No Wimbledon Supermatch in 2010

Federer didn't do his part in a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 loss to Tomas Berdych in the quarters. Nadal defeated Soderling, which makes 2 in a row against the guy that previously beat him 2 in a row and ended his clay streak last year. It feels like Nadal is in top shape, but the next match, a semi against Andy Murray will prove it for sure. Murray was another guy he had trouble against last year. With Federer getting upset, this tournament is reminiscent of last year's French Open when Nadal got eliminated, clearing the road for Federer. With Federer out, it should clear the way for Nadal. It would've been nice to see if Nadal could go for 2 against Roger... and for fans of Roger... see if he could redeem himself on grass.

Djokovic ended Lu's surge in the quarters also. So he'll face Berrych. The semis should be interesting with Nadal facing the hometown supported Murray. Djokovic will face another sub top-10 who just got a burst of confidence.

Wimbledon 2010 - More Maria

Maria got eliminated by Serena yesterday in a pretty good match. The first set was close and went to a tiebreak 7-6 (9), 6-4. Anyway, here's some more recent Maria footage...


Roddick was also eliminated yesterday, to a non-top player... Lu from Taiwan. They played an exciting 5-set marathon. Roddick looked OK, but failed ton convert enough breaks. Lu was also serving very well.

Yankees vs. Dodgers

The Yankees went to visit their former manager, Joe Torre this weekend as they played the Dodgers in interleague. For the core four, Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte and Rivera, it was great to see their former manager that they won all their rings with. For A-Rod, it was bitterness as the media played up a few sentences from The Yankee Years a few years ago that made him look bad. The 2 made up just before game 2 though. If A-Rod had read the book, I think he would consider it a non-issue.

Anyway... back to the weekend series. The Yankees took Game 1 2-1 in a good pitching match up between CC & Padilla. Known for his headhunting, Padilla drilled Cano in the back. In the past, he has also hit Teixiera and Mark took exception to it. CC retaliated and hit Padilla with an inside pitch at the knees. There was a long stare between the 2, neither backing down. No fight and no ejections though. It was a gutsy move by CC. knowing he would be batting in a couple of innings. Padilla did not retaliate. I was almost certain he would and so were the announcers. Nothing came though... Joe Torre tactic I'm sure. The Game winner was a homer in the 6th by A-Rod.

Game 2 was another crappy performance by AJ Burnett in a 4-9 loss. As usual, he was backed up by the crappy performance of Chan Ho Park. I think it was 6-4 when AJ came out, but his control was terrible. What I don't get is the Yankees didn't really give themselves a chance to win when he came out. A 2-run deficit isn't much, but when they put Park in their, he's just going to give up more... sure enough, he did. When he gets outs, the batters are still ripping the ball into the outfield... not a good sign when his outs are by luck.

Game 3 was an instant classic. The Yankees were going to lose for sure going into the 9th inning trailing 2-6. They played small ball against the closer, Broxton struggled against the bottom of the order and nearly reached 50 pitches in his outing. Cano hit a 2-run homer in the 10th to seal the deal. Mariano Rivera pitched a 2-inning win.

LeBron to the Bulls?

Every city has it's edge in the LeBron James sweepstakes. The Knicks will offer LeBron a chance to make history and probably the most non-NBA money. The Nets have LeBron's close friend Jay-Z as a part owner. The Heat have Wade. The Cavs can offer the most NBA money. And the Bulls have the best core after dumping salary. So each town is writing up their papers that it's a done deal with their team.

One of LeBron's friends and another unnamed NBA executive both believe LeBron is not only headed to Chicago, but Bosh would follow the move. That would be amazing! If that was the case, the Bulls would have a Forward logjam. In which case, I would move Luol Deng to shooting guard rather than give up a good player to get an unknown. So the starting lineup would be Noah (C), James (F), Bosh (F), Rose (G) and Deng (G). Of course I would prefer a move for Wade over Bosh, but would most certainly settle as long as we get James. July 1 is coming soon!

