U-17 World Cup update

Round of 16
Spain 3-0 North Korea
Tunisia 1-3 France (OT)
Peru (PK's) 1-1 Tajikistan
Ghana 1-0 Brazil

Argentina 2-0 Costa Rica
Nigeria 2-1 Colombia
England 3-1 Syria
Germany 2-1 USA

I watched USA's match with Germany. The American youngsters are typical of how the USA national team used to be: mediocre skills up front, no creativity in the midfield and a defense capable of stiffening when need be but utterly useless at transitioning to counter attack. I sure hope they improve, they're the future of American soccer.

This was a predictable outcome, the American kids are all fine athletes, they're good runners, but the German kids are soccer players and it was just a matter of time before they put it in the back of the net. Not to say that Germany was overly impressive, I kept waiting for a playmaker to emerge from the midfield and he never appeared. Their scorer, Sukuta-Pasu, had some skills but he was really the only one on the team that stood out, which is surprising. I would expect German teens to be as good as anyone in the world and, while they were better than the Americans, it wasn't a thrashing by any means. USA did scrounge together a goal, a nice unexpected poke by Mykal Bates in extra time. But it was too late, as USA had just surrendered a 2nd goal (nice finish by Sukuta-Pasu but it was horrible defense that led to the score).

I thought the ref and the linemen had pretty poor performances; they didn't particularly favor one side over the other, but they were overly sensitive at times and then let them beat the crap out of each other at others. One unfortunate blown call: just before halftime an American was absolutely plowed in the box, a clear penalty call which would've given USA their best chance all day. I'm not sure why the ref didn't blow the whistle. It looked like a foul live but, man, on the replay it was an easy call, a brutal hit from behind. Oh well.

Round of 8
Saturday, Sep. 1
Spain-France
Peru-Ghana

Sunday, Sep. 2
Argentina-Nigeria
England-Germany

There are some good looking match-ups there. I have no real perspective from which to judge but just for my own amusement I'll take Spain, Peru, Argentina and England. We'll see.

Little League World Series wrap-up

International Championship
Curacao 4-7 Tokyo
A walk-off grand slam--can't front on that sweet action.

United States Championship
Lubbock, TX 2-5 Warner Robbins, GA
The heavy hitters turned in a pitcher's dual in the American final.

Consolation Game
Lubbock, TX 1-0 Curacao
Another pitcher's dual. Man, those kids can really sling the ball in there.

World Series Championship Game
Tokyo 2-3 Warner Robbins, GA (8 Innings)
Great finish! Great game! In a weekend dominated by Mike Vick, its nice to know sports can still be fun.

FIBA Americas Update

I haven't watched much because while the highlights have been well-hyped, the games themselves have been at awkward and inaccessible times. I think we all know that when the Americans put their minds to it, they are hands-down the best. But, like Brazil in soccer, their minds don't often match their talent. This time around though it appears that USA has dedicated themselves to being better than everyone else and hopefully that will get it done at Beijing 2008. For now USA still has to win 2 more games to guarantee themselves a ticket to China.

Monday, Aug. 27
URU vs CAN 12:30
ARG vs VEN 15:00
BRA vs PUR 17:30
USA vs MEX 20:00

Uruguay has gutted out 3 wins but I'll take Canada. Argentina left their stars at home but are still expected to finish 2nd, I'll take Argentina over Venezuela. Peru is one of the countries that traditionally pesters Brazil in soccer, but in b-ball, I'll take Brazil. I'm a little surprised how well Mexico has done, not known for being a hotbed of b-ball talent, stick with the USA.

U-17 World Cup update

I haven't been paying too much attention to this because watching high schoolers play soccer--even world class high schoolers--can be an excruciatingly dull affair. And the 1 match I did catch was a none-too-pleasant viewing experience: Tunisia 3-1 USA. The match featured three PK's, a garbage time goal and tons and tons of sloppy play. I'd say the ref had a bad day but frankly the camera work was so bad you couldn't really tell if they were good calls or not! USA looked pretty awful and the media coverage wasn't much better.

