Too Bad He's Dead...Sydney Pollack

He was a great and famed director, but to me, these two scenes from Tootsie were my favorite work by Sydney Pollack...



Oops, I couldn't find the second scene, when Dorothy Michaels meets her agent at the Russian Tea Room.

Back in First...To Stay

I really think this is the first day that the Cubs stay in first place, and they will stay there until late September (when the regular season ends). With Zambrano pitching with the precisely right amount of emotion, and his hitting, this team seems poised to go on another roll.

Of course, as Earl Weaver said, momentum is tomorrow's starting pitcher.

Just Say No to Jim Edmonds

Is Lou Piniella really that frustrated with Felix Pie that he would push (or agree to) the signing of Jim Edmonds? He is batting a woeful .178 with 24 strikeouts in 90 AB. He is slugging .233 and is no longer the outfielder that Pie is. Yes, Pie has a higher percentage of strikeouts, but is hitting .233 and is slugging .286, and is the far superior outfielder.

If, as it appears, the team insists on signing Mr. Fake Hustle, give him 2 weeks, tops, to show he is better than the younger Pie.

I guess this is when you give Piniella the benefit of the doubt, but...

Alexis Marshall's Husband Gets 1st MLB Save

In a game that championship teams win, the Cubs overcame unclutch relief pitching to beat the Pirates in 15 innings. And, who picked up his first major league save? The favorite pitcher of a certain Phoenix television personality...

Kudos to Ryan Dempster for his incredible one-hit pitching over seven innings and Feliz Pie for keeping his head up and getting the big hit in the 15th.

Frank Deford Column about the Dying Olympics

There is something wonderfully ironic about the Olympic torch, which is making its journey around the world with what appears to be, a big "KICK ME" sign on it for China.

Ah, what goes around ...

The torch was conjured up out of whole cloth by the Nazis for the 1936 Berlin Games, and then embedded in our dreamy Olympic consciousness by the magnificent gossamer photography of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite movie maker. Now, three-quarters of a century later, the torch has come back as an unexpected curse to haunt another totalitarian government to which the International Olympic Committee has hitched its wagon.

The ignominy that China is going to endure with protests, which will cling like moths to the torch e're it goes, will far exceed whatever positive attention China might receive when the Olympics are in the world limelight for a fortnight in the dead of summer.

The reflected heat from the torch uproar will also help expose what a humbug the IOC can be. This is the organization that loves to call itself a "movement." Come on, would we accept it at face value if baseball commissioner Bud Selig stood up and crowed about the "Major League Baseball Movement?" Would we bow our heads if Mayor Oscar Goodman asked us to pay homage to the "Las Vegas Strip Movement?" Get serious.

There's no real difference, but only the IOC still calls itself a movement and gets away with it. Hey, it's no more than an international cartel that puts on a big show every four years. It's just NASCAR with accents. And to tell you the truth, I think the Olympics are yesterday's party. Once upon a time -- before globalism and jet airplanes and cyberspace -- bringing athletes together quadrennially in one place might have made sense. Today, it's an unnecessary excess. And while insular Americans may not understand this, soccer's World Cup has become much more important to many more people worldwide.

The Olympics has really ended up as a festival for those sports that nobody much cares about for the other three years and 50 weeks. The showcase is track and field, but how many of you can even name a single American track athlete in this year's Games? How many of you can name a single track athlete from any nation? The Olympics is a symphony orchestra without the violins and brass.

But hooray for all the Olympic athletes. Please, everybody, just threaten to boycott, but let the athletes all go to Beijing and have their day in the smog. It was so unfair when, in 1980, President Carter sacrificed our Olympians to make a point against the Soviet Union. But as the torch wends its way, spreading the bad news, I really think we might be seeing more than a censure of China. We may also be witness to the start of the Olympics' real decline.
I love London. I wish it hadn't got itself stuck with the 2012 Games. I love Chicago. I hope it gets lucky and doesn't get stuck with the 2016 Games. Every dog has its day. No movement is perpetual.

I met Frank Deford at an obscure sporting event, and, at the time, he was much more positive towards the "Olympic Movement" or at least the "athletes." I agree with everything he says except about the idea of a boycott. Boycott these Games, and the athletes can find something better to do with their lives. Like anything.

WWW.FIRETOMCREAN.COM

The post title is simply to catch Google traffic, but I think this was a smart hire, blah blah blah. For me, the best part of this is that my brother-in-law is the spitting image of Coach Crean.

Well, this has me relieved. Ted Kitchel is OK with this hire. After telling anyone that would listen that he wouldn’t let Kelvin Sampson coach a seventh grade girls team, he let the Indiana Daily Student know that he was gratified that Crean would give him a call.

Another self-righteous guy stuck in his Glory Days, Kent Benson, even got a shout out at the beginning of Crean’s press conference, which is unfortunately some lip service he is forced to pay. I guess he had to say that before he announced he would not be running the precious motion offense. Benson, you may remember, stopped going to IU games to protest Sampson. Like anyone gives a shit what this has-been has to say. If he was such a hero, he would not have lost his campaign for state Secretary of State.

Jay Bilas Calls Rick Greenspan "Incompetent"

On Tony Kornheiser's radio show today, Jay Bilas was asked about Bruce Pearl and the Indiana job. He said, "Indiana is a little bit disfunctional right now. And, honestly Tony, I wouldn't work for that athletic director for any amount of money. I don't think he's competent." This echoes John Feinstein's sentiments when Sampson was hired.

Unfortunately, since he's on the 'blue ribbon committee,' he will certainly be around for a while. It also means that IU will take the safer (and reasonable to me) choice of Tony Bennett over Pearl.

Dick or Rod or Johnson...Johnson?

The Cubs have added the right handed Reed Johnson to platoon with Felix Pie in centerfield. A good pickup, it says here. I was at Skydome on Father's Day 2003, and Johnson hit a tenth inning walk off home run off Mark Guthrie. Is it Opening Day Yet?

With a Whimper

Other than D.J. White, Armon Bassett, and Lance Stemler, the team quit after their coach got gacked. Seems to me that they resented that their guy, Ray McCallum didnt get the job, and the new guy (and Knight guy) Dan Dakich did get the job. I think they also resented the crowd's cheering for Dakich (both in Bloomington, and in Evanston, where I saw them) after booing Sampson the way they did at the end. This was not a team that the fans liked, and the feeling, unfortunately, was mutual.

Hopefully, the new coach will be a non-Knight guy who will return the pride to this program.

As for Eric Gordon, he never recovered from the game in Champaign, which tells you a little something about his heart and mind. Luckily, he will never face that kind of scrutiny in the NBA.

2008 NCAA Tournament Map

Click the link above to see it very clearly. Where can I find the NIT and CBI maps?