John Daly

The Foggy Monocle just posted an EPIC bio/roast of pro golfer John Daly.

The author notes that Daly’s Wikipedia entry is chock-full of even more hilarity. Here are a few choice pieces (from Wikipedia):

• Daly claims to have lost $50-$60 million gambling over the past 15 years
• He has admitted the only reason he does not lift weights is because the health club does not let him smoke there.

Some choice quotes:

• “There are probably some things I could do to keep my flexibility up, but I’d rather smoke, drink Diet Cokes and eat.”
• “Seems I used to do everything like I was on a mission. If it was alcohol, I wanted to drink till I couldn’t see straight. If it was golf, I wanted to beat everybody’s brains out. If it was driving, I can get there faster’n you can.”
• “I believe nicotine plus caffeine equals protein.”
• “Some folks say I don’t deserve such a beautiful wife. But hey, I earn money. Surely that is a reason!”

The Tampa Bay Rays and Sabermetrics

We had some family over for dinner last night, and we all watched the end of the Red Sox/Rays game, in which the Rays were sent to the World Series.

It brings up an interesting subject, sabermetrics, the science of winning baseball games. Many were first introduced to the idea by Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball, which may or may not be made into a feature film. Moneyball describes the statistical analysis and strategy that allowed the Oakland Athletics to win 90 games for multiple seasons, all while maintaining the lowest dollar payroll in Major League Baseball.

The Tampa Bay Rays are a prime example of using sabermetrics to win baseball games. They are the most successful turnaround story in baseball history. In the 2006 offseason, they made some major changes in the front office and management:

Shortly after the season ended, Stuart Sternberg, who bought into the ownership group in 2004, took over from Vince Naimoli as managing general partner, thus taking over executive control of the team. He immediately fired Chuck LaMar, the team’s general manager, and most of the front office. Sternberg decided not to have a de jure General Manager, calling the position “outdated.”

The team focused its rebuilding efforts around young stars:

“…outfielders Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, and Jonny Gomes, infielder Jorge Cantu (who hit 28 home runs and drove in 117 runs in 2005) and pitcher Scott Kazmir (who finished in the top 5 in the American League in strikeouts). [...] Delmon Young and B.J. Upton — considered two of the best prospects in all of baseball.”

The front office became convinced that the Devil Rays would not contend in 2006 and they traded several veteran players who were not in their future plans for younger players who were expected to contribute more in future seasons.

Beginning anew in 2007, The Devil Rays had the youngest starting lineup since the 1983 Minnesota Twins. Attendance was up, spectacularly.

After all their toil to improve the team, at season’s end in 2006 and 2007, the Devil Rays still had not achieved a good win-loss record. After the 2007 season, they rebranded themselves just “the Rays”, and rolled-out new uniforms. Also, they beefed up their payroll spending, which was a major change as it was approximately $24 million in 2007, lowest in the majors. This allowed them to keep some of their better talent.

This season, their plan has come to fruition. They’re now in the world series, and they have sabermetrics to thank for getting the players that would best contribute to a winning season. Other teams pay up for big-name talent that don’t further the team’s goals.

Rays beat Bosox 3-1, advance to World Series

Chinese Athletes

Reports indicate that sprinter/hurdler Liu Xiang was unable to run his heat because Chinese government officials had worked him so hard in order to get a medal that his body couldn’t handle the training, and he became injured.

Liu Xiang’s Olympic prospects ruined by China’s sports system, claims coach - The Telegraph

I strongly recommend you read this article about Yao Ming’s own oversized contribution to the Chinese, and its effects on his body/career. His career will end much earlier than it could have due to the way the Chinese national team has trained his body into the ground. He’s a patriot, and let the state have its way at the expense of his career. It’s very sad.

Yao has delivered, now it’s China’s turn - Yahoo! Sports

Taiwan

Well, it’s just a name.

In deference to the People Republic of China, the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) calls Taiwan “TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA” instead of Taiwan’s preferred name, “Taiwan, Republic of China”. The PRC wants it to appear that Taiwan belongs to the PRC, when in reality, Taiwan is de facto independent, and has been for decades.

On the Beijing Olympics website, they’ve gone as far as calling them “Chinese Taipei” instead of Taiwan. What will they call Taiwan next?