That said, its down to the sweet 16 so I'll at least keep up with the scores from here on out and hopefully I'll see some USA action (though I'd take Germany kids over American kids any day, so I'm guessing USA's time is at a close). I haven't seen anybody play but my gut tells me Argentina, Brazil and Germany are the faves, with Spain, England and Nigeria as the dark horse picks. I have no clue but we'll see.

Round of 16
(Wednesday, Aug 29)
Spain v North Korea
Tunisia v France
Peru v Tajikistan
Ghana v Brazil

(Thursday, Aug 30)
Argentina v Costa Rica
Nigeria v Colombia
England v Syria
Germany v USA

Little League World Series update

A coupla extra-frame thrillers in the international semis. It ends up with Japan taking on Curacao in the international final, the early game on Saturday. (Latin America was laying some beatdowns on people, a little surprised to see them come up with so little offense in the big game but that's baseball)

Latin America 2-4 Caribbean (7 Innings)
Japan 4-3 Asia-Pacific (10 Innings)

Warner Robbins, GA, advances to take on Lubbock, TX, in the American final, the late afternoon game on Saturday.

Southwest 8-2 Northwest
Southeast 16-6 West

Little League World Series update

Latin America 11-1 Mexico
Caribbean 6-2 Canada
West 9-2 Midwest

I must admit I don't quite understand how all this stuff works. It looks like typical international group play but with weird twists to it, like the random cancellation of games. Here are 2 matches that won't get played:
Japan-Transatlantic
Southwest-Mid-Atlantic

USA in the land of Abba

Caught USA's friendly with Sweden yesterday, a pretty boring match. I thought the ref had a poor game, he allowed a lot of physical play and favored the home squad at that, and really lost control, not that it broke into fisticuffs or anything. Perhaps he thought he was allowing a European style of intensity but considering that almost all of the Americans out there play in Europe now and still looked off-balance, I think he was just a homer.

That said, the Americans were clearly the 2nd best team out there, no one had a good game, no one shined out and while they all played hard, no one played particularly well. The Swedes didn't exactly knock me out, with the exception of Kallstrom's goal (a bullet just inside the near post) and the pesky play of Ibrahimovic, a world class striker. USA's performance was certainly uninspiring but it was a friendly far ahead of any meaningful international competition, so nothing to really worry about, I'd say.

Little League World Series update

Japan 7-1 Canada
Great Lakes 1-6 Northwest
Latin America 21-2 EMEA 2
Southeast 8-1 New England
Asia-Pacific--Mexico (Postponed by Rain)(To be played Wed 8/22)

Yipes! Check out that pounding Venezuela laid on the Netherlands.

The winners on Tuesday all look set in the pitching department. Shaping up for some nice battles in the next round.

Little League World Series update

West 1-5 Southwest
New England 0-1 Northwest
EMEA 1-11 Asia-Pacific
Caribbean 2-0 Transatlantic
Midwest 4-3 Mid-Atlantic

1-hitter for Vincent Anthonia (Caribbean).

Vick pleas, pleas, pleas

Micheal Vick has apparently agreed to a plea deal according to CNBC (still waiting for ESPN News to pick up the story--oh, there it is), although there are no details at this point. I would think between 12-15 months in prison and a 2-year suspension from the NFL. Then what?

The other day John Clayton and Merril Hoge were on the radio and Clayton suggested Vick would end up in the Arena League which Hoge continually derided suggesting that Vick simply doesn't fit the Arena game. I agree with both of them. I, too, had been thinking that Vick would end up in the Arena League, as wrestling wouldn't welcome him (lot of dog lovers in that target audience) nor would Canada (still too radioactive, probably too expensive for a guy who will have been out of the game for a coupla years), so I think Clayton was on the right track. That said, Hoge is right that the game doesn't suit Vick. The Arena league is a precision league (Hell in a Very Small Place to borrow from 'Nam parlance) not a game for renegade athletic types.

