As I posted last week I was lucky enough to be in attendance at the Padres-Rockies game last week that went 22 innings. Below is a picture of the scoreboard during the 21st inning stretch, which isn’t as strange to type as it was to participate in. 
The SCIP conference in San Diego ended this evening and Dan of SCIP and I headed to Petco Field to see a Padres game and relax a little after a long, hard week of work. We managed to pick a game that is now in the 22nd inning. We’re now hoping it sets the record for longest game in history but the Rockies just scored to go ahead by a run. It’s past one in the AM and we’re exhausted but we’re not about to leave until the last out.
Update: Game ended right after I posted this. Official game time of 6 hours and 16 minutes. I found out later that is was the longest game in the majors since 1993 and it was the longest game in either franchise’s history.
The Davis Cup is back in Winston-Salem this weekend which is pretty bad luck for me. Since my client’s conference is next week there was no way I would have been able to take in the matches and prepare for my time in San Diego. Since I’m flying Saturday evening I could have tried to hit the Friday matches but realistically there was no way I could do it.
Instead I satisfied myself with TiVo-ing the matches so that I could watch them while I packed. All was well until the second match between James Blake and Paul Henri-Mathieu went into a fifth set and a couple of games into the set the announcers informed the television audience that the network (Versus) was going to switch to NHL playoff hockey at 7:00 p.m. no matter where the match stood. They also informed the audience that if you were lucky enough to have the Tennis Channel you could catch the match there or you could watch it online at Versus.com.
Sure enough they cut to the hockey pre-game show right at 7:00 and thus I missed a thrilling comeback by Blake. Apparently at 4-4 his serve was broken, then he was down two match points on Mathieu’s next service game before he broke back, and then he held serve and broke Mathieu again. But I’m just going by what I heard on the sports report because, you know, I didn’t see it. I was going to gripe about how Time-Warner doesn’t give me the Tennis Channel but does give me 840 shopping channels, and how my buddy Bobby gets the Tennis Channel because he has DirecTV, but from reading the comments on the article about the match at the Tennis Channel site it seems that they blew the coverage anyway so lots of people besides me didn’t get to see the conclusion of the match.
The good news is that Celeste will get to go with some friends to the doubles match today. That should be a lot of fun, and boy do I wish I could be there. Of course I’ll set my Tivo, but let’s hope there aren’t any hockey games to cut to this time.
I occasionally look in on a blog called On the Pitch which is hosted by a guy who’s a youth soccer coach and administrator here in North Carolina. In his most recent post he linked to a discussion at NC Soccer Forum about racism in youth soccer. The original post that sparked the conversation dealt with racial taunts being directed towards players in several challenge and classic matches throughout the state, but I thought that one of the comments concerning the "upper class, white bread" nature of youth soccer to be particularly interesting.
First, let me provide a primer for those who aren’t familiar with the youth soccer structure here in NC. For the most part there are three levels of youth competition, recreational (rec) , challenge and classic. You could look at rec soccer as entry level, where all players are welcomed regardless of ability and coaches are generally all volunteers. Challenge is more competitive than rec, with tryouts and regional travel to games, but still with mostly volunteer coaches. Classic is much more competitive, with many teams having paid coaches. Each level of play is also generally more expensive as you move up. These are rough generalizations and they differ from club to club and league to league, but it gives you an idea of how things work.
When we first moved to the Winston-Salem area our daughter played rec soccer with the Optimist organization for a couple of years. Last year she decided she wanted to step up a level so she tried out and made one of the Twin City club’s U-14 girls Challenge teams. BTW, if your child wants to play soccer I highly recommend both of these organizations. I can tell you from first hand experience that the expense for Challenge was greater, although not too much, but the competition was decidedly better. The expectations in terms of time commitment are also roughly double what they were at the rec level.
