Not really, but I can’t resist quoting Navin R. Johnson, and even better than finding my name in the phone book is coming home to find the new Baseball Prospectus.
in this week’s hockey poll, though it isn’t especially shocking after capping off a desultory 1-4-1 run over the past three weekends with a loss to unfreakinranked Harvard. How did they go 0-for-7 on the power play against Harvard? Bah.
Bummer to see the race end due to rain, but I was happy to see Matt Kenseth win. I generally don’t root for Roush teams - with five well-funded teams on the track rooting for Roush feels like rooting for Microsoft - but since NASCAR reconfigured its entire championship structure following Kenseth’s 2003 Championship (a barely veiled way of suggesting he was somehow not a legitimate champion) - I view Kenseth victories as sticking it to The Man.
And even though I like Joe Gibbs and like to see Toyota do well since its the only non-welfare case in the sport, I couldn’t help but be gratified by Kyle Busch getting wrecked. But I was still sorry to see the same fate befall the rest of Gibbs’ teams, especially Logano, though I suspect he’ll do better in Fontana next week.
ESPN Classic showed the 1979 Daytona 500 which I watchd this evening in lieu of the last third of this year’s race. What a difference - stock cars that actually resemble their street car namesakes, pit crews in short sleeves and no safety gear, and a mix of legends toward the end of their careers - Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, the Allisons - and the young rookies and up-and-comers - Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, Ricky Rudd. And they showed the post-race fisticuffs between Yarborough and the Allisons, which was nice. Kyle Petty was 18 at the time and had just won a race at Daytona the following week, interesting to see given the elimination of his team this year (and his recent bitter comments about the fate of Petty Enterprises).
Daytona is always fun but as a restrictor plate race I think it told us far less than Fontana will next week about the ability of new teams, from Stewart-Haas to Tommy Baldwin, to compete with the Big Four for wins, berths in the Chase, and ultimately the Cup.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup series kicks off Sunday with the Daytona 500. This season promises to be interesting for a number of reasons, many economic.
There is Tony Stewart’s attempt to make a go as a driver-owner along with teammate Ryan Newman. Newman likely won’t do any worse than he fared with the Penske team, but Stewart is leaving Joe Gibbs Racing, one of the “Big Four” teams that have monopolized the Winston/Nextel/Sprint Cup for the past two decades.
There is the debut of 18-year-old phenom Joey Logano, taking over the #20 Home Depot Toyota from Stewart. Hopefully he will not be judged a failure if he fails to establish himself as the next Richard Petty in his rookie season, but given the hype surrounding him one can’t be certain.
Then there is the impact of the economy, with two of the auto manufacturers on the brink of bankruptcy and most industries slashing the marketing budgets that ultimately fund racing teams. Many teams have been left without sponsors and experienced drivers without rides. In two years, the Sprint Cup has come full circle - in 2007 there were so many well funded teams that there were not enough spots to go around, and every weekend several would fail to qualify and go home empty-handed; in 2009, there are not enough established, well-funded teams to fill out the field for most races. This seems likely to further the bifurcation of NASCAR into the large four-car teamsn, and everyone else. However, it is just possible that the current environment will allow one or two of the smaller teams to achieve much greater success than has been possible in recent years, and be positioned for a sort of relegation into the top tier, as JGR did during the 1990s.
Passing this on from the baseball listserv I’m on (originally posted there by a fella named Patrick Laverty - but I really have nothing to add, as I think he summed it up nicely):
Seth Meyers had a great take on L’Affaire Phelps on SNL
Meanwhile, a latter-day Buford T. Justice has thus far arrested eight people who may have also shaken society to its foundation by smoking cannabis. It really doesn’t seem like an optimal use of scare public resources to me.
ARod owns up:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090209&content_id=3811116&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb
So…. will he be forgiven?
So I agreed to go with Lori to a “Jack & Jill” Saturday night (since we haven’t gone out since Kaeden joined us four months ago). Doing my part to support the young couple in these troubled financial times, I bought some raffle tickets on my way in. To my delight, one of the raffle prizes was an autographed picture of Bobby Orr in midflight against the Blues… yeah, *that* picture. (Here’s where I offer the ubiquitous disclaimer: Ya know, I never win these things.) Well… I won the darn thing.
Now… the cynic in me might speculate that the autograph is faked… but I was too overjoyed to be pessimistic. Maybe another time. Instead, I simply raced home and hung it proudly down in the Man Cave amongst other prized possessions like the Garden and Fenway chairs, and the autographed playing card of (and picture of me with) Mosi Tatupu.
It is well.
So he goes from relative obscurity as Tom Brady’s backup to having a breakout year and then signing a one year deal guaranteeing him 14.6 MILLION dollars.
What a country!
Cornell blew a 1-0 lead over Princeton by giving up 2 goals in the last minute of the game, dramatically snatching defeat from the gaping maw of victory. So much for that #5 ranking.