Wimbledon 2010 - Maria

Bin Laden Meeting

I just saw this cool license plate on a Navy guy's SUV. It read...

"It's God's job to forgive Osama Bin Laden. It's our job to arrange the meeting!"

Clever!

Isner's Marathon

This is not a mistake. Here's the final score of the John Isner/Nicholas Mahut match... 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68. The final time was 11 hours & 5 minutes. It's amazing that neither player could break for so many games. It's something that was never done and probably won't be repeated again. There was a survey on YES Network last night that asked if fans would stick around for a match that long. It was about 50-50. I certainly would. It's a part of history and one of the best matches ever.

In other matches... Serena, Wozniacki, Li and Sharapova advanced in their second round matches. On the men's side, Nadal, Murray, Soderling and Ferrer advanced. Nadal had to work a 5 setter for his win. So his and Federer's perfection has already been tainted.

Thanks, Capt. Kirk!

The word is that the Bulls are going to package Kirk Hinrich and their draft pick from tonight over to Washington to free up cap space. To me, this is a big risk. After a move like this, they had better get James or Wade... no excuses. Within the past 2 years, they gave up the best backcourt in the NBA... Gordon and then Hinrich. These were the 2 guys that really got them to the playoffs and pulled the Bulls out of the post-Jordan laughing stock. It's also an odd move with Thibodeau coming in as a defensive-minded coach. Hinrich is known as the best defensive gaurd in the league.

This does open up a spot for Wade at guard, but they would need to fill the spot if James came in to retain a solid starting 5. I'm a little worried because what if they can't land one of the big stars? They went from a Rose/Gordon/Hinrich gaurd set to Rose + a bunch of scrubs.

Sports Catchup

Yankees
The Yankees for the most part have been winning series. It was disappointing on Monday when they dropped one to the pathetic Diamondbacks though. It was behind another terrible performance by AJ Burnett. One has to wonder what's going on behind the scenes at the clubhouse. In his previous game, he was non-chalant in covering 1st base on an infield hit. In Monday's game, he kept placing slow meatballs down the middle. In the 2nd inning, he gave up 3 homers. It's hard, even for the Yankees to come back when dumped in a hole so early. Yesterday, they came back and blew Arizona out with Andy Pettitte's ace abilities. He started out shaky, but bounced back as usual. As the Yankees won that one, pretty much the rest of the AL East lost to the NL. So they put a little bit of distance between the Rays, Jays & Sox. As I write this, they Yanks & D-backs are in the top of the 4th tied at 2-2. As long as the game is close, I'm not worried. AZ has terrible pitching. This is a game the Yankees should win.

Bulls
A couple of weeks ago, they Bulls hired Tom Thibodeau as their head coach. I think it's a good choice... not the guy I wanted, but I'm OK with it. I wanted Lawrence Frank for his basketball knowledge and his Joe Torre-like chemistry with the players. He does great homework, knows the matchups and draws up good plays. I'll take Thibodeau if Frank isn't available though. He took the Celtics to the Finals, is known for defense and work closely with Yao Ming the year he averaged 25 pts & 11 rebs... a big step up from the previous year. The Bulls stress defense, so this could work out well. But when we look at the bigger picture, it doesn't matter what I think or even what the Bulls think. The biggest question is... can LeBron play with Thibodeau?

Wimbledon
From day one, the world got a wake up call already. Roger Federer nearly lost it, dropping the first 2 sets early. We've seen it happen before and didn't get worried because a champ is always a champ. But this time it was the first round... and in Wimbledon! Federer never drops a set in Wimbledon unless it's Nadal on the other side. Nadal won his in straight sets... a good start in his quest to the Finals. Also advancing were Sharapova, Kuznetsova, Wozniacki, Li, Serena, Soderling, Murray, Ferrer, Venus, Jankovic, Henin, Roddick, Djokovic, Hewitt and Monfils.