But here’s the thing I noticed most in the switch from rec to Challenge. I can probably count on one hand the number of non-white kids we’ve played against at the Challenge level. And I’m not talking a white-black difference, I’m talking white-any other race difference. Now it’s not like there were a ton of non-white kids playing at the rec level either, but it’s definitely less diverse at the Challenge level at least here in the Piedmont area of the state. If you asked me to guess why I’d say there are a couple of reasons:
I don’t think that overt racism is a contributing factor to the lack of diversity on the soccer fields. I think most clubs would gladly expand their talent pools in order to compete. I’m also not so sure if pricing is as big a deterrent as you might think, at least at the higher competition levels. There are lots of families that stretch dollars in order for their kids to play AAU basketball so I don’t see why they wouldn’t also do it if they and their kids felt the same way about soccer as they do about hoops. And even if pricing is an issue you do have clubs that provide financial assistance, as Twin City does for its players. The point is I really think it’s more of a cultural issue than a money or overt racism issue.
The question for youth soccer leaders is this: do you want to continue to be seen as the "white bread, upper class" sport? If not, how do you change the image of the game? How do you make everyone feel welcome?
My feeling is this: youth sports provide a wonderful teaching and learning opportunity. I’ve played sports all my life and I’ve always enjoyed the fact that when we the players get in between the lines we usually forget who’s what race, who comes from where, and who has how much money. All we care about is competing and winning and so we’re held accountable to only what we do in between those lines. We also see each other more honestly. We see who really has character and who doesn’t, who has courage and who wilts under pressure, who is supportive in the crunch and who points the finger when things go bad. In other words sports are a great venue for discovering what’s beneath each person’s exterior.
I’ve made friends with people I never would have talked to without the common ground of a basketball court or soccer field and for that I’m eternally thankful. That’s also why I think it’s better for youth soccer and those of us who participate in it if the pitch becomes a little more "rainbow-y".
I usually don’t like to write about what everyone else is writing about on a regular basis because, you know, there are a lot of people smarter than me to get your current events from. However, every once in a while I just can’t resist. Now’s one of those times.
We’ve all read or heard about Roger Clemens’ appearance on the Hill yesterday. What I’d like to focus on is the fact that my Congresscritter, Virginia Foxx (R-NC 5) is on the committee that the Rocket testified before and her behavior was chronicled by none other than Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy. From his column:
There was plenty more jock-sniffing. Representative Danny K. Davis,
Democrat of Illinois, told Roger, "It was a pleasure meeting you last
week." Representative William Lacy Clay, Democrat of Missouri, asked
Roger what uniform he plans to wear into the Hall of Fame.
Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, produced
four photographs of Clemens, a progression dating to his Red Sox days,
and insisted, "You appear to be the same size."Good observation,
Ginny. That’s like saying Michael Jackson’s features haven’t changed
since he posed for the cover of "Thriller."
Oy. And then there’s this comment from "Glenn Aspaugh" on a post I wrote earlier this week about Rep. Foxx:
Dear Representative Foxx , I would really like to know why Congress
feels compelled to waste my taxpayer $$ which by the way are
considerable, on delving into allegations of steriods in baseball. If
I’m not mistaken Medicare and Medicaide are shortly headed toward
bankruptcy ,we’re in the middle of a war, and there still has been no
real immigration reform. Yet yesterday I see Roger Clemons getting
grilled before Congress wasting my tax $$ answering questions about his
alleged steriod use. Frankly WHO CARES?? This is a great example of why
the American public is sick and tired of Washinton politics and
wasteful spending. It would be refreshing to see some REAL problems
getting solved for a change. Thank you for your time. Glenn Alspaugh
I’m with you Glenn. Now of course this isn’t the first time that Rep. Foxx has been taken to the woodshed for some comments. Here’s a classic from last year, after returning from a tour in the summer of ’06 to pre-surge Iraq (editorial comments were mine):
The war in Iraq is
going well, Iraqi government officials are determined to have a united
government, and American soldiers are satisfied with their equipment
and their mission, said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-5th, who visited Iraq
yesterday and Sunday…Foxx and other members
of the congressional delegation stayed with troops overnight in a
military compound in Baghdad that is one of Saddam Hussein’s former
palaces and had lunch together yesterday. (Ed. Comment: Sure she got a real good idea of what the situation on the ground looked like from there)…Yesterday, after
Foxx’s visit, there were several kidnappings in Baghdad, the latest in
a string of sectarian violence that has escalated in recent months.Foxx said she did
not see any evidence of this (Ed. See comment above). but said that the government officials,
particularly al-Bolani, are committed to making sure "the terrorists
don’t create a civil war."…Ideally, she said,
military leaders and government officials told her they hope to have
Baghdad "secure" and a "place where people can feel safe" by the end of
the year. (Ed. She really bought this?)There have been
reports that American military personnel do not have adequate supplies
or that their morale is low. Foxx said that her meetings with soldiers
did not support this. She said that at one point she asked the
soldiers, while their supervising officers were not within earshot, in
hopes to get the most honest answer, and they told her they were fine."There was no sense of any problems," she said, "There was no indication of unhappiness." (Ed.
