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We haven't really addressed the other sports news going on in the world and this weekend still packs a lot of action around the world.
Tour de France Concludes This Weekend I don't remember another Tour de France race where the winners were still somewhat uncertain coming into the penultimate stage. Today's time trial virtually decided this year's champion with Cadel Evans and Carlos Sastre fighting against the clock for the top spots in the overall standings. Coming into today's time trial, Sastre was wearing the yellow jersey with Evans behind by 94 seconds.
Evans was predicted to perform stronger in today's stage, which was won by Stefan Schumacher of Germany. But Evans wasn't strong enough as Sastre was able to retain the yellow jersey after finishing his time trial only 29 seconds slower than Evans. Sastre still has a 65 second lead over Evans in the overall standings.
Tomorrow's final stage to the finish in Paris will largely be a ceremonial ride since riders traditionally do not challenge the man in the yellow jersey. Thus, Sastre, barring any unexpected crashes or obstacles, will enjoy a victory ride to the Champs-Elysses.
Game 1 of Red Sox-Yanks becomes a pitchers' duel It was a low scoring game in yesterday's first of three games to be played this weekend by the AL East rivals. New York Yankee Joba Chamberlain outperformed Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett and Jason Giambi hit a single to allow Bobby Abreu to score the only run of the game.
The 1-0 win put the Yankees only two games behind Boston for the American League wild card lead. This was also the Yankees' seventh consecutive win. Today, it will be a battle of veterans on the mound as Yankee pitcher Andy Pettite will take on Tim Wakefield.
Australia Defeats New Zealand To Extend Lead in Tri-Nations Standings
The Telstra Stadium in Sydney was the site of today's tri-nations rugby test match between Australia and New Zealand in a battle for the Bledisloe Cup. Australia scored an impressive four tries in their leap to the top of the standings over the All Blacks and world champions South Africa Springboks.
Twenty20 Cup Finals Day From the Rose Bowl It may not be the Rose Bowl you're accustomed to, but in England the focus is on the Twenty20 Cup finals in cricket. For those not familiar with Twenty20 cricket, or cricket in general, Twenty20 is a faster and shorter form of the traditional one-day international style of this bat-and-ball sport. Tonight, it will be Kent vs. Middlesex in the finals after the semifinals took place earlier today.
FIVB World League Finals It will be Serbia, Brazil, Russia and the United States facing off against each other today in the World League Semifinals.
Late word is that the United States has upset Brazil in straight sets for a spot in the championship match tomorrow. The Americans will face the winner of Serbia vs. Russia, which is already underway.
FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Brazil secured a spot in the finals earlier today after a thrilling 5-4 win over Portugal. The winner takes on either Italy or Spain, with that semifinal already underway.
Hey readers. The blog had to take a backseat to my other priorities, like preparing for college, writing articles, buying a Wii Fit. You know, important things. But I'm back now so before we move on, let's just take a look back at what happened this weekend.
British Open, AVP Tour, WNBA at Arthur Ashe, Angels Sweep, ESPYs...
However way you look at it, it was a crazy weekend in sports, especially here in New York. The Yankees were back in action against the Oakland Athletics, the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour came to Coney Island and pro basketball history was made at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
YANKEES: The Bronx Bombers are currently on a four-game winning streak after their sweep of the Oakland Athletics and their win last night against the Minnesota Twins. The Angels' sweep of the Boston Red Sox in Los Angeles helped to close the gap between the two teams. The Yankees are now 4.5 games behind the Sox, who are 1.5 games behind the AL East leaders Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The Hunt for October is in full swing.
AVP BROOKLYN OPEN: I've been to this event before and it's definitely exciting to watch pro beach volleyball players rock your local beach, especially when your local beach is Coney Island. Personally, I think the AVP is the most fan-friendly event of all the professional leagues out there. Where else can you be five feet away from the pros, get high fives from them and then watch them win the championship, all in a span of three days? If the AVP ever gets to your local beach, definitely check them out...Anyway, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh remained undefeated after they won their 17th title in a row in Brooklyn. They are sure favorites for the gold in Beijing.
