Friday, October 08, 2004
I AM STILL THURSTY
I'd first like to apologize for the sidebar being messed up since last weekend. I had tailored it to the 12x8 screen I'd been working on instead of the 1024x768 which I'd promised all along. As such, I had tried to make sidebar headings which were way too long. They have now been shortened, and the sidebar doesn't hang at the bottom on 1024x768 monitors. Hooray.
Now, to sports-related stuff...
-- Day 1 at the FINA short course worlds is in the books. In the 50m breaststroke preliminaries, Bremerton's Tara Kirk finished 3rd out of 38 swimmers (five heats' worth) with a time of 31.14, 0.84 seconds back of leader Jade Edmistone, and 0.22 back of Olympic medalist Brooke Hansen (both Aussies). Tara was also 0.12 seconds ahead of Olympic gold medalist Luo Xuejuan of China (fourth) and 0.35 seconds ahead of Amanda Beard (sixth). In the semifinals, Tara finished 2nd overall out of 16 swimmers, with a time of 30.61. The time was 0.60 seconds behind Edmistone, 0.06 ahead of Hansen, 0.72 ahead of Beard, and 1.25 ahead of Luo. The three other qualifying swimmers for the final heat are Mirna Jukic of Austria, Simone Weiler of Germany, and Lisa Blackburn of Canada. One thing I noticed was that Leisel Jones of Australia was not in the field, and apparently it seems her spot was taken by Edmistone, who set the 50m short course breaststroke world record not long ago on September 26th with a time of 29.90. Finals in the event are on Friday night, and scattered coverage of the meet is being aired on ESPN2.
-- So...did any Mariner fans out there watch Thursday night's LA/Saint Louis game knowing that there could have been a Giovanni Carrara/John Mabry matchup? Yes, these players are in the playoffs and the Mariners are not.
-- It's a Sonic training camp article from Danny O'Neil. Basically, they signed a Turkish guy to be the fifth guard, Leon Smith was waived because he wanted to be, newbie Robert Swift was mashed on the nose by Reggie Evans, who was on his team during the scrimmage, and the team shot a collective 50 of 66 from the free throw line, with some team laps thrown into the mix. Also, if Nate McMillan can get Luke Ridnour to defend better, then the Sonics will have a lot more to work with. The whole run-and-gun thing was the Sonics' strategy right out of the gate in Japan last year, and it wore thin, and it wore McMillan down and ate at him because he's a defensive-minded guy (anyone who watched him play knows that). Also in the article with that last link is just general talk about having the point guards push the play more and bring the ball down the court more often, as opposed to the forwards, which only makes sense. Antonio Daniels somehow had the best assist-to-turnover ratio in the NBA last year, by the way.
-- The Seattle Storm begin the WNBA Finals tonight at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, against the Connecticut Sun. Mark Bergin has an article on the five-year existence and rise of the Storm (with mentions of the always-entertaining Lin Dunn) and play-by-play voice David Locke has his keys to the game laid out.
-- The Seahawks won't have any sort of upper hand over the Rams unless they beat them this Sunday and dig the hole a little deeper for the Rams to dig out from underneath. As has been said, the Seahawks have to beat the Rams because the Rams have the Super Bowl ring in their recent past, and the Seahawks haven't done crap titlewise. However, this looks like a really good Seahawk team, and the Rams haven't looked this lackluster in quite a while. Man, I hope that's a Seahawk win. Anyway, J-M Romero has the rest of his article. And no, the Rams haven't won a Super Bowl with Mike Martz at the helm (or with their current incarnation of uniforms -- gold instead of yellow), in case anyone forgot.
-- I used to play on Ostrander Field in Bremerton as a young boy whenever my Warren Avenue team faced the kids from North Perry. On Thursday after work, I went to Ostrander to hit some baseballs. The centerfield fence is marked off at 212 feet, and I think leftfield is 225 feet. I was trying to aim to the power alley. But the greatest thing about the field was definitely the low grass length. I would have been hard-pressed to lose any baseballs thanks to the lack of thick grass (yay for that). So what's good about Ostrander is that the balls are easy to find, and the field isn't horribly bad to toss balls up to yourself and swack at them with a baseball bat. The only drawback to the field was the unsettling overabundance of dog crap. Other than that, I was finally figuring out that I can hit a fly ball about 250-260 feet under my own power with a now-illegal metal bat. Dammit, I just need to buy a wood bat and have someone throw me some live arm to see where I'm at.
