I’ve spoken before about my newfound affection for the game of baseball at the minor league level, especially the local Frisco RoughRiders. Just wanted to point out that the Riders clinched a playoff spot in the Texas League’s East Division last night.
Category: Sports
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Olympics … Yawn
Never in my life have I felt so underwhelmed about the Olympics, and I can’t put my finger on why that is. Is it the loss of USA vs USSR? The influx of our professional athletes, as opposed to the days of old when it was our amateurs against the Soviet and East German so-called amateurs? Is it the drug scandals? Is it the fear of possible terror? Is it the move to have the Winter games offset so we now have an Olympiad every other year? I just don’t know. Maybe I’ll get into whatever remains of the Olympic spirit after the games start.
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Back from the Game
Well, a hot dog, a sliced brisket sandwich and two big beers later, I’m back from the ballpark. Great weather, great time, great company and great game. Riders come back to win 7-6 after a seven-run fifth inning.
Follow the link. Every time I go to that ballpark, I’m amazed at how well it was designed. It redefines the idea of friendly confines. You even have a view of the field while in line for foodage.
Checking around to see if there’s anything else I want to comment on tonight.
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Take Me Out to the Ballpark
I’m heading out to catch tonight’s Frisco Rough Riders game and stuff myself with stadium food.
Since any blogging I do today will be late, I felt I’d point you to the latest by Victor Davis Hanson (tip of the CVC to lgf).
In a word, we have devolved into an infantile society in which our technological successes have wrongly suggested that we can alter the nature of man to our whims and pleasures — just like a child who expects instant gratification from his parents. In a culture where affluence and leisure are seen as birthrights, war, sacrifice, or even the mental fatigue about worrying over such things wear on us. So we construct, in a deductive and anti-empirical way, a play universe that better suits us.
In that regard, for the moment George Bush is a godsend. His drawl, Christianity, tough talk, ramrod straight strut — all that and more become the locus of our fears: French and Germans on the warpath? They must have been Bushwhacked, not angry that their subsidized utopia — from a short work week, looming pension catastrophe, and no national defense — is eroding.
Oh, and I’ve decided that minor league baseball is a far superior product when compared to the major league version. Maybe not better play, but much more bang for the buck. Hustle and effort sans the egos. Not to mention how nice Frisco’s ballpark is, and how good the hot dogs are.
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The Joy of Six
Unprecedented. Dominating. Exhilarating. Lance!
Lance Armstrong rode into history Sunday by winning the Tour de France for a record sixth time, an achievement that confirmed him as one of the greatest sportsmen of all time.
His sixth crown in six dominant years elevated Armstrong above four champions who won five times. And never in its 101-year-old history has the Tour had a winner like Armstrong — a Texan who just eight years ago was given less than a 50 percent chance of overcoming testicular cancer that spread to his lungs and brain.
Armstrong’s unbeaten streak since 1999 has helped reinvigorate the greatest race in cycling, steering it into the 21st century. And the Tour, as much a part of French summers as languid meals over chilled rose, molded Armstrong into a sporting superstar.
No. 6. The record. The achievement was almost too much even for Armstrong to comprehend.
“It might take years. I don’t know. It hasn’t sunk in yet. But six, standing on the top step on the podium on the Champs-Elysees is really special,” he said.
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Back in Yellow
Lance Armstrong retook the overall lead in the Tour de France today, outsprinting his top two challengers to win the first stage in the Alps and close in on a record sixth straight title.