OUTDOOR WNBA BASKETBALL: So in my last post, I talked about the hype of pros playing outdoor basketball. Well, from what I saw on television, it didn't exactly live up to the hype. I thought it was cool but it doesn't help promote the league if there are lots of empty seats. Sure, there may have been over 19,000 attendees, but that doesn't look like a lot in a stadium that seats 23,000+. Maybe the WNBA should choose a more intimate arena next time...It would also help if the matchup was even, but from what I saw, the Liberty played very flat and the home crowd didn't have much to cheer for. So much for the experiment but I wonder if they'll do it again.
BRITISH OPEN: The biggest event of the weekend happened across the pond. Greg Norman was going for history to be the oldest player to win a major. It was a great storyline that carried viewers through the weekend of morning golf, especially on Sunday morning. But in the end, it was Padraig Harrington, with two spectacular shots on the last two holes, that ended up with the claret jug, winning his second consecutive title. I guess golf without Tiger Woods can exist after all.
ESPYs: I watched them, it was interesting, light-hearted, rather funny. It's kind of like a big celebrity party with a sports theme. Sure there were serious moments (like the Arthur Ashe Award presentation) and it was great looking back at a great year of sports, but I could never take the ESPYs as seriously as the Oscars or Grammys. Then again, I guess it was never meant to...Justin Timberlake wasn't bad as a host, his jokes weren't bad either. At least he could sing.
Olympic Basketball Draw Set; Croatia and Greece Win Qualifiers It's the only tournament where the losers of the semifinals go on to the finals. Croatia and Greece won their respective semifinals in Athens at the Olympic Basketball Qualifying Tournament for Men, thus securing a place in the main draw. There was only one spot left, and that was open to the winner of the 3rd place game between Germany and Puerto Rico.
Looking Ahead... This is the final week of the Tour de France and we'll put that into focus later this week. But our main priority for the rest of July and in the run-up to the Olympic Games will be previewing Beijing 2008. Tomorrow will be a super Olympic Preview as I make up for the time that we lost on Sunday and Monday. We'll take a look at the marquee events of Track and Field, gymnastics and swimming.
Besides the Tour de France, we'll also look at some track and field warm-up meets in Europe, Superliga football, World League Finals in volleyball and much more in the world of sports.
Sports Pic of the Week:
You don't see outdoor basketball everyday, nor do you see the WNBA that often either.
We may have missed two days, but NOW Sports is back and in full force so keep reading all this week.
Baseball is the topic of discussion today and we have lots of baseball to talk about today. The last All-Star game at Yankee Stadium will take place tonight. And this is probably the best time to talk about Olympic baseball. But first, let's take a look at last night's home run derby, where second seems to be the best.
Morneau Wins But Hamilton Accomplishes Derby's Task I'm not sure how often an individual can single-handedly capture the hearts and minds of the fans at Yankee Stadium, especially when it comes to the sport of baseball. But Josh Hamilton, for at least a half-hour, captured our attention last night after he sent 28 home runs out to the depths of the stadium in the first round alone.
There really isn't supposed to be any strategy for winning the Home Run derby. You're not meant to just hit a few home runs in the first two rounds and save your strength for the final. Players are just supposed to hit home runs. Justin Morneau just got lucky, and I credit his sportmanship. Even he said that Hamilton should have won.
But then again, the Home Run Derby isn't about winning or losing. It's about hitting home runs and thrilling the fans. Congrats to Justin Morneau for winning, but a greater congratulations to Hamilton for giving the fans what we love to see, and helping to raise $300,000 in charity at the same time.
All-Star Game Tonight
We know what the significance of this game is. It's the last classic at Yankee Stadium, the first since 1977, before the House that Ruth Built is demolished and makes way for the New Yankee Stadium. And the winner of this game gets to have home-field advantage during the world series, a tradition that started in 2003.