Upon further thought, I think the only way he comes back is in the Arena League as an RB. His completion percentage and his field vision just aren't good enough for the high speed Arena game and his footwork is just a detriment. The only place his athleticism becomes useful is if the ball is in hands and he's moving forward. Or perhaps he could play safety.

On the legal side, I'd say Vick's better off taking the deal. If he went to trial and all those details came out, people would hate him forever. Now, there's a chance that he disappears for a while and comes back as a harmless laughing stock. I know there will always be people willing to take a chance on talent but I'd say his NFL days are probably already over: he was not exactly widely hailed as a success as a QB and a position change would just be goofy. Dude, you were the #1 pick, how could you fuck up this bad? What were you thinking?

Unexpected thoughts on Galaxy-Red Bulls

So David Beckham started and played 90 minutes for the first time in the MLS. How was it? Honestly--and I certainly didn't think I would have this reaction--easily the best MLS game I've ever seen! I've only been vaguely paying attention to the MLS since it started back in 1996 and my sudden interest is actually entirely coincidental to Beckham's arrival. As I wrote back on January 12: 'Will he make soccer relevant in America? No. But for those of us that already love soccer, he'll improve the quality no doubt.' (I love being able to quote myself, I'm like George Will now or Ricky Henderson!) That is precisely what happened last night in New York. Has soccer arrived? Well, if you're expecting it to be bigger than the NFL, uh, no, that's not going to happen with or without Beckham. But is it more sustainably popular going into the future? I think so and I hope so. They had 66,000 at the game last night when the Red Bulls generally average around 11,000. If 12,000 show up for the next game that Beckham isn't playing, then Beckham has done his job. And that's just the money side.

On the quality side, man, I'm telling you, it was the best American soccer I've ever seen! Normally what happens in MLS is the speed of the game invariably gets beyond the meager abilities of the players and there are long stretches of people just chasing a bouncing ball. This is why Americans can't stand soccer: they don't see great players controlling the ball because our best athletes aren't playing soccer. If they saw confident possession and competent forward progress and got into the excitement of watching superior athletes at work, they would forgive the lack of scoring. Jeez! We assume the problem is the lack of scoring, meanwhile we're in awe of Brandon Webb's scoreless streak!

But last night Beckham's mere presence elevated everybody's game. Everyone stepped up, they controlled the ball, they pushed forward, there were many, many rips at the goal, a lot of great saves (man, for giving up 5 goals, I thought Joe Cannon was pretty awesome last night), and it was an exciting game from beginning (Angel scored 4 minutes in) to the very end (Angel capped the scoring in the 88th minute). Beckham was terrific in the first half, faded in the second, he's still not game fit just yet. But Angel, Altidore, Mathis and Richards for New York were all stellar; Donovan, Martino, Roberts, Pavon and Buddle all made good contributions.

I've been rather lukewarm about Beckham's arrival. The expectations are too large and wildly unrealistic and American commentators are so embarrassingly ignorant of soccer that its all been much ado about nothing. But now we've seen what can happen and now I'm super fucking excited about the quality of play in the MLS and I hope Beckham is able to keep it going! Will he make soccer bigger than football? No, but I never needed it to be.

(A coupla more random thoughts to tack on at the end: Where were Xavier and Albright last night for the Galaxy? When will Benfica poach Altidore to go alongside Freddy Adu?)

Little League World Series update

Transatlantic 5-13 Canada
Mexico 11-1 EMEA
Mid-Atlantic 6-16 West
Midwest 0-6 Southwest
Great Lakes 10-2 Southeast

Garrett Williams of Southwest faced 20 batters, gave up 3 hits and got 17 K's. Holy crap!