Tip: Olympic Medal Count

Google has an Olympic Medal Count hack. Just type in the search term “medal count”, and Google will show you the top three countries, along with the amounts of gold, silver, and bronze medals, followed by their respective medal total. I took the URL of the search query and favorited it on my mobile phone, and it loads in a flash.

The US is first in the medal count, with 6 (2, 1, 3). China is tied with South Korea (both scoring 2, 1, 0). If your measure is by amount of gold medals, then all three countries are tied.

It would be really cool if somebody built a desktop widget, or similar for mobile phones, so as to display the medal count, updating automatically. Hopefully by the next Olympics, we’ll have it.

Google Medal Count

Tennis History

If you missed the Wimbledon Men’s Final, just go watch it.

John McEnroe himself said that the match was the best he’s ever seen in his life, and he’s seen a lot of matches.

It was the longest final in Wimbledon’s history. The match lasted 4 hours 48 minutes - I’ve ran a marathon in less time. Both players battled it out. At one point, Federer was down two-sets-to-none, then rallied back to win the next two sets, keeping himself in the match. At two-games-to-two in the fifth set, Nadal was making lots of errors, essentially defeating himself. Miraculously, the rain started again, giving Nadal a rain delay and much-needed time to regroup and recharge.

I don’t want to spoil the match for anyone, but when you watch it, don’t miss the end (John McEnroe is overcome with emotion and awkwardly hugs Roger Federer, who immediately marches off).

Paul Pierce

I’m watching SPORT+, a channel on Greek cable, and they’re replaying a Lakers/Celtics game from this year’s NBA finals. One of the Celtics players, Paul Pierce, was famously featured in a Chappelle Show episode a few years back getting stabbed. Pierce was stabbed 11 times (in real life) at a Boston nightclub in 2000. Miraculously, the following season he was the only member of his team to start in 81 games or more.

Paul Pierce was the MVP of this year’s NBA Finals, and as I watch this game, I can see why. He’s draining 3’s all over the place! Clutch!

Basketball is really popular in Greece. The Greek National team has beat the United States plenty of times, including in the 2006 FIBA World Championships, when they rallied from a 12 point deficit to defeat the Dream Team.

When I consulted the FIBA World Basketball Championships winners table, I found very few US victories (Spain is the current world champion titleholder). Most world titles have been won by Brazil, Yugoslavia, or the USSR. In fact, half the time, the US didn’t even make it into the final game! Well, I guess it’s not really surprising considering it’s not really “our” game, being invented by a Canadian and all.

Next week, the Olympic qualifiers for basketball comes to Athens, and I’m defnitely going watch Canada, Puerto Rico, Greece, and the 9 other contenders battle it out for a chance to play in the Olympic Games in Beijing.

IOC’s Freedom-of-Speech Hypocrisy

The IOC sent a six-point letter to national Olympic federations in response to their request for interpretations of Rule 51.3 of the Olympic charter, which states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

The letter clarified: “The conduct of participants at all sites, areas and venues includes all actions, reactions, attitudes or manifestations of any kind by a person or group of persons, including but not limited to their look, external appearance, clothing, gestures, and written or oral statements.”

The scrutiny of athletes seems pretty broad, and is an affront to freedom of speech that all should enjoy.

Last month, IOC president Jacques Rogge said IOC officials will use common sense to decide whether athletes are simply celebrating victories or using them to make political statements.

“Freedom of expression is something that is absolute. It’s a human right. Athletes have it,” Rogge said.

Right.

Clothing and gestures will be scrutinized at Olympics - AP

Bandon Dunes Photoroll

Playing Pacific Dunes, one of the top courses in North America:

(click photos to enlarge)

Rossi Ripping Gregoire on Facebook

I couldn’t make this up stuff up: Dino Rossi is pointing to his heroic support of the Sonics to lure supporters on Facebook.

He’s been running ads recently to bolster the number of online supporters, and quite humorously tooted his own horn when the number of supporters topped 1,000 (he failed to mention that he’d stooped so low as to advertise to attract them).

When I outlandishly predicted two days ago that the Sonics would be a deciding factor in the upcoming gubernatorial election, I didn’t know just how right I was.

Politics and Basketball

Few things are as intertwined.

In my home state of Washington, our upcoming gubernatorial election will be completely decided by the fate of our NBA franchise.

Seems odd, doesn’t it?