The American League has won 11 straight all star games and the possibility of the National League winning is, well let's just say that it exists. Ben Sheets and Cliff Lee will be the starting pitcher for the National and American leagues respectively. Sheets is 10-3 with a 2.85 ERA while Lee is 12-3 with a 2.31 ERA.
Surely, last night's showing by Josh Hamilton will increase the odds that the American League will come out with a win. And the New York fans at the stadium will be rooting for Yankee stars Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera.
But it seems that the game is rather insignificant and baseball fans will just be enjoying the level of talent that will be concentrated at Yankee Stadium.
For National League fans, hope for some of the stars from teams like the New York Mets, who are in a nine-game winning streak now, to provide some firepower to a relatively weak NL.
Olympic Baseball Preview It's the last year for baseball at Yankee Stadium, and it's the last year for baseball at the Olympic Games. The IOC voted in 2005 to remove baseball and softball from the Olympic program, for now at least. So for teams from places were baseball is king, like Japan, Cuba and the USA, this is the last chance to win an Olympic gold medal.
There are eight teams in the tournament and they will play in a round robin tournament against each other. The top four will then move on to the single elimination semifinal round. The gold medal game for baseball is scheduled to be played on Saturday, August 23.
A perennial favorite for Olympic gold is the team from Cuba. The defending gold medalists from Athens have won the gold three times since baseball was introduced into the Olympic program. Cuba is also a multiple gold medalist at the Pan-American games. Last year in Brazil, Cuba defeated the United States by a score of 3-1.
From NBCOlympics.com: "The man to likely watch on the Cuban team should be third baseman Yulieski Gourriel. A utility infielder of sorts -- he played second in the 2006 WBC -- Gourriel is described by Lefebvre as, "the best looking amateur I've ever seen. ... I know scouts are drooling over him."
But Cuba has been defeated before, most notably by the United States back in 2000 at the Sydney Olympic Games. After being absent from the 2004 olympics, team USA has a good chance of recapturing the gold in Beijing. Unlike in 2004, they were able to qualify by beating Honduras in the regional Olympic qualifying tournament and also beat Cuba in the finals of that tournament.
MLB-players are not allowed to be on the roster (and probably couldn't since it coincides with the MLB season), so expect those who represented Team USA at last Sunday's All-Star Futures game to be on the roster. The official roster for Team USA will not be unveiled until tomorrow (Wed at 2:30PM).
But Team USA was shut-out at the Futures game by the world team in a 3-0 result. And the best team to medal outside of North America may be Japan, who beat Cuba in the final of the World Baseball Classic back in 2006. Japan has a passion for baseball that can arguably be compared to that of the United States in terms of the strong commitment that its players put into the game. They are the best team in Asia by far and can never be counted out.
While Japan can dominate Asia, the Netherlands has well dominated Europe in the sport and has a good chance of taking one of the four spots in the semifinals. They upset the Cubans last year at the World Cup and this year may be a breakout year for them. But if the Dutch don't take one of those spots in the semis, it may be Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), who is putting their faith in Che-Hsuan Lin. Lin performed well at the Futures game last Sunday with a two-run homer to clinch the game for the World Team.
All eight teams have the power and potential to perform well at the Olympics, but if two medal contenders had to be chosen, it would be Cuba and the United States, though Japan may be well in the mix as well. Will Cuba reign again, or will there be a new and everlasting king of Olympic baseball?
The games slowly approach and we'll tak a look at Team USA tomorrow after it's unveiled. Meanwhile, enjoy the game we have now at Yankee Stadium. And I hope you come back tomorrow for more global sports news and our countdown to Beijing.
This post will be relatively short with mostly some facts from my perspective and of course our continuing road to Beijing.
MLB Midseason Report Before I continue, I'd like to warn readers that there's not going to be much detailed analysis here and the following comments are merely from my perspective (though I have inserted several links where the writers have a much better sense of what is going on in the MLB). Baseball is a tough sport to follow and requires a lot of committment which unfortunately I have no time for.