Sword of Azrael: Joran van der Sloot

For the murders of Natalee Holloway and Stephany Flores, Joran van der Sloot wins the Death by Fiery Sword award hands down. The man is obviously pure evil. One report had him claiming innocence, saying he was confused and scared to explain why he pleaded guilty and signed all the paperwork. It's all an excuse so he can get out and commit more murders. He should be executed as soon as possible. Fortunately, it's all international, so it could happen. Had this been in the US, he would get away without being put away.

FTW... WTF?

I see the acronym "FTW" all the time in blog posts and status updates. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out what it was because the context just wasn't consistent in all of the occurrences. It just looked like "WTF" to, but it's the reverse of it. "F*** the what" doesn't exactly make sense either. I looked it up on Google, which lead me to Wikipedia. Apparently, it means "for the win." That made me hate the term even more because people would just close a post with it. It could be some random status update ending in "FTW." Usually, you hear "for the win" in sports. A basketball team is trailing by 2 in the final seconds when a player takes a 3... "for the win." When I see it used in Internet lingo, the status update will be something like... "we just launched this new website features with all of these enhancements... FTW!!!" What does that have to do with winning? I hope this term doesn't make it's way to office lingo. You just never know with salespeople though. If one comes across it and thinks it's cool, then we're all in the sh**!

Subway Tales: Spacing

If I took the bus everyday, I would probably spinoff a "Bus Tales" subject, but for now, I'll fold these into the "Subway Tales" series...

I was at the stop again today. The bus hadn't arrived yet. There were 3 people before me. Two women were lined up at the post. One guy stood a good 15 feet away from them. What the heck kind of line is that? When people stand too far away from the stop, it makes it awkward for people arriving. Do I stand behind the 2 women and cut the guy. Do I be an idiot like him and stand 15 feet away from the line? Do I mock the idiot by standing an additional 15 feet away from the him? I ended up cutting the idiot. The line is behind the post. When you stand that far away, you're not on the line... you're down the street in la la land!

Subway Series

Fans of both teams took their rivalry to Yankees Stadium for the 2nd and final Subway Series of the year. The Mets had the edge the first time and this one favored them as well. The Yankees went in plagued with injuries while the Mets have been surging of late. This series went to the Yankees, much to the delight of their home crowd, so the season series ended up being tied 3-3. The first game was a winnable one behind Vasquez's pitching. There was just not enough offense as the Yankees still haven't been able to figure out Takahashi. the good news is Vasquez has been pretty consistent after his bad start.

Game 2 was a good pitching performance behind Phil Hughes as he faced off with the Mets 9-1 pitcher, Pelfrey. What was anticipated to be a great pitchers' duel ended up being and offensive battle in the first few innings. Teixiera homered to ties the game at 3-3 and Granderson hit a 2-runner for the win. Hughes looked like he was going to have an off day, but really pulled himself together after letting up 3 runs. It's important for him to go through that type of game so he has experience bouncing back like Andy Pettitte always does.

In today's game, CC shutdown the Mets 4-0 in what was almost a complete game. The Mets threatened several times, but CC and strong defense worked out of trouble each time, forcing the Mets to 0-10 with RISP. The runs were all Mark Teixiera as he smacked a grand slam off Johan Santana. I'm hoping that this is the series that gets Tex out of his weird slump. One homer to tie and one homer for the win should be a huge confidence boost.

Breakfast Beers

As I rode the train to work today, I was wondering why it was so empty. I sat there as the train stopped in the station. I easily got a seat and the 2 next to me remained empty for at least 4 stops. Was it a holiday I missed? It turned out that everyone was playing hooky for the US World Cup game. Most of the games are in the morning, so it was during work hours. Of course it's also an excuse to hit the bars. Imagine that... breakfast beer! That's changing things up for Americans.

I wasn't into it, but it's amazing how many people were following it online at work. I don't think anyone was working this morning! So the US drew Slovenia 2-2 on what was a controversial call. What would've been the winning goal for the US was inexplicably called off.