Well, that's all I have on my mind right now. My sports weekend will probably consist of Friday Night Lights, along with the Tomahawks and the Seahawks (or T-hawks and Seahawks, if you prefer).
Have a great Friday, everybody.
Now, to sports-related stuff...
-- Day 1 at the FINA short course worlds is in the books. In the 50m breaststroke preliminaries, Bremerton's Tara Kirk finished 3rd out of 38 swimmers (five heats' worth) with a time of 31.14, 0.84 seconds back of leader Jade Edmistone, and 0.22 back of Olympic medalist Brooke Hansen (both Aussies). Tara was also 0.12 seconds ahead of Olympic gold medalist Luo Xuejuan of China (fourth) and 0.35 seconds ahead of Amanda Beard (sixth). In the semifinals, Tara finished 2nd overall out of 16 swimmers, with a time of 30.61. The time was 0.60 seconds behind Edmistone, 0.06 ahead of Hansen, 0.72 ahead of Beard, and 1.25 ahead of Luo. The three other qualifying swimmers for the final heat are Mirna Jukic of Austria, Simone Weiler of Germany, and Lisa Blackburn of Canada. One thing I noticed was that Leisel Jones of Australia was not in the field, and apparently it seems her spot was taken by Edmistone, who set the 50m short course breaststroke world record not long ago on September 26th with a time of 29.90. Finals in the event are on Friday night, and scattered coverage of the meet is being aired on ESPN2.
-- So...did any Mariner fans out there watch Thursday night's LA/Saint Louis game knowing that there could have been a Giovanni Carrara/John Mabry matchup? Yes, these players are in the playoffs and the Mariners are not.
-- It's a Sonic training camp article from Danny O'Neil. Basically, they signed a Turkish guy to be the fifth guard, Leon Smith was waived because he wanted to be, newbie Robert Swift was mashed on the nose by Reggie Evans, who was on his team during the scrimmage, and the team shot a collective 50 of 66 from the free throw line, with some team laps thrown into the mix. Also, if Nate McMillan can get Luke Ridnour to defend better, then the Sonics will have a lot more to work with. The whole run-and-gun thing was the Sonics' strategy right out of the gate in Japan last year, and it wore thin, and it wore McMillan down and ate at him because he's a defensive-minded guy (anyone who watched him play knows that). Also in the article with that last link is just general talk about having the point guards push the play more and bring the ball down the court more often, as opposed to the forwards, which only makes sense. Antonio Daniels somehow had the best assist-to-turnover ratio in the NBA last year, by the way.
-- The Seattle Storm begin the WNBA Finals tonight at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, against the Connecticut Sun. Mark Bergin has an article on the five-year existence and rise of the Storm (with mentions of the always-entertaining Lin Dunn) and play-by-play voice David Locke has his keys to the game laid out.
-- The Seahawks won't have any sort of upper hand over the Rams unless they beat them this Sunday and dig the hole a little deeper for the Rams to dig out from underneath. As has been said, the Seahawks have to beat the Rams because the Rams have the Super Bowl ring in their recent past, and the Seahawks haven't done crap titlewise. However, this looks like a really good Seahawk team, and the Rams haven't looked this lackluster in quite a while. Man, I hope that's a Seahawk win. Anyway, J-M Romero has the rest of his article. And no, the Rams haven't won a Super Bowl with Mike Martz at the helm (or with their current incarnation of uniforms -- gold instead of yellow), in case anyone forgot.
-- I used to play on Ostrander Field in Bremerton as a young boy whenever my Warren Avenue team faced the kids from North Perry. On Thursday after work, I went to Ostrander to hit some baseballs. The centerfield fence is marked off at 212 feet, and I think leftfield is 225 feet. I was trying to aim to the power alley. But the greatest thing about the field was definitely the low grass length. I would have been hard-pressed to lose any baseballs thanks to the lack of thick grass (yay for that). So what's good about Ostrander is that the balls are easy to find, and the field isn't horribly bad to toss balls up to yourself and swack at them with a baseball bat. The only drawback to the field was the unsettling overabundance of dog crap. Other than that, I was finally figuring out that I can hit a fly ball about 250-260 feet under my own power with a now-illegal metal bat. Dammit, I just need to buy a wood bat and have someone throw me some live arm to see where I'm at.
Well, that's all I have on my mind right now. My sports weekend will probably consist of Friday Night Lights, along with the Tomahawks and the Seahawks (or T-hawks and Seahawks, if you prefer).
Have a great Friday, everybody.
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