-treme Goat Milking Competition on The Deuce. (Looks like Lupe "The Tweaker" Valdez walks away with it this year.) Either that or yet another PGA invitational that should be renamed "Let's Just Give Tiger the Friggin' Trophy and Go Home Already." (Sorry, golf fans. I'm not big on golf; the athletic equivalent of checking the mail, in my opinion. But more on that in a future post.)
There's always NASCAR, but driving in a circle for six hours is only interesting to me when one of the cars has fewer than four tires touching the pavement. I tried to watch the Auto Club 500 from the California Speedway in Fontana on Feb. 24. The race started late because of rain and was delayed almost constantly due to the bad weather. There were so many flags, it looked like the U.N. had exploded. By lap 82 they'd already had seven cautions and they finally stopped the thing at 2 a.m. and postponed it to the next day. It was finally won by Carl Edwards, who, I think, wrote "Blue Suede Shoes."
Well I'm back on my feet and getting ready for March Madness and Championship Week. On the local front, it was good to see Albany's Siena Saints clinch a berth; winning the Metro this week by riding Rider 74-53. Looking forward to Orange vs. Nova this afternoon. But the most fun I've had is watching UNC-Asheville's 7-foot-7, 360-pound center, Kenny George, the country's tallest player. George has an inch and 50 pounds on Yao, half a foot and 35 pounds on Shaq, and, although he's the same height as Manute Bol was when he entered the NBA, George is nearly 130 pounds heavier than the Sudanese Skyscraper. Watching his opponents shooting futilely over his massive bulk was like watching preschoolers trying to fling rocks over a redwood tree. The Bulldogs didn't make the party this year but it may be worth catching the NIT just to see George slam without leaving the ground, and stand in the paint swatting away layups like so many gnats.
The latest Sports Nuts design...
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Ya Doesn't Have to Call Me Ray
Okay, this happened like three months ago but I couldn't let it pass. I just discovered that the American League's Tampa Bay Devil Rays have officially changed their name to the Tampa Bay Rays. (Charles? Liotta? Romano?)
And they didn't just drop the modifying "devil," so as to affiliate themselves less specifically with the broader range of plankton-sucking mantas gliding so effortlessly beneath the seas. No, the team now wants to be known as "rays" of sunshine. I'm not kidding. The team's owner said, "We are now the ‘Rays’—a beacon that radiates throughout Tampa Bay and across the entire state of Florida." They've changed their logo, the team colors (navy and light blue, to represent the dark blue water and clear blue skies), and the team mascot. I don't know what the mascot is but I imagine Kirstie Alley in a Sponge Bob Halloween costume.
I just wish they had consulted Sports Nuts News first. I have some better suggestions:
1. The Tampa Bay Humidity
2. The Tampa Bay Melanoma
3. The Tampa Bay Sidewalk Omelets
4. The Tampa Bay Storm Surge
5. The Tampa Pons
Anyway, I haven't heard any beacons of shining news about increasing the team's payroll, which stands at about $24 million, roughly the amount A-Rod makes by Memorial Day. But perhaps this brilliant new look will infuse the spiffy new Rays with the ability to reach their first third-place divisional finish in team history.
In other breaking news, the Toronto Blue Jays have decided to drop the depressive connotations of "blue" and call themselves only The Jays. National anthems will only be sung by the O'Jays, Jay and the Americans, or Jay Z. New mascot? Its name is Leno.
Today's Sports Nuts design...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
