Sport

I have started to watch more MLB baseball lately. It’s nice to get into that again. During today’s game I noticed the many balls going into the audience left and right. I wonder how many balls would get into the audience in a baseball game. My guess that the average game has 300 pitches in total. I estimate that 2/3 of those end up in the audience one way or another, so 200 balls. Would that be a right assumption?

Some thoughts that I have to this:

• Why did the guy didn’t battle the umpire and then strike?
  
• What was the umpire thinking???

I already look forward to the NFL season, starting in September. We still have a few other things lined up in July and August to look forward, too, but still I am looking ahead. Today I was watching NFL Live, which is an ESPN show about the NFL. I stumbled across a discussion about NFL rookies and their contracts, so it draws me back to my Dad-in-law for more questions, but this time about the NFL.

The discussion surrounded NFL rookies not having signed contracts yet at their teams. This puzzles me, because I expected that NFL rookies that have been drafted by their teams are supposed to sign a contract at that team one way or another. This discussion was pretty heated and I wonder why. So it brought up a few questions that I have:

• What are NFL Rookies holding up to sign contracts at the teams that selected them?
  
• Is not signing a contract at the team that selected them an option? If not, then what other options do those rookies have?
  
• What are the consequences of rookies signing their contracts late (they supposingly miss training if they don’t sign before July 31st 2010)

I just finished watching a game that ended in the following box score:

R H E
6 9 2
11 14 1

Interesting score! Both teams got into a lot of trouble running the game. Eventually the winner pushed the loser over the edge. It was nice to see that hits and runs. At the same time I can see how some people found that this game sucked.

I just finished watching a re-run of last night’s MLB All Star Game. It was a fair game in which both teams got their chances. However, finally… after 13 years of losing game after game the National League pulled it off! That NL trick in the last inning was awesome. That was the absolute game saver!

Congrats to the National League.

Spain won the world cup soccer. I believe they are the fair winner. The Dutch team did not have the power and spirit to win this game. The Spanish eventually worked better. The Dutch team tried to do what the Spanish team did all along: putting pressure on the ball very early. The Spanish team was used to do that and mastered that part of the game where the Dutch team tried the same thing, but needed foul after foul getting one yellow card after another. Eventually that led an important player (Heitinga) being sent off with a second yellow card in overtime.

In the line of words from an important and famous ex-soccer player: “every disadvantage has an advantage”. I thought of taking the day off on Tuesday because of the crowd coming to Amsterdam on Tuesday to cheer the Dutch team. That will still happen, but more modestly, I think.

All in all the Dutch team played well. It was the coach’s second loss since he started, but… it was one of the most important games that he lost. Who knows what will happen in future.

It’s less than 15 minutes before the 2010 world cup final soccer between Netherlands and Spain. Reports from Amsterdam show that the capital city is getting full. Over 100,000 have come to Amsterdam and gathered on Museumplein, the main square of the city. A small photo report is shown here. Other reports claim that 500 million+ people will watch this game live on TV.

I wish everyone a good game!

The Dutch national soccer team managed to beat the Uruguayan team in the world cup soccer. They were expected to this, but yet it still needs to get done. So… now what? First the team will celebrate. Tomorrow there’ll be room for working towards the finals.

A tactical analysis of the game
The Dutch team won in a 2-3 score.

The Dutch started off very well. In the first few minutes the Dutch team took serious initiative in the game and had a few chances to open the score. Eventually a kick from outside the penalty area led through the opening score. After a serious foul from the Uruguayan team a Dutch defensive player went KO for a bit. The Dutch team lost their grip on mid field and Uruguay pushed the 1-1 score just before half time.

In the second half of the game the Dutch team grabbed initiative again and moved along to 1-2 and 1-3. After that the Dutch kept pushing themselves to serve Uruguay the knock out that they needed. That created some space behind the Dutch defense in which Uruguay found their way to 2-3. This created a very hectic final few minutes. Fortunately the Dutch team kept their heads clear and managed to win the game with that score.

Tactics in tomorrow’s game
Tomorrow Spain and Germany go head to head in the other semi final. Regardless of who will win, I hope that this game will go in overtime and penalties. This will wear both teams out physically and mentally. This and the ‘extra’ day off that the Dutch team will have, should be beneficial to them. I look forward to see tomorrow’s game.

So, I am extremely pissed off at FIFA right now, who organizes the world cup soccer 2010 in South Africa. The FIFA has decided to chase young dutch women in orange dresses. Those dresses are distributed by a Dutch beer brand. However, to make sure noone would run into marketing trouble, the beer brand decided not to put ANY brand name on it. The dress is plain orange, period.

Nevertheless the FIFA sees these dresses as “marketing activity”. Before and during the game they have started a chase on young women that were wearing these dresses. On authority of FIFA some of them actually have been arrested. A whole bunch of these young ladies have been taken into custody during the game and have been interviewed for a few hours.

I admit that these ladies knew that they might run into some sort of trouble. Some of them actually disguised themselves as Danish supporters. Once they were well settled in the stadium, they turned into the DutchyDress Babes dancing around in their orange dresses. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that there is nothing wrong with the dresses to start with. It does NOT hold any advertising or marketing slogans or so, so they are perfectly legit. One way or another there was no need to take these extreme measures against these young ladies. It’s totally ridiculous.

Our national secretary of foreign affairs has dived into this and asked the South African Government for an explanation. They should explain this. Did I mention how ridiculous this is????

Today it’s going to be Race Day in the Indy 500 race. I very much look forward to see the race. I will spend some of the day to look at the latest news in the Indy 500 and to pick my favorite driver this year. I look forward to read your ideas over the Indy 500.

We have a huge fanbase for the Indy 500 in The Netherlands. A lot of Dutch people follