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Posts Archived Under Sports
We're the first to admit that the subject here doesn't often turn to discussions of racing or race car drivers. When it does, though, the image conjured up is usually either a grease-smeared old-timer or a suave European guy with a perfectly-creased uniform. Even if the stereotypes are overturned and a woman is pictured on the track, she'll generally take the form of Danica Patrick or Sarah Fisher or Ashley Force, attractive and talented women, no doubt, but not exactly reeking of exhaust, racing fuel, and burning rubber.
But today we celebrate a woman who overcame all the odds to become the first woman inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. A woman who, in her own way, was like the Jackie Robinson of auto racing, overcoming prejudice and stereotypes about "women drivers." A woman who took on male drivers in even competition and beat them fair and square. Today we celebrate the 69th birthday of Shirley Muldowney, queen of the race track.
From funny cars to dragsters to match races, Muldowney has done it all, competing even after a debilitating crash (from which it took her three years and multiple surgeries to recover) and into her 60s, when she finally retired from competition in 2003. Overcoming the scoffers by taking on male drivers on their own terms -- and by literally making them eat her dust -- Muldowney was talented and successful enough that ESPN ranked her the 21st-greatest driver of all time.
Her determination, grit, and sheer talent (not to mention the fact that she's quite a babe) proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that a woman's place is on the track -- especially if she can do a mile in under five seconds.
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Directory categories:
Shirley Muldowney, Drag Racing, Auti Racing, Auto Racing Drivers, Danica Patrick |
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Archived under: Auto Racing, Autos, Biographies, Birthdays, Drag Racing, Shirley Muldowney, Sports, Women, Women's Sports |
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Babe Ruth, 1920.
First season with the Yankess |
It happens to every team. Some boneheaded general manager engineers a trade that makes no sense, and soon one team is reeling from disaster, and the other team reaps the rewards.
June 18 marks Lou Brock's birthday, and we immediately remembered his involvement in one of the most one-sided transactions in baseball history. In 1964, the Chicago Cubs traded Brock to the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher Ernie Broglio. Brock went on to the Hall of Fame after gathering almost 3,000 hits and 900 stolen bases for the Cards (winning two World Series), while Broglio won just seven games for the Cubbies before retiring.
But that trade was hardly the worst. There was the deal that sent Pedro Martinez (who has more than 200 wins and 3,000 strikeouts) from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Montreal Expos for Delino DeShields (who hit .241 before moving on). All-time strikeout king Nolan Ryan (5,714 Ks and 324 wins) went from the New York Mets (with three other players!) for shortstop Jim Fregosi (who hit all of .233 before being sold).
But the worst deal of all has to be Harry Frazee's 1920 sale of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. While Ruth, who was already one of the game’s top left-handed pitchers, went on to blast over 650 homers for the Yanks, the Sox began almost a century of futility (the so-called "Curse of the Bambino") until they finally exorcised that curse in 2004.
Had Ruth never left Beantown, baseball fans would have been spared two blights: one was the domination the Yankees had over baseball during the 20th century. The other was the whining Red Sox fans exhibited over their hard luck. That alone damns Frazee to baseball ignomy.
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Directory categories:
Major League Baseball Players, Major League Baseball, Baseball, Baseball History, Lou Brock |
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Archived under: Babe Ruth, Baseball, Baseball Players, Birthdays, Flops, MLB, Sports |
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Disney's Casey at the Bat |
Looking at it objectively, it wasn't all Casey's fault. Mudville wasn't playing well, anyway. Down 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth, Cooney and Barrows grounded out quickly (and why Mudville's manager had the light-hitting Flynn and Blake batting ahead of Casey is a matter best left to the Sabermetricians). But it was Casey who went down swinging, so he gets the blame.
But our friend from Mudville was hardly the last baseball player who choked when the pressure was on. Why, just 20 years after Casey's K, New York Giant Fred Merkle failed to touch second base in a crucial game (the "Merkle Boner"), and cost his team the pennant. Ralph Branca had a perfectly respectable 1951 season for the Dodgers, but it was the pennant-winning pitch he served up to Bobby Thomson that gets remembered. Dennis Eckersley had 45 saves for the 1988 Oakland A's, but one slider to Los Angeles Dodger Kirk Gibson gave Gibby the most dramatic moment in World Series history and Eck the goat's horns. And need we add Bill Buckner, whose misplayed ground ball cost the 1986 Boston Red Sox a world championship?
But there's something about Casey's futility that caused a national sensation. Vaudevillian De Wolf Hopper became as famous as Casey himself, reciting the poem of the latter's failure tens of thousands of times to rapt audiences. Ernest Lawrence Thayer's "Ballad of the Republic" has been parodied, adapted, and referenced in every sort of American media since its first appearance on June 3, 1888 (in the San Francisco Examiner, of all places).
So, while Casey may have fanned that one time, his failure gave him an immortality that few other ballplayers -- or people -- of his era ever achieved otherwise.
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Directory categories:
Casey at the Bat, Ernest Lawrence Thayer, Baseball History, Poetry, DeWolf Hopper |
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Archived under: American History, Baseball, Baseball Players, Curses, Entertainment, Flops, MLB, Poetry, Sports |
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Need to get some exercise and burn some calories? Reduce
your carbon footprint
and stress?
Save money?
Voilá: your bike
is the answer to all your needs. With a level of commitment to suit any cyclist,
we give you Bike to
Work Day/Week/Month.
While much of the world sees bicycles as everyday
transportation and a sensible resource, many in
the U.S. merely identify cycling with leisure or exercise. To help encourage a change in
perception, many cities around the nation are organizing Bike to Work activities with Energizer Stations to help promote
cycling as a legit commuting alternative. And if you do make the commitment and
sign up for the event, you can even map
your ride to see just how great your accomplishment is.
Now if you don't yet have a bike, that conundrum can be
easily resolved. From top-of-the-line
road bikes to urban hipster fixies, beach cruisers, folding bikes, and even electric bikes,
there's a bike out there to suit your needs (not to mention a trailer). So really, there isn't any
good reason not to get on out there and ride your bicycle -- anywhere you like!
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Directory categories:
Bike Commuting, Cycling Advocacy, Bike Safety, Cycling Products and Services, Bike Messengers |
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Archived under: Bike to Work Day, Biking, Commuting, Green Living, Health, Sports, Transportation, Work |
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Inside the Tokyo Dome
(Photo by machu) |
Konichiwa, baseball fans! Welcome to Major League Baseball's Opening Day 2008, live from sunny... Tokyo!
Today's season opener marks the third time that the MLB season has started in Japan. The Oakland Athletics "host" the Boston Red Sox in a rodo gemu (road game) 5,200 miles from home -- and the crowd may cheer more for Sox superstar toshu (pitcher) Daisuke Matsuzaka and nakatsugi toshu (reliever) Hideki Okajima than for the "home" team. Whatever the outcome, enthusiastic Japanese puro yakyu (professional baseball) fans will pack the mammoth Tokyo Dome, while their American counterparts watch the action in the pre-dawn hours.
The Tokyo Dome, the imposing kyujo (ballpark) that will host the series, is an impressive 55,000-seat stadium at the center of Tokyo Dome City. (The complex boasts an amusement park, historic gardens, hotels, arcades, bowling alleys, offtrack betting, a judo institute, and a hot springs spa.) The air-supported dome -- the first of its kind in Japan -- is the current home field for the Yomiuri Giants, previous home to the Nippon Ham Fighters (who may have the best name in baseball), and stands on the site of the historic Korakuen Stadium (which witnessed such feats as Michio Nishizawa's 28-inning, 311-pitch complete game -- ending in a 4-4 tie! -- in 1942). It also houses the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, honoring Japanese greats like Sadaharu Oh, with 868 lifetime homers (Barry who?).
Baseball has provided an important cultural exchange between Japan and the United States over the years, with American All-Star teams helping to spark Japanese pro ball in the 1930s, and Japanese imports blazing through the Majors in recent years. We hope the recent Opening Day tradition will inspire new western interest in the Japanese game.
Play yakyu!
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Directory categories:
Major League Baseball, MLB Players, Baseball in Japan, Ballparks |
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Archived under: Ballparks, Baseball, Japan, MLB, Regional, Sports, Stadiums |
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