Oh come on, in the private sector that would be like a VP going around
her CEO to bitch to the Board of Directors. It ain’t gonna happen).
Now after the surge some of these comments don’t seem so absurd, but at the time they sure did. And the fact that she took the anecdotal evidence of speaking to soldiers out of earshot of their C.O.’s as some sort of definitive evidence that morale was good is borrowing directly from the play book of her idol GWB when he said he’d looked into Vladimir Putin’s soul and liked what he saw.
I’m thinking that if you own a used-car lot or are looking to unload some Florida swampland you really want Rep. Foxx to come shopping at your place.
Wake Forest QB Riley Skinner has made a name for himself as a player who’s cool under pressure. Well, next season ought to really test his composure because there’s allegedly a picture of him in the buff that’s made its way down the tubes of the internet. Thankfully someone put a fig leaf over L’il Riley in the pictures I’ve seen online, but I have no doubt that if there’s a version sans-leaf it will appear soon. Links below to the site carrying the pic. First here’s an excerpt from Chris’s Sports Blog:
The blog With Leather somehow
accrued, um, in-the-buff pictures of Wake Forest QB Riley Skinner and
posted one on their site today. Allegedly, these pictures of Skinner
posing au natural for the camera have been making the rounds on the
Winston-Salem campus. I’m not sure I believe the given explanation for
why these pics are out (Skinner sells them to people) but, regardless,
they do exist. This is good news for students at Maryland, N.C. State,
Florida State and Miami, who will all have the pleasure of heckling
Skinner next season when the Deacs travel to their schools for games…
Update:
CV writes that there had been rumors about this floating around for
days. According to his Wake interns, Skinner sent this photo to a
sorority listserv last week and "it spread like wildfire". I don’t know
what’s more surprising: That anyone would send a naked picture of
themselves to a listserv and not expect it to get out or that CV has
interns.
Link to the With Leather post and picture (warning: language might not be safe for work or kids, although all the kids I know curse more than a drunken sailor).
It ought to be entertaining to see what the kids at Duke do with this. I don’t think Wake plays at Duke this year, but maybe in 09.
Thanks to Esbee for the tip, so-to-speak.
In the spring of 07 the US played Spain in a Davis Cup quarterfinal tie here in Winston-Salem. The US won and then went on to win the Cup itself in December. It seems the Cup, the actual physical Cup, is on a Victory Tour and today it’s in Winston-Salem. If you hurry you can see it at the Ski & Tennis Station on Stratford Road until 4:30 today. You can also see it at the Joel Coliseum during the BYU-Wake Forest basketball game tonight.
Celeste and I had lunch at Mayberry’s and then toddled on over to see the thing at the Ski & Tennis Station. It’s huge and it’s fun to look at the inscriptions from the ties that were played literally decades ago. I took particular pleasure in looking at the ties from the 60s that featured the great Australian teams with players like Stolle, Emerson, Newcombe and Roach. Of course I was looking for the American teams to, but since it started to get crowded with people wanting to take their picture with the Cup I needed to get out of the way before I found them.
Last night I had the privilege of attending the Wake Forest-Florida State game at Grove Stadium, er, BB&T Field. I went with my uncle Frank James and my cousins Jeff and Chris James. To say that we had some nice seats would be an understatement. That picture you see to the left was taken from my seat with an Olympus Stylus 710 with a 3X Zoom lens, which is to say the seats had to be good for the camera to get that picture.
The Deacs won 24-21 in a tight, fairly sloppy game. My biggest regret is that I wasn’t using the video capability of the Olympus when the Deacs scored their first TD. It was an 83 yard run by Josh Adams that started right in front of us. Here’s a link to some video I did shoot.
