Thursday, June 26, 2008

Witness the wrath of the WNBA

Not my title, but the title of this video:



"Witness the wrath of the WBNA. Mark Kriski is kidnapped and forced to apologize to the Los Angeles Sparks."

Weatherman to Lisa Leslie
Paraphrase: What's happening in the WNBA and Sparks?

Lisa Leslie to Weatherman
"If you were good at your job you'd know."

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The video of Shaq dissing Kobe

The clips have been making the rounds of the various sports talk shows and can be seen at Youtube - or in the link below.



I must say I'm disappointed in Shaq. His behavior displays a distinct lack of class ...

I never liked him as a player. The referees gave him 99% of the calls, and in the unlikely event that he was ever called for a foul - he'd whine about it. "The only way to beat me is to cheat me."

Then a few days ago the news came out that Shaq wanted to help people in Florida facing home foreclosure, by buying up their mortgages. And I thought... classy guy.

And now we get this.

He calls Kobe by the "n" word. (And why Mike Freeman thinks *that* makes him an "Uncle Tom" I do not quite understand...any more than I understand why black rappers can get away with using that word, and derogatroy comments about women, and advice to kill people, including the police, and that's excused because it reflects the "black experience.") I dunno...if that's the black experience, in this day and age (1970s onward) where racism is not tolerated, and welfare is ladled out, seems to me they have only themselves to blame for their "plight," and this new black experience is not one to be proud of.

Interestingly, none of the comments - on this video at least - mention his use of the "n" word at all. I guess it's just not important...

Monday, June 23, 2008

Lisa Leslie first woman to dunk in WNBA

Earlier today I shared a video of Candace Parker dunking in a Sparks-Fever game yesterday. It was the second dunk ever in a WNBA game.

So, here's a video of the very first dunk ever made in an WNBA game - by Lisa Leslie. She did it July 30, 2002 (and interestingly, never dunked again, apparently.)

Of course it's different in the women's game. In the men's game, it's all about showboating, but if a defender "teaches a lesson" to a dunker, he most likely wont get hurt. If a female player gets taken down, an injury could occur - women are very prone to ACL tears...

Anyway: the video - rather grainy.

Candace Parker Makes Her First WNBA Dunk

Candace Parker has become the second woman to dunk in a WNBA game. She did it last night, against the Indiana Fever. The Sparks won 77-63. Interestingly, Candace only scored 10 points in the contest. She also pulled down 10 rebounds.

See the video here.



Her teammate, Lisa Leslie, was the first woman to dunk in a WNBA game. Only a handful of women - including Candace and Lisa, have dunked in college games.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Umpire deliberately hit in face by pitch?

The first time I saw the video below, I was sure I was seeing a pitcher deliberately throw a ball to hit the umpire in the face, because if you look at the catcher, he's deliberately bringing down his glove and ducking his own head as if he expected it - and I have NEVER seen a catcher react like that. [At least, not when the ball is obviously high. If it's in the dirt, you have to lean over it to deaden it off your chest protector...but this ball was clearly high.]

But, if you watch closely, the ball actually appears to hit the batter on the helmet first, and then ricochets and hits the umpire's mask. Yet, because the batter doesn't react at all as if he'd been hit - which if it hit his helmet you would have thought he would have had some reaction! such as heading towards first immediately instead of trying to stop the runner at third from coming home...

But this pitcher can't have been throwing that hard...




What's really sad about this is the reaction of the people in the stands. You can hear them cheering. Some reports of this incident say that the umpire was swearing at the players...but seems to me the coaches would have said something if this was the case - not put it on the players to get their revenge.

In addition, apparently the pitcher and catcher had a meeting on the mound just before this pitch...

However...I'm still prepared to believe that the pitcher *was* trying to hit the ump, and just got the batter first by mistake...

Meantime...

If you do a google search on "coach tells pitcher to hit batter" (in particular in the News category) you'll find dozens of examples through the years of grown men telling little children, and big children, to throw at batters. Not to mention the fine example of professional baseball players - pitchers who throw at batters because a previous batter hit a home run, or because one of their players got plunked, etc.

The latest "outrage" is because a female coach told one of her young pitchers to hit an opposing batter. (Gee, a kid of 8 years old or so couldn't throw a ball with enough force to hurt anyone...). There's lots of comments on the website reporting this, claiming that this female coach just didn't know the game of baseball, and I'm thinking to myself, what are those idiots smoking? She's just following a long line of male coaches who've done exactly the same thing.