But I respect and love the game as much as the next guy so here are the biggest stories going on in MLB coming into the Midseason Break:
1. RED SOX AND DEVIL RAYS (NOT YANKEES) I am a Yankee fan but they just haven't been doing their best this year. Yes, they have their moments in the spotlight but I think its safe to say that they could do better. The pitching has just been on and off though very recently the Yanks have been thrilling fans with their last at-bat wins. The Yanks may just end the first half of the season on the right note but they'll need to improve greatly to make the playoffs.
Meanwhile, how bout them Devil Rays? Quite a comeback story because I remember when I watched them play the Yanks, fans would come to watch the New York team rather than the Rays. They've got young players like 3B Evan Longoria and they have taken advantage of the mistakes made by their AL East rivals, particularly the Yankees. Though they may not have the best players, they have been consistent and that has gotten them the lead in the AL East.
But that lead has decreased and the Red Sox are looking to replace the Rys and take over the AL East. The defending World Series champions are experienced and have big hitters with averages above .300. They expect to win and are determined to do so. Also, they've got Boston behind them and with passionate fans like that, it can't hurt right?
2. The Chicago Cubs Okay, I don't know much about the Cubs, I haven't seen them play that much this year (thanks to the great scheduling of games by Fox Sports), but I've heard much about them. Most recently their acquirement of Rich Harden from Oakland. First place in the NL Central division, it looks like this year is their best chance for a World Series title, if they stay consistent. It's possible that they could fall to the St. Louis Cardinals late in the year. After all, they are only 2nd in the division and Albert Pujols is still a consistent hitter. The Cubs also need to watch out for the Brewers, who are pinning their hopes on newly-aquired AL Cy Young Winner CC Sabathia.
Nevertheless, Go Cubs! Certainly a team to watch after the All-Star Break.
3. NL East and West Make For Competitive Baseball (Sort of) By just looking at the standings, both the NL East and West are the most competitive divisions, sort of. The NL East has three teams vying for the top spot -- Philadelphia, Florida and New York. Of course the NL East is never that great so maybe the NL West can give us a little more of an interesting story. Arizona and Los Angeles are tied for first place, yet both teams are below .500.
Hmm...maybe there's a bigger story here about the National League. I'll leave it with this, the American League has won the last 11 All-Star games. Does that say anything about the National League?
That last link from ESPN just has a lot of good baseball stuff to read and talk about.
Countdown to Beijing: Looking Back at the Last 4 Years (Part I) Well sometimes before you look toward tomorrow, we have to look back at yesterday. Today we'll take a brief stroll through the past four years beginning with the last Olympic Games, Athens 2004.
During the Games of XXVIII Olympiad, the games returned home to the place of their birth. Competitions like archery, the marathon and the shot put took place at the historic Panathinaiko Stadium and the Ancient stadium of Olympia. Paul Hamm of the United States made an incredible comeback in the Men's All-Around competition after falling from his dismount in the vault event. Then his gold medal was engulfed in controversy after we found out that the judges made errors in the scoring. He kept the gold medal even though he was pressured by the FIG and the South Korean gymnastics team to give it up. Days later in the individual events, Paul Hamm was the unintended victim of a scoring controversy in the men's high bar event. Hamm did his routine amid boos from the crowd that reacted to the low score given to the previous competitor Alexi Nemov (see video here).
Regardless, Team USA had plenty of gold medal highlights. Carly Patterson took home the women's all-around gold medal. Michael Phelps won six gold medals and two bronzes in the pool, while breaking a few world records at the same time. Mariel Zagunis took home the first women's sabre fencing gold medal. And in track and field, Justin Gatlin won the men's 100 meters, Jeremy Wariner led a 1-2-3 finish at the 400 meter dash, while Shawn Crawford led an American sweep in the 200 meters.
The home team of Greece had highlights as well, Fani Halkia won the 400 meter hurdles, while Dimosthenis Tampakos won the rings competition in gymnastics.