On the weird front there was a guy sitting somewhere in front of us who was cutting some of the most horrifically smelly farts you could imagine. The odor was so bad that it wafted over several rows and the ladies behind us got so fed up they left before the fourth quarter. The guy seemed to burp them out whenever an exciting play happened so you couldn’t help but inhale them as you cheered. Before the ladies left they informed us that the smell had been happening all season, so I feel for the season ticket holders who have to attend the games knowing that they’re going to be dealing with a stench that could peel paint.
On the good luck front as we were walking through the parking lot to get to the stadium a couple of girls in a golf cart stopped and handed us some free chicken sandwich meals from Chick-fil-A. We’d been planning on getting dinner before the game but didn’t have time so we readily took the freebies. The sandwiches were still hot and quite tasty so my hat’s off to the Chick-fil-A marketing people and the young ladies they hired to hand out the freebies.
This was my first Wake football game and you can count me as hooked. Grove Stadium, er, BB&T Field is a great place to see a game and offers a fantastic atmosphere if you disregard stinky in our section. If you get the chance I highly recommend you go.
This past weekend was largely spent on the soccer fields at the Sara Lee Complex and Hine Fields here in Winston-Salem. My daughter Erin’s soccer club, Twin City Youth Soccer Association, played host to the ChallengeFest, which is a mid-season tournament for "Challenge" level teams. All the kids played four games in two days and by the end I can tell you that all of our girls were fried.
Our girls went 2-2, winning two games against teams from our Challenge League (teams for Davidson County and Statesville) and losing 2-1 on Saturday to a team from the Trianle area and 3-1 yesterday to a team from Clayton. The two losses came in the afternoon games (second games of the day) and in both games our girls played with only one sub due to injuries and our opponents had at least four subs each. Both teams were as skilled as any team we’ve played this year and our girls took a 1-0 lead into the last 20 minutes of both games before running out of gas and giving up some late goals. All in all our girls played very well and "left it all on the field."
A couple of highlights for our family: Erin scored her teams goal in the 2-1 loss on Saturday, and yesterday she showed a little fire towards the end of the afternoon game. The Clayton team played a more physical game than our girls are used to and the ref let most of the pushing go unabated so our girls were getting pretty frustrated. Erin had the ball near the sideline right in front of our bench and after getting the treatment from one of the more aggressive players on the other team she screamed at her. I believe she said "Stop pushing you idiot!" Then she immediately felt guilty and not long after that I saw her fighting tears as she was playing. Personally I was proud of her for not retaliating physically, which is what her old man would have done in the same situation, and I have no problem with her venting. The name calling was understandable but still not necessary, but since she already felt guilty I didn’t feel any need to say much about it, especially when I would have used much more colorful language in the exact same situation after administering physical redemption as well. I was VERY happy to see that she had some fire in the belly.
All in all it was a good weekend, but will someone explain to me why our girls were playing in 90 degree heat on October 7? At this rate we’re going to be hanging out at the pool on Christmas.
As I’ve written before I’m the assistant coach for my daughter’s Challenge soccer team. Erin had to try out in May,
get selected for a team and that team will stay together through next
spring when the process is repeated (all the kids have to try out again). When she made the team I volunteered to be the assistant coach, which for all practical purposes means that she and I are spending more time together than we have in a long time, what with the two 1 1/2 hour practices plus two games each week.
The Challenge level of play is somewhere between the club level and what we called "Select" soccer in my day, which means that Erin definitely stepped into a higher level of competition this year. It’s safe to say that at first she was pretty intimidated by the faster, stronger and more skilled players, but now she’s starting to get comfortable. Our team has played about eight games through this last weekend and after getting off to a rough start against some very good competition in the Twin City Classic tournament and against one of our sister teams from the TCYSA club, a team that returned 12 girls from last year’s roster, our girls have won four straight games. Even better is the fact that most of the girls who stepped up from club level to play Challenge for the first time this season have started to score goals too.
Unfortunately Erin wasn’t one of the girls who scored…until yesterday. With our team leading 2-1 and with about ten minutes left in the game, Erin received a pass at the top of the penalty box just outside the left post, took one or two dribbles and then curled a left footed shot inside the left post. I know I’m biased, but I’m telling you it was one gorgeous shot.
The part I’ll never forget is the look on Erin’s face as she came off the field right after the goal. I haven’t seen her smile that bright in a long time, and I’m willing to put in thousands more hours on the field with her if I get to see it even one more time.
Befuddled 