Subway Tales: Ultimate Laziness

I had to walk offsite today, so a bus ride was part of my commute. It was a long distance, otherwise I would just walk. I despise Manhattan's buses because they're so slow and stop at pretty much every street. My ultimate pet peeve is people who ride the bus one stop. So I was at the first stop in the line. I was probably the 15th person in line. We waited about 7 minutes for it to arrive. It takes over 5 minutes for the line of people to board. It's a full train because it's the morning rush at the first stop. We ride the bus for one stop... 2 streets later, a young couple walks off. That made no sense. Walking the distance of 2 streets would've taken 3 minutes on foot. They waited 12 minutes for the bus and another 2 minutes for the buss to battle through pedestrian traffic and a stop light. What was the point? They didn't look injured and weren't elderly or disabled. All they accomplished was slow down their travel time, waste other passengers' time and take up space on a crowded bus.

Subway Tales: Weekday All-Stars

My train car this morning offered a nice variety of characters. This time it's during the work week, so it's more businesslike... mostly...

Manly Friends
As I boarded at the first stop, on the other side of the train, two friends walked in and sat down, not next to each other, but across from each other. That's not really an efficient way to communicate with each other on a crowded train. Especially when a couple of stops later, you know you'll get blocked by crowds. But they were too manly to sit next to each other. After all, if they did that, they'd be gay, right? So insecure!

Coffee Brothers
Two guys who didn't know each other, but dressed similarly were standing next to each other on the train. Both guys had a large coffee in their right hands and were drinking them while hovering over sitting passengers. There's a reason why food and drinks are not allowed on trains. Drinking coffee while standing is especially dangerous to those below. People here are so arrogant though. "an accident can't happen to me," they think. On a train, there are too many variables though. Holding the coffee with one hand already increases the chances of something happening.

Pager
The guy standing over me had a pager hooked on to his belt. No joke... a real, classic pager... the ones from the early 90's! It wasn't a PDA or phone. It even had the old plastic clip with partial front protection. I didn't know there were still services out there that support them. I wonder what the monthly fee is on one of those.

Weekend Sports Wrapup

Muay Thai
Aside from FNF in NYC, John Wayne Parr fought Lamsongkram in Australia. JWP has been successful against all countries except Thailand. Most of his losses are to top fighters like Yodsaenklai and Buakaw. Lamsongkram is alsoa good fighter with long reach. He's tall and strong and causes a lot of problems for his opponents. JWP looked great though, knocking down the Thai 3 times in the 5 rounder to win the decision. I'd say a rematch with Boom Boom would clear him to stop fighting in Australia and move on to Thailand.

Yankees
Interleague is always a great way for the Yankees to capitalize on the weaker NL and rack up some wins. They're the best at the adjustment and did their business this weekend, sweeping the Houston Astros. The games weren't that pretty, but Pettitte, Vasquez and Hughes all racked up wins. Pettitte is now 8-1. Hughes is 9-1. And Vasquez has bounced back. His wins and recently losses still displayed good pitching. The Yankees now have all 5 starters with 6 wins or more... something they haven't done up to the same point in the season since 1939! Posada had 2 grand slams in back-to-back games... Sat. and Sun. So there's no starting out cold for him, coming back from injury.

NBA
Coming into the weekend, with the series tied, the Celtics had a chance to do their job at home to get a series edge and they got the win. The series is now 3-2 in favor of Boston. They lead for most of the game... a good 10 points. At the end of the 4th, the Lakers started to close the gap and I rolled my eyes, thinking that the refs are going to call this so the Lakers win. To their credit, I thought their calls were consistent. Bryant didn't like that of course because he wasn't getting any fouled on non-calls.

FIFA
Sorry... I couldn't get into this. I'm not sure what it is about soccer. It's certainly fun to play, but I lose interest when it's on TV. I respect the skill and athleticism, but just have trouble paying attention. Maybe the field is too big!

Friday Night Fights Results

Last night's FNF event was the first ever all-female card. So for the same price, it was shorter and more boring. Here are the results...

- Sylvie Duuglas Ittu def Min Goodspeed (KO - 2nd rd.)
- Alanna Ramprashad def Pam Giroux (dec. - 3rd rd.)
- Corinne Nehm def Jennifer Pearsall (dec. - 3rd rd.)
- Stacey Scappecia def Luz Gandulla (dec. - 3rd rd.)
- Rima Sidu def Marisa Badillo (dec. - 5th rd.)
- Florina Petcu def Jill Guido (dec. - 5th rd.)

The Office Microwave

I've worked in 3 different offices before and noticed the same pattern with the microwave oven in the pantry. When people are heating up their lunch, they'll set the time indicated on their food box, start the oven and stand in front of it, waiting. Then a few seconds before the timer goes off, they'll hit "stop" or "pause" and take their food out. If it's supposed to be 30 seconds, they'll take it out at 27. If it's 3 minutes, they'll stop at 2 min 55 sec. If people are that impatient, why not just set it for a few seconds left to begin with? The idea of the microwave was to make things efficient. You set the time and come back when it beeps. If you're going to stand in front of the machine and stop it manually, it defeats the whole purpose. You might as well start a fire with wood and cook your food on a stick!

Subway Tales: Inching Forward

There was a signal problem on today's evening rush train... a common thing when we have bad weather since the equipment is ancient. So what usually happens is trains change from express to local or vice versa, depending on which station has the problem. This often creates train traffic because both express and local lines are switching to the same track. What I don't get is, every minute or so, the conductor will announce that there's train traffic ahead and apologize for the inconvenience. Then the train may inch forward a little bit after each announcement just to make the passengers feel good. Sometimes it'll move a few feet, giving us the impression that we might be taking off soon. But then the hope is destroyed when we stop again and even more so when the engine shutsdown, giving the feeling that the train died out!

French Open: Return of the King

Nadal came in and not only reclaimed his dominance in the French Open, but also proved without a doubt that last year's elimination by Robin Soderling was a fluke. He got the win easily today 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. The only time Soderling looked good was the first couple of games. Nadal was in top shape, chasing down every ball... something he couldn't do with last year's knee problems. In the whole match, Nadal only had 16 unforced errors and just under 80% 1st serves with 7 aces. So he played a careful, but near-perfect match. Nadal's overall French Open record is now 38-1 with 5 championships (1 shy of Bjorn Borg). After the tournament, he's back to #1 in the rankings. I'm glad he's healthy and back to normal.

Last year just felt like a fluke all year long. With Nadal skipping Wimbledon, we didn't get to see a rematch with Federer. That hope is still alive for this year. Will Federer successfully defend his best tournament or will Nadal repeat his dominance over the best in the world?

Palmolive Deodorant

By Palmolive

Starring Maria Sharapova

French Open: Women's Final

The Women's tournament was full of upsets, with Samantha Stosur eliminating both Justine Henin and Serena Williams, probably the 2 best players. The roll she was on didn't carry into the Final though as she lost to Francesca Schiavone in straight sets. At the beginning to middle of the 2nd set, it looked like we were going to see a marathon because Stosur looked like she woke up and had the upper hand. Schiavone fought all the way back to tie and won the break. It was an entertaining match and a good change from the usual cast. We didn't see Henin, the Williams sisters or Jankovic.

Notes: Maria Sharapova lost to Justine Henin in the 3rd round (6-2, 3-6, 6-3). Ana Ivanovic lost in the 3rd round to Kleybanova (6-3, 6-0), so she's still in her slump.

Subway Tales: Perpetual Motion

I ran into Tim just before the subway station this morning, so we both entered at the same time. As we were getting on the train, I asked if he usually gets into the same car everyday because he picked a car that was out of position for his destination. The car we sat in would've put him several cars away from the stairs at the destination stop. He purposely does that because the stairs alwys get packed. So if he walks a bit, the crowd dies down. I can see how that's better. Us NYers always need to be moving. It created an illusion of speed and getting things done. Even though it's less time to follow the crowd at the base of the stairs, it certainly feels faster to walk a bit and then have no traffic at the stairs. This is the same case when waiting for a crosstown train. You can wait for the train or walk it. When waiting, it just seems to take forever for teh train to arrive. But if you start walking, you're accomplishing your goal immediately.

