Category: Sports

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0-fer: MLB edition

This isn’t a true 0-fer this week, but it does point out my literary failings, which is what I’m all about.

Last night, it occurred to me that the number of ballparks I’ve visited may be greater than the number of Shakespeare plays I’ve read. I checked out both lists this morning and I’m glad to report that’s not the case:

Ballparks I’ve attended:

  1. Anaheim
  2. Baltimore
  3. Boston
  4. New York Yankees (old)
  5. New York Mets (old)
  6. Oakland
  7. Philadelphia (old)
  8. San Diego
  9. Seattle
  10. Toronto

Shakespeare plays I’ve read:

  1. As You Like It
  2. Henry IV, 1
  3. Henry IV, 2
  4. Henry V
  5. Hamlet
  6. King Lear
  7. Macbeth
  8. The Merchant of Venice
  9. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  10. Much Ado About Nothing
  11. Othello
  12. Richard II
  13. Romeo and Juliet
  14. The Tempest
  15. Winter’s Tale

I’ll probably see a Braves game when I’m in Atlanta next month, but I also just began reading Antony and Cleopatra, so the deficit will remain at 5. Unless I go on a real Shakespeare binge (which is possible) or get fired and decide to go on that “8 parks in 10 days” tour of midwestern ballparks I plotted out back in 2002 (which is very unlikely (I hope)).

Howzabout you, dear readers? Any of you read fewer plays of Shakespeare than the number of MLB ballparks you’ve visited?

Bonus! NBA arenas I’ve attended:

  1. Philadelphia
  2. Chicago
  3. New Jersey
  4. Toronto
  5. New York
  6. Washington (old)
  7. New Orleans
  8. Dallas

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Opening Foreclosing Day!

During his playing days, former MLBer and steroid abuser Lenny Dykstra explained to a writer that he was totally unwilling to read, for fear it would affect his batting eye. This reached the point where he wouldn’t even look at road signs (presumably, while he was being driven somewhere). So when my boss, a huge Mets fan, said to me about a year ago, “I saw this thing on Lenny Dykstra on HBO Real Sports last night. He’s a financial genius!”, I was more than a little skeptical. After all, last I’d heard about Dykstra, he was running a car wash in California and getting cleared of charges that he was sexually harassing a 17-year-old employee. All of a sudden, he was a stock wiz and the publisher of a magazine for rich athletes.

I concluded that you couldn’t find a bigger sign that we were in a financial bubble than the hyping of Lenny Dykstra as a stock-picking savant.

(Another big sign of that bubble was the New Yorker deciding to commission a lengthy profile on Dykstra around this time. Interestingly, they seemed to choose a writer who doesn’t know much about baseball or finance. Maybe he’s a car wash expert. I can’t find any references to this article in the magazine’s coverage of the global finance collapse and the media’s role in hyping easy money.)

Here’s some of that Real Sports segment:

You’d think Jon Stewart would’ve picked this clip as part of his Jim Cramer beatdown-montage. To quote Mr. Cramer, “I think people don’t think of Lenny as sophisticated. But I am telling you, Bernie, that not only is he sophisticated, but he’s one of the great ones in this business. He’s one of the great ones.”

So how’s that financial empire doing now? Well, the NYPost has just coined the name “Lienny Dykstra,” on account of his default on his $12 million mortgage.

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ESPN The Gag

Two notes about the new issue of ESPN The Magazine.

  1. The Atlanta Thrashers do not have the second-worst attendance in the NHL due to “woes at the top” (read: their ownership battle); they have the second-worst attendance in the NHL due to the fact that people in Atlanta don’t give a shit about hockey. They barely give a crap about basketball, and the Braves couldn’t draw sellouts to playoff games when the team owned the NL East for a decade-plus. The only thing that would boost attendance to Thrashers games is if they signed Michael Vick.
  2. The coverline, “Exclusive: Michelle Wie sets everyone straight,” may be the first time the word “straight” was used in an article about the LPGA.

Thanks. I’ll be here all week.

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FUAE (or FUBAI)

I know it’s gotta burn my mom’s ass that there’s a big “Fly Emirates” logo on the jersey of her favorite FC, but she’s gotta be happy that the UAE has caved and will now allow Andy Ram, an Israeli doubles-tennis player, to participate in an ATP tournament in Dubai.

Weirdly, the ESPN article (derived from Reuters & AP) treats the ban on Israelis as though it’s a UAE response to the fighting in Gaza, and not, y’know, long-standing official policy. (Allegedly, they’ve been loosening up a little, partly in response to Dubai’s growth in the diamond trade).

But keeping the surreal quotient high:

On Wednesday, Swedish authorities said that Sweden and Israel will play their first-round Davis Cup tennis match in an empty arena next month because of security concerns.

Anyway, I still won’t do PR for Malaysia.

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What It Is: 2/16/09

What I’m reading: Montaigne & Clive James. And this lengthy article by Michael Lewis about Shane Battier and the intangibles on NBA statistics.

What I’m listening to: Some podcasts of the B.S. Report.

What I’m watching: To Die For, Lisa Lampanelli’s HBO special, and the first episode of Dollhouse.

What I’m drinking: Dona Paula Malbec 2007

What Rufus is up to: Celebrating his 4th birthday on Saturday! Happy birthday, Ru! We took him to a dog park to celebrate, but he seemed less interested in the other dogs and more interested in people. Probably because dogs don’t carry dog-treats in their pockets. He also got his hike in on Sunday, so he’s pretty zonky now. Don’t disturb him.

Where I’m going: Nowhere special.

What I’m happy about: Long-ass weekend to go nowhere special!

What I’m sad about: That I was so befuddled/frustrated by Montaigne’s Of vanity.

What I’m pondering: When we’ll see a movie in which Michael Cera and Jack McBrayer play totally villainous scumbags.