Here are the facts:

The Howard Schultz-led Sonics ownership group sold the team to Clayton Bennett, a billionaire from Oklahoma City. Bennett then asked for a large amount of public money to pour into an addition to KeyArena, knowing that he’d be turned down. He marched off to the NBA commissioner, asking for its blessing to move the team to Oklahoma City. The NBA’s decision will probably be made next week. Just when the move to Oklahoma look inevitable, property developer Matt Griffin put together a group of monied Seattleites to fund a last-ditch effort to keep the Sonics in Seattle. The plan needs the approval of the city and the state (and $75 million from each). The city is behind the effort. Governor Christine Gregoire is seemingly uncommitted.

This has proved to be valuable fodder for her nemesis (and gubernatorial opponent) Dino Rossi. In fact, he’s trumpeting his support for the Griffin spending proposal and pointing out the lack of commitment from current governor Christine Gregoire.

In a gubernatorial race poised to be extremely close (in the 2004 race between Gregoire and Rossi, Gregoire was declared the winner after numerous recounts and only a 129 vote margin) this race may very well be determined by Gregoire’s lack of enthusiasm for keeping the Sonics in town.

Davis Cup Tennis Final Coming To Portland

USA advanced to the final with a 4-1 victory over Sweden in Gothenburg and will bid to end a 12-year drought in the final in December, which will be held in USA for the first time since 1992. USA won the 1992 final, defeating Switzerland 3-1.

USA won the inaugural Davis Cup and has since won the title on 31 occasions, but not since 1995, marking the longest period without success in US Davis Cup history. It also held the trophy from 1920 to 1926, recording the most successful defenses.

After defeating Czech Republic, Spain, and Sweden, it’s on to the final against Russia.  Russia beat us last year in the quarterfinals, so it will be interesting to see if Andy Roddick, James Blake and the Bryan brothers can pull off a win in the finals here.

The great thing is that the finals are happening this year in Portland’s Memorial Coliseum from November 30th until December 2nd.  I’m planning on going down to watch.  It’s the best opportunity we’ll have to see world class tennis in the Northwest anytime soon.

Link.

SuperSonics Moving To Oklahoma City

This is just about the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of: the new owners of the Seattle SuperSonics led by Clay Bennett, an Oklahoma billionaire, are moving the Sonics from Seattle (the 14th largest domestic media market) to Oklahoma City (the 45th largest).

ESPN’s Jim Caple has written a very fine article on the move, and here are some choice quotes:

“Bennett formally announced his intention to move the Sonics to Oklahoma City less than a day after the tip-off to the team’s home opener. ‘Welcome to the 2007-08 season, Sonics fans! And will the owner of a Prius hybrid please move your car — you’re blocking the owner’s U-Haul vans.’”

“How about a little venom for Howard Schulz? Here’s a guy who built a worldwide coffee empire from Seattle and he rewards the city by selling the Sonics to an out-of-town buyer. Thanks a lot. This was pretty much Schulz’s attitude at the time of the sale: “I am committed to finding a local owner who will keep the Sonics in Seatt… — WHAT? $350 MILLION!!! DON’T LET BENNETT OUT OF THE OFFICE WITHOUT HIS SIGNATURE ON THE BOTTOM OF A BINDING CONTRACT!!” Good grief. You own Starbucks! How much money do you need?”

Anyways, it’s a pretty crazy story, click here to read it over at ESPN.

They Speak English In London?

Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder confessed today he didn’t know until Tuesday that people spoke English in London.  Crowder, a former Florida Gator and Atlanta native, apparently isn’t sure where the plane is headed when it takes off this afternoon for Sunday’s game against the New York Giants at London’s Wembley Stadium.  “I couldn’t find London on a map if they didn’t have the names of the countries,” Crowder said. “I swear to God. I don’t know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot. I learned that.”

“I know (Washington Redskins linebacker) London Fletcher. We did a football camp together. So I know him. That’s the closest thing I know to London. He’s black, so I’m sure he’s not from London. I’m sure that’s a coincidental name.”

Via The Palm Beach Post.

Rugby

I got to play Rugby today outside of the Hotel de Ville (Paris). My mom snapped this shot of me. When I was waiting to play, I asked a Frenchman (in French) about rugby strategy, as I’ve watched the game but not played it much, and he talked my ear off for an hour. Perhaps I learned something, though.