There were probably hundreds of highlights that I haven't mentioned. Off the top of my head, I'll remember the first Israeli gold medal coming from the sport of sailing, the thrilling U.S. win in women's soccer, how Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won the gold medal in beach volleyball, the wins by Argentina in both football and basketball, Chile's wins in singles and doubles competition of men's tennis. The list goes on and on. But it was a great Olympic Games and will have memories that I will cherish always.
So four years later, what has changed? We'll talk about what has happened in the past Olympiad tomorrow in our continuing series of the Countdown to Beijing.
I'm going to make this short because this weekend has kinda tired me out already.
Venus Wins Fifth Wimbledon Title Awesome final this morning between the Williams sisters, although Venus won in straight sets. The two were evenly matched and predictably, it came down to who would blink first, or in this case, make more unforced errors.
The two sisters also just won the doubles title about an hour ago. Tomorrow, a classic rivalry continues as Federer and Nadal will fight again for a grand slam title. I'll just say this: This is Nadal's best chance so far to defeat Federer at his home turf.
For more on today's final, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/sports/tennis/06tennis.html?_r=1&8dpc&oref=slogin
Make sure to leave some strawberries and cream for tomorrows final.
Fourth of July Baseball Roundup Yanks-Red Sox was certainly quite interesting yesterday. I'd say the turning point was after this play:
The Yanks ended up losing 6-3, their second straight loss. But got to credit Damon though and one of my favorite sports columnists does just that: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/sports/baseball/06vecsey.html?ref=sports
Olympic Trials Update Michael Phelps broke the world record in the 200 meter Individual Medley yesterday and beat Ryan Lochte, who seems to be in the runners-up spot quite often during these trials. At least he gets to go to Beijing.
And joining Phelps and Lochte in Beijing will be a surprise swimmer. Dana Torres, 41 years old, made her fifth Olympic team by winning the final of the women's 100m freestyle, narrowly defeating Natalie Coughlin, one of the best female swimmers out there. But according to this Yahoo! Sports article, she may face scrutiny:
I don't really care how old she is, obviously she deserves to go to the Olympic Games this summer and I'm glad she is. Definitely a great story to see develop in Beijing.
And some late news coming from the track and field trials in Oregon. Apparently Tyson Gay has been injured following the 200m quarterfinal heats. The injury puts him out of the competition in the 200m in Beijing, meaning that he won't be able to go for the elusive 100m and 200m double at the Olympics. Here's the news article: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=ap-ath-tracktrials&prov=ap&type=lgns
That's all the news for now, sorry I didn't add anything original...see you again tomorrow.
Happy Independence Day, readers! Today's post is all about the United States of America, namely USA's only hope in Wimbledon (the Williams Sisters), the U.S. Olympic Trials, and America's favorite sport, Baseball.
A Classic Rivalry in the Bronx Red Sox-Yankees always seems to bring out the best of baseball. This classic rivalry allows us to reacquaint ourselves with the game down to the small details. When it comes to Boston-New York baseball games, we seem to make comparisons everywhere, from the ballpark to the pitching to how players swing the bat. Baseball always has several layers of analysis, which feel the airwaves from the commentary that broadcasters make between plays.
In Thursday's game, the first of four in this series, it was a completely one-sided affair. The Yankees were "embarrassed" as Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester pitched a five-hitter, his best outing since his no-hitter against the Royals back in May. Andy Pettite gave up seven runs while the Yanks failed to score any and team manager Joe Giraldi held a 30-minute closed-doors meeting. You can only wonder what Giraldi's feelings were after the game. Most likely, his feelings were the same as the Yankees fans that were at the stadium last night.
So we move on to today, and as I'm writing this, the Yanks are tied with the Red Sox at 3 runs a piece. So far the most memorable part of the game was how that ball stayed on top of the wall after Johnny Damon ran after it. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go check out sportscenter or MLB.com. I'm sure video will be online soon. It's a play that is sort of hard to type out in words.