Imperfect Decisions

Last night, Tigers rookie, Armando Galaragga pitched a perfect game... but 1st base umpire, Jim Joyce blew a call on the first out of the 9th inning. The runner was clearly out (by like 2 feet), but he called him safe. The Tigers managed to get the 3 9th inning outs in a row after the poorly awarded base hit. At the end of the game, the umpire apologized and admitted he blew the call. It would be the right thing to do for MLB to reverse the call and score card. The replay shows that it was an out. There's no reason for Cleveland to argue the call either. They lost the game. Having their player out doesn't mean anything. So far, Bud Selig refuses to reverse the call, claiming that he's protecting the integrity of the game. Does that make sense to anyone?

Sports Update

Yankees
The Yankees have been doing OK... pretty good considering all of the injuries. Some of the guys are starting to come back though. Curtis Granderson returned and has been producing. Posada came back tonight. Cano has been on fire and so has A-Rod. They both had grand slams recently. The Yankees won the Twins series 2-1, which included the suspended game. They went on to beat Cleveland 2-1 also. Pettitte had another win for his impressive 7-1 start. He's going to have 10 wins by All-Star break. Vasquez was pretty good last night, but is still a toss-up with the fans. He needs to get a few strong wins in a row to win them over.

NBA
It's going to be the Lakers and Celtics in the Finals... a 2008 rematch and a face-off between the 2 most storied franchises. But who cares? On to LeBron James... recently, James mentioned that Cleveland had the edge. It's his hometown and he's loyal to his fans. The already fired Mike Brown so a new system will be in place next year. The Cavs can offer him the most money. It's really a no-brainer unless he feels the makeup of another team has a definite chance of going deeper into the Playoffs. Right now, I don't believe any team in the league has this. The Bulls need to get like 1 more guy. The Heat need a real supporting cast. The Nets need a couple of guys and the Knicks need to rebuild from the ground up. The Cavs also need to get another guy. So in my opinion, it's Cavs, Bulls, Heat, Nets and last... Knicks. We don't hear much about the Mavs, but they're probably in there too. They've got Dirk, but also need a supporting cast... maybe another star.

Tennis
I actually haven't been able to follow the French Open as much as I used to, but there was a big shocker yesterday. Robin Soderling, the guy that eliminated Nadal last year beat Federer 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4. Soderling has been pretty good since last year's tournament when no one had heard of him before. So he's no fluke. There could be a new clay contender out there to spoil Federer and Nadal's dominance. I also just heard on the news that Serena lost today to Samantha Stosur (also beat Henin), 6-2, 6-7 (2), 8-6. Nadal is still alive, beating his fellow countryman Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (2), 7-6 (3), 6-4.

Sword of Azrael: Carlos Salazar Cruz

"'I want to kill him now. I want him to die now"
-Guihua Yu

That was from the mother of Yu Yao, the young woman beaten and raped recently by Carlos Salazar Cruz. It's a no brainer that he deserves the Death by Fiery Sword award. He's a drunk who contributed nothing positive to the world. His victim was a law student... quite the opposite. Cruz claims he was too drunk to remember anything. Something as extreme as murder and rape is too hard to believe someone could do unconsciously. I think he's lying and with our court system, he could get away with it. Carlos Salazar Cruz is an animal and should be slaughtered like one. The world is a safer and more pleasant place without him. There would be no loss and it would potentially save lives he'll take in the future.

Please make note of the photo above. It's the only one I could find of the killer as the media is doing a good job of concealing it. He's in custody now, but may walk one day. Any good citizen who sees him should act quickly before more lives are lost.