What's Wrong With the Water in the National League?
"I know up on top you are seeing great sights, but down on the bottom we, too, should have rights!" -- YERTLE THE TURTLE
Just as you know something is amiss in a village or a region of the world when you witness a sudden tide of refugees carrying rope-bound suitcases on their heads, cooking pots and mattresses, crying babies and burlap bags full of shahtoosh as they lead goats on a rope down dirt roads where the air is swollen with fleas and flies and dust, so too do you know that something must be rotten in the state of the National League to have caused an exodus so comprehensive one wonders what superstars will be left to turn out the lights.
Sunday, February 29, 2004
Sunday, February 22, 2004
In a note that should hearten the Red Sox Nation and prove yet again, pissing millions into the wind on a big name squad, Arsenal seal Ranieri's fate as Chelsea give up the fight
"Continuity, good leadership and the presence of so much experience permits easier assimilation of newcomers such as Kolo Toure and Gilberto and this season's implants, Clichy and Jens Lehmann. By comparison, six of Chelsea's starting line-up against Arsenal joined this season. Some have not developed a deep bond with the club. They have not shared in past pleasures and pains, the fire that forges individuals into a unit. Arsenal's pulse-racing season is rooted in the heartache of falling in last season's championship chase."
The bloke at Mariner Musings has unleashed another haiku:
Haiku #4: Ichiro!
Anticipating
Bat spinning like a windmill
Electricity
And in case you missed it, let's add All-baseballdotcom to the roll.
And in case you missed it, let's add Yanksfan vs Soxfan to the roll.
In yet another sign that this year is not the Year of the Mets, supporters and reporters are now officially reduced to spinning the ole but we've got great prospects! warble.
Tja. It's the 1986-2006 plan. Way to go.
*****
Other Sports
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I can't help but be fascinated with the progressively younger crops of NBA ?berteen dreams. Now it's the 14 year old O. J. Mayo garnering the almost prenatal adulation and attention. He's even been billed as the next LeBron -- the next LeBron? What's the shelf life of a pro hoops phenom these days, 20 minutes?
*****
Found this article on a To-know list in the Sporting News from last April which devotes itself to the inner psychological QB:
"It's well-documented how the man called the "brain doctor" advised the Chargers against selecting Ryan Leaf based merely upon what he'd observed of Leaf's brain wiring.
Jonathan Niednagel, head of the Brain Types Institute in Nottinghill, Mo., operates with an eight-letter alphabet. When he looks at a person, he sees four letters--or one of 16 combinations called brain types, which are determined by four basic pairs of psychological attributes.
Brain-type categories
(E)xtroverted vs. (I)ntroverted: Draws energy from others or from within.
(S)ensing vs. i(N)tuitive: Believes in only touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing or also in a sixth, guiding sense.
(T)hinking vs. (F)eeling: Bases decisions on either logic or emotion.
(J)udging vs. (P)erceiving: Is work-oriented or Is work-oriented or fun-oriented in approach to life."
Before the 2003 season, eight NFL quarterbacks had 40,000 yards or more in career passing. From those eight, only Dan Fouts and Warren Moon were not ESTP brain types meaning, Extroverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving blokes. You know the type...ESTP brain-types, such as John Elway, Dan Marino, Joe Montana and Peyton Manning. They have in common the ability to run the two-minute drill better than quarterbacks with different brains. That's because ESTP brain-types are known as "opportunists" who "seek fun and excitement" and "enjoy the moment," according to braintypes.com.
I wonder how many of the lads in my local are ESTPs. Probably not many potential Quarterbacks wandering Stratford-Upon-Avon.
"Continuity, good leadership and the presence of so much experience permits easier assimilation of newcomers such as Kolo Toure and Gilberto and this season's implants, Clichy and Jens Lehmann. By comparison, six of Chelsea's starting line-up against Arsenal joined this season. Some have not developed a deep bond with the club. They have not shared in past pleasures and pains, the fire that forges individuals into a unit. Arsenal's pulse-racing season is rooted in the heartache of falling in last season's championship chase."
The bloke at Mariner Musings has unleashed another haiku:
Haiku #4: Ichiro!
Anticipating
Bat spinning like a windmill
Electricity
And in case you missed it, let's add All-baseballdotcom to the roll.
And in case you missed it, let's add Yanksfan vs Soxfan to the roll.
In yet another sign that this year is not the Year of the Mets, supporters and reporters are now officially reduced to spinning the ole but we've got great prospects! warble.
Tja. It's the 1986-2006 plan. Way to go.
*****
Other Sports
*****
I can't help but be fascinated with the progressively younger crops of NBA ?berteen dreams. Now it's the 14 year old O. J. Mayo garnering the almost prenatal adulation and attention. He's even been billed as the next LeBron -- the next LeBron? What's the shelf life of a pro hoops phenom these days, 20 minutes?
*****
Found this article on a To-know list in the Sporting News from last April which devotes itself to the inner psychological QB:
"It's well-documented how the man called the "brain doctor" advised the Chargers against selecting Ryan Leaf based merely upon what he'd observed of Leaf's brain wiring.
Jonathan Niednagel, head of the Brain Types Institute in Nottinghill, Mo., operates with an eight-letter alphabet. When he looks at a person, he sees four letters--or one of 16 combinations called brain types, which are determined by four basic pairs of psychological attributes.
Brain-type categories
(E)xtroverted vs. (I)ntroverted: Draws energy from others or from within.
(S)ensing vs. i(N)tuitive: Believes in only touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing or also in a sixth, guiding sense.
(T)hinking vs. (F)eeling: Bases decisions on either logic or emotion.
(J)udging vs. (P)erceiving: Is work-oriented or Is work-oriented or fun-oriented in approach to life."
Before the 2003 season, eight NFL quarterbacks had 40,000 yards or more in career passing. From those eight, only Dan Fouts and Warren Moon were not ESTP brain types meaning, Extroverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving blokes. You know the type...ESTP brain-types, such as John Elway, Dan Marino, Joe Montana and Peyton Manning. They have in common the ability to run the two-minute drill better than quarterbacks with different brains. That's because ESTP brain-types are known as "opportunists" who "seek fun and excitement" and "enjoy the moment," according to braintypes.com.
I wonder how many of the lads in my local are ESTPs. Probably not many potential Quarterbacks wandering Stratford-Upon-Avon.
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
A-God
"I could prove God statistically." -- George Gallup
In the fever of statistics, the sweaty palms of junkies trying to prove their points, it should be considered that the Yankees coup of A-Rod is much bigger than mere statistics themselves. The arrival of A-Rod is an arrival in NYC that hasn't been seen since perhaps since the fixed draft that saw the Knicks collect Patrick Ewing out of Georgetown. It isn't the sterile calculations of combinations performed by people who love to take the heart from sports and slap a freshly printed dollar bill across it. It is about the passion discovered in sudden sports surprises that seize a city like an asthma attack and prove once again that is the beauty of speculation that allows us to feel happy as sportsfans, even when our team loses.
Monday, February 16, 2004
Fear Governs Red Sox Nation
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks". - Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene II.
The Red Sox Nation, fresh off their surrogate success and the sublime earthquakes of ecstacy victory in Patriot Land, having suffered a sharp blow to the solar plexus, now try to regroup with fantasy tales of why the Yankees getting A-Rod after they themselves failed to do so, isn't the kick to the nuts their mascochistic psyches haven't been waiting for all off season ever since Pettitte and Clemens shook off their pinstripes for their homeland of Texas.
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks". - Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene II.
The Red Sox Nation, fresh off their surrogate success and the sublime earthquakes of ecstacy victory in Patriot Land, having suffered a sharp blow to the solar plexus, now try to regroup with fantasy tales of why the Yankees getting A-Rod after they themselves failed to do so, isn't the kick to the nuts their mascochistic psyches haven't been waiting for all off season ever since Pettitte and Clemens shook off their pinstripes for their homeland of Texas.
