College World Series

             

MLB Salary vs Performance chart

http://benfry.com/salaryper/

Team USA: Defeat was not just on the pitch

Team USA.

Fit, disciplined, quick, tactical, skilled and they carry a goal-threat. Maybe a dark horse for next summer?!

Sadly they can't close out a game, last nights epic surrender of the FIFA Confederations Cup Final demonstrated a lack of belief that they could actually win it. From the moment the second half kicked off they looked like a team ready to lose, not one ready to win. 46 seconds later and Luis Fabiano had scored his 4th goal of the tournament and Brazil were back in it.

Team USA tried to maintain the level of the first half when they achieved their  2-0 lead, but another Luis Fabiano strike and a thumping header from Lucio and the match had turned. Brazil were the Champions.

Sadly we will never know if Team USA had actually managed to win an international tournament if it would have caused a shift in the American 'soccer- psyche' and if it would have achieved any significant media exposure in the US. The game still struggles to get past the monsters of Basketball and Baseball and potentially winning something could help change that, especially if they actually became legitimate 'World Champions' in a sport next summer.

For example, the homepage of the New York Times sports section does not lead with the thrilling encounter in Jo'Burg - oh no it is about a Baseball pitcher throwing four-in-a-row. However, even if the Baseball story is spectacular (which I am sure it is to those in the know) the football story falls way down below the fold, its even below the pecking order of a Pete Sampras interview!.

The Home Run

via flickr.com

Road trips involve experiencing the past and present. This ball park is an integral part of American culture and history. Visit Fenway Park and imagine all the stories and history that has taken place. Perhaps watch a Boston Red Sox game too!

Steroids, Slander, and the Internets

Maybe I'm extra special partial to this because I've fallen in love faster with Raul Ibanez than any other baseball player, and it's a little unsettling to see him react so angrily to what I consider to be an understandably suspicious, imperfectly presented, but ultimately harmless blog post, but maybe my rapture runs deeper. Maybe the debate really does provide a totally fascinating angle from which to look at press and rumor and the evolution of information flow...



Good for ESPN for hosting the discussion. Good for Jerod the blogger for participating with cool and humility. And good for Raul for offering stool samples if requested. Radical transparency, baby.

Vintage Baseball!

Getting there can be tricky but it's WORTH the trip. And at $15 you can save yourself major cash on Father's Day. Register: info@bpmm.org

Best 1-2-3 punch in National League?

I'm watching the Giants play the Diamondbacks - 3-1 Giants, Top of the 3rd. Last night Matt Cain won his NL lead tying 8th game to go 8-1. Last year's NL Cy Young winner, Tim Lincecum is at 5-1 and newly minted 300 game winner Randy Johnson is at 5-5. That's 3 out of the top 20 starting pitchers (Jonathan Broxton and Tony Pena are closers). I don't expect much out of The Big Unit but I think Lincecum could easily have 2 or 3 more wins and Matt Cain looks amazing. Now if only we had a decent bat in the lineup...

Who brings a fake alien to baseball?

Stop fucking with J.D. already

Lawsuit targets 'rip-off' of 'Catcher in the Rye'

It seems J.D. Salinger is still alive and alert in his reclusive New Hampshire home. Of course he hasn't published a thing in over 40 years, but it's easy living off those royalties when Catcher in the Rye still sells 250,000 copies a year.

Even though the 'rip-off' looks like a monumental piece of garbage, and I sincerely hope Mr. Salinger and his lawyers succeed in stopping its publication and getting all existing copies recalled and destroyed (now there's a book burning I would pay to see!), there's a much bigger story here. Or, at least for me personally there is.

You see, Karen and I just took a lovely camping trip out to Galena and the nearby Mississippi Palisades State Park, and while we were sort of in the neighborhood we made a spur-of-the-moment jaunt over to Dyersville, Iowa to visit the famous baseball diamond where The Field of Dreams was filmed.

(You might be asking yourself what any of this has to do with J.D. Salinger. Everything will be revealed in time, trust me.)

We arrived to find the field littered with 6th-graders on a field trip playing what seemed to be some kind of 20-on-20 variation of the game of baseball. Not wanting to interrupt their fun, Karen and I went out to deep right field, waded our toes in the thick green grass, took a deep breath of the crisp spring air, and proceeded to play catch like a couple of kids. It wasn't long before a man walked over to introduce himself. He carried a bag full of bats and balls and gloves. He asked, "You two wanna play some pepper?"

I wish I could say he walked right out the the corn stalks, but this was late May and they weren't more than a couple inches high. Turns out he was from Wisconsin, and said he came down here to "scout out" the field before he and some friends came back later in the summer. He looked like a grizzled veteran of the minor leagues, or at least a guy who played some serious high school or semi-pro ball. We set up with Karen behind me and to my right, and I started lobbing pitches at him. He hit some soft ground balls to both of us. After a while the teachers rounded up all the school kids and away they went on their buses back where they came from, leaving an eerily empty field behind.

We moved our operation to the diamond, and a few other stragglers joined us. We all got a chance to hit some balls, chase line drives, catch pop-ups, throw the ball around the infield. I took a big lead off first and sprinted to third on an imaginary single. An older man and his son were there, and after saying the hadn't hit a ball in twenty years, we finally convinced him to step into the batter's box, and all he did was hit line drives to left field. I can imagine how great that must have felt for him. All told, Karen and I spent an enchanting couple of hours running around a baseball diamond with strangers, and I couldn't think of anything else I would rather be doing.

But, of course, the city called us back. Work called us back. Hitting rush-hour traffic coming into Chicago really jolted me back to reality. But after we got home and settled in, Karen told me about the book Shoeless Joe, that she had read maybe ten years ago, that the movie The Field of Dreams is based on. She even had a little notebook of her own with quotes she had taken out of the book, written in purple and pink pens. We talk about books we've read a lot, but this is one she has never mentioned to me before. The next day, a fresh copy of the book was waiting for me, thanks to Karen, when I got home from work.

As I began reading, I immediately became engrossed in the book, which, as books usually are, is far better than the movie. As I got a little further into the book I made a startling discovery. In the movie, Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) befriends the reclusive author Terence Mann (played by James Earl Jones), after the voice in his head urges him to "Ease his pain." In the book, of course, the reclusive author whose pain he must ease in none other than J.D. Salinger, and Terence Mann is just a fictionalized heavy-set black version of Salinger. You see, we've come full circle now.

Salinger has always been one of my favorite writers, but I wasn't even sure if he was still alive. The man is that good at being a recluse. So I looked him up online, and it turns out he is still alive, and, although frail and deaf, still fighting to maintain the rights to his literary creations.

Let's finish this on a high note: it has been quite a convoluted string of events that has led me to look up Salinger and discover this news item about him, which has led me to one of the most creative pieces of fiction I have read in a long time. And, no, I'm not referring to the Shoeless Joe. I refer, instead, to the biography of the "author" of the unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye, somebody who calls himself John David California. Here it is, right out of Amazon.com, and man is this some good stuff:

Born in California to a Swedish mother and an American father, where John David's parents were working for a traveling circus company, John David was named after the state in which he was born. John David's writing career started as a freelance travel writer for several international magazines, as well as several short film scripts. The former gravedigger and Ironman triathlete has been captivated by the story of Mr.C for years. After finding a well-travelled copy of The Catcher in the Rye in an abandoned cabin in rural Cambodia, the iconic characters within saw John through the most maniacal of tropical fevers and chronic isolation. Years later he was finally able to return the favour, holding the fate of Mr.C in his inspired hands with 60 Years Later: Coming through the Rye.

I hope that gave you a good laugh.

Marineros vs Gemelos