Little League World Series update

Great Lakes 2-3 New England
Caribbean 3-10 Japan
Latin America 2-1 Asia-Pacific
Southeast 9-4 Northwest

Back and forth between Indians-Tigers and Reading-Chelsea

Fausto Carmona looked sharp for the Tribe, 10 K's, can’t front on that. Speaking of looking sharp, what's up with Chelsea's coach Jose Mourinho's Inspector Gadget look? The Tigers scored the first run from a walk Carmona shouldn't have given up followed by a flukey infield play that Garko should've finished off. Meanwhile, Reading went up 1-0 in the first half on a flukey goal of their own, Chelsea's goalie getting pulled into no man's land and leaving his right flank wide open. The Indians were able to jump ahead on a 2 run dinger by Gutierrez. Frank Lampard put Chelsea on the board with a coupla nice touches in the box, thought the keeper came out a step late. Grady Sizemore tripled and then came home on a double play ball by Hafner (who looked uncomfortable the whole game). Didier Drogba drilled a goal--a brilliant shot, as them Euro commentators would say--from about 20 yards out, just curling it inside the post. The Tigers scored another run on Granderson's triple--Sizemore just missed it and he might've had a double play at that!--but Borowski was able to nail it down after blowing the save the night before.

I caught most of Reading's draw at Man U over the weekend, a gritty performance in hostile territory against a superior squad. Reading started their season at Manchester and at home to Chelsea? Jeez, who's banana ya gotta peel to get a break over in England? They play tough but the final touch always seemed to get away from them. They were in over their heads against Chelsea and in the second half that became clear. These will probably be the only two Reading matches I see all year, I'd say they're not a relegation candidate but they're clearly a bottom half of the table team.

The Indians drew back into a tie atop the AL Central with the Tigers, with tonight's rubber game determining who jumps ahead from here. Sizemore hasn't been hot lately and Hafner is clearly hurting, so I discount the Indians' chances from here on out. If the Yankees stay hot I think they'll take the wild card--although its certainly not a done deal. In April everyone wrote off the Yankees, in August everyone's assuming they're the greatest in the world again. I didn't buy it then and I'm not buying it now. If the Yankees do take the wild card it'll have more to do with Cleveland's injuries and Seattle's general lack of depth than with the conventional wisdom.

Lucky 13

Sunday at the PGA was all set up to be a prolonged victory lap for Tiger. Stephen (No) Ames just never finishes. He's always close, no matter where he is on the course he'll get right up to a birdie and then halt. I didn't have much faith in that guy. Woody Austin is a guy I'd never heard of but he sure seemed like a wacko, the kind of guy you get behind just because you feel a little sorry for him. I was skeptical as to whether he would hang, though I suspected he would've been better off paired with Tiger, he might've drawn some real inspiration in the shadow of pure discipline. These were the only challengers it seemed and both seemed like long shots at best. Tiger doesn't get beat in majors and after the clinic he put on Friday, it felt like he might well be on a record-setting pace.

Early on it certainly appeared that Tiger would ride his 3 stroke lead to an easy-going station-to-station kind of day, letting his opponents absorb all the pressure. Then out of the blue, some excitement developed! Ernie Els--where the hell did he come from?--kicked out the jams knocking down birdie putts all over the place. Els looked better than I've seen him in eons, its been a while since he's been a factor on Sunday. Woody Austin decided to bring some noise of his own, chipping in left and right. Meanwhile, Tiger failed to pull away. Els and Austin did their best work in the middle holes (8-12) and I figured Tiger would respond and knock down a bird or two but he didn't. Tiger was fairly lackluster through the middle, playing them like the horse latitudes when everyone else was gambling and winning.

But in the end, Els bogeyed on 14 and Austin, fine as he played, just couldn't birdie every hole. And Tiger, indeed, stayed to his game plan and maintained. He rarely let his driver really rip, playing it fairly respectful rather than shining out. The drama was a bit illusory but there was more than was foreshadowed and that made for a pleasant surprise.

Steroids? Gimme a break!

Did Barry take illegal substances? I suppose he probably did, though its certainly not as obvious as some would make it seem. He has yet to fail a drug test--oh, there are conspiracy theory explanations for that, of course conspiracy theories are all based on the lack of evidence as evidence. Work-out regimens and diets for bulking up are far more prevalent than at any time in history and I guarantee there are plenty of people out there who have put on more muscle than you would've thought possible without taking any drugs at all. Go back and check out Shaq's physique when he was at LSU or Patrick Ewing at G-town--they were skinny little runts compared to their pro days and no one points accusing fingers at those guys. Furthermore, I doubt Bonds did any drugs that were uncommon to the average athlete.

Lots of guys have taken illegal substances over the years--how many homers did the Babe hit hungover from binge drinking during the Prohibition?--and none of them got to 756 home runs. Interesting to note that the pitcher that served up #755, Clay Hensley, did a suspension for getting busted for steroids. And for those that claim that in the old days everybody was pure, well, how do you know? Did Willie Mays ever piss in a cup? In Ball Four Jim Bouton talks about all kinds of chemical inducements players used in the '60s--why do we assume that the search for performance enhancers is something new? Is it because its easier to aim a pitchfork at Bonds than to make the painful realization that athletes have been cheating since games began?

Mostly this is all the work of sportswriters who are in the business of pointing out the flaws of others to distract from their own petty worthless lives--dude, I hope Mitch Albom gets an eternity of Barry Bonds in heaven. The writers play the 'public safety' card as if those guys do anything but suck up to the most inane and pathetic parts of our own culture.

I can dig that you don't want to encourage youngsters to use these supplements because are dangerous. But the way we go about trying to disincentive this activity is all wrong! We hold up Mark McGwire as a scapegoat which tacitly tells to the kids 'if you do steroids you'll hit 500 home runs!' Far from the truth, incidentally. Taking steroids won't make you any good at anything, it just expands your muscles--and shit, man, that alone doesn't even imply strength! Its just the increase of muscle mass not strength! If we were serious as a culture about discouraging this kind of drug use we wouldn't be casting stones at Sammy Sosa, we'll be holding worthless shlubs like Clay Hensley up as the real role models.

'If you do steroids you're no more likely to win 300 games than you are of being the answer to a trivia question!'

Am I Barry Bonds fan? I don't particularly think one way or another about him. But I do know this: if Barry Bonds wants to shoot heroin into his eyeballs during the 7th inning stretch, that's fine with me. If he wants to drug himself to an early grave for a little glory that's his business--football players have been doing it for decades and no one seems to care. Women in America have fought for decades to control their bodies, not sure why baseball players aren't afforded the same rights.

Rory's story

Rory Sabatini was looking pretty good, a stroke up on Tiger going into the final round at the Bridgestone Invitational the other day. Unfortunately, Tiger had his game going while Rory dropped like Bear Stearns. But on the back 9 a heckler from the gallery called out to Rory, 'You still think Tiger is beatable?'--a reference to Sabatini's comments (around the Masters, if I'm not mistaken) that he relished the opportunity to play with Tiger on Sunday because he thought Tiger was 'beatable'. Not only did Sabatini not beat Tiger on Sunday (5 over to Tiger's 4 under), he had that heckler physically removed from the course. This guy had a ticket to the match and got removed for 'hurting the feelings' of Rory Sabatini? You must be joking!

Wow! Rory Sabatini is officially the biggest pussy I've ever seen in my life. Buddy, if you can't handle the fans, then why are you dissing on Tiger Woods to reporters, jackass? You need to shut your hole and knock down some birdies. For all those people that are tired of obnoxious athletes, it's worthwhile to note that golfers can be just as classless and gutless as those others guys.

Clipper makes good

I caught a movie, Rescue Dawn, the other day at my local cinema, a good flick. Not exactly a date flick, it’s the tough true story of a pilot shot down over Laos and his endurance in a vicious prison camp deep in the jungle. I was struck by one of the names in the long list of producers: Elton Brand. Yeah, its that Elton Brand, guess he's in the movie producing biz now. Wait, he started his movie producing career off with a Werner Herzog jungle movie? Yipes, either he's got supreme confidence or he's unfamiliar with Herzog's maniacal approach (up to and including eating his own shoe). And since Brand apparently won't be playing any ball for a while, he's got plenty of time to make masterpieces. Good luck, Elton, you're off to a good start.