Anyway, aside from yesterday's game, surely there will be some fireworks between these two teams as the series plays out. Although the Yankees have been struggling this season, there are some pretty tight matchups between the two teams, especially offensively with the two teams having similar batting averages and on-base percentages. The Yankees have been on the losing end though since they've been allowing more runs that they should have (overall 4.22 ERA).
So enjoy baseball, especially this weekend, it only seems right to accompany your beer and hot dogs with a good American game.
Willams Sisters To Collide At Ladies' Final There will be an American champion this summer across the pond at Wimbledon. Both Williams sisters won their semifinal matches yesterday in straight sets. Venus defeated fifth seeded Elena Dementieva while Serena defeated Chinese player and wild card Jie Zheng. Both fought tiebreakers in the second set before winning their match.
Before I move on, I just want to credit Jie Zheng for her play in yesterday's semifinal. Zheng made the match interesting, especially in the second set when she held serve. I can't help but saying that her presence in the semifinal and the story surrounding her was a nice feel-good story for the tournament. Chinese players are rarely seen as successful singles athletes on the tour and considering that she was a wild-card who wrote her way into the tournament, and that she came from the region hit hard by the Chinese earthquake earlier in the year, she's the type of athlete that tends to captivate audiences. And with China hosting the Olympics in a month, she is certainly one to watch at the Olympics. You can bet your dumplings that the Chinese will root for her heavily.
But it will be an all-American final featuring the Williams sisters. Venus is looking for her fifth title while her sister Serena is looking for her third. Venus is the defending champion and I'd like to say that she has the edge over her sister only because she had to face Elena Dementieva in the semifinals while Serena has faced relatively little competition except Mauresmo and Zheng. Both only faced one seeded-player in their road to the final. Honestly, I think that tomorrow's match should be close. If Serena wins, it should be because she is a little more fit and healthy than Venus, given that Venus has had some minor problems with her hamstring.
The Williams sisters will also be playing in the ladies' doubles final after their semifinal win earlier today. And it will be a Roger Federer vs. Rafael Nadal final again on Sunday. For more, log onto http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/index.html.
UPSETS HEADLINE OLYMPIC TRIALS There were surprises both at the track and at the pool. In Omaha, Nebraska, Brendan Hansen, two-time world champion in the 200m breaststroke and bronze medalist in that event in Athens, will not represent Team USA in the 200m Breaststroke Event in Beijing. He shockingly finished fourth at the trials, though he will still go to Beijing and participate in the 100m Breaststroke.
It's the drama of the trials that make them very exciting to watch. It doesn't matter how many medals you won in the past or how successful you are in the event. If you can't be a top finisher in the trials, you can't go to the Olympics. It's kinda cruel, but somewhat fair. If anything, I wish NBC devoted more time to them though I am happy with the coverage that we're getting now on cable and online.
Meanwhile, in Eugene, Oregon, Jeremy Wariner, the world's top runner in the 400 meters, lost to LeShawn Merritt at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Though he still will go to Beijing, it was shocking to see one of the best 400m runners, who usually dominates his races, place second. Yesterday's race showed that Wariner may be losing his edge and needs to train a little harder to overcome runners who might be ahead of him. Usually, Wariner has the lead off of the last turn and just kicks his way away from the rest of the field. But yesterday's race was unique in that Wariner was in a position that we rarely see him in.
Here was Wariner after the 400m Final, thanks to Letsrundotcom:
But Wariner does move on to Beijing and if anything, the fans of track and field win because we get to see a little bit of a rivalry in Beijing between Wariner and Merritt.
TOMORROW... So enjoy the fireworks, both on the field, on the track, the court and the pool. Oh yeah, and in the air too. Have a great Fourth of July and hope you'll comeback tomorrow, when we'll talk more baseball, tennis and Olympic trials.
Former Senior Sports Editor of the Spectator of Stuyvesant High School. Been covering high school sports for three years, now its time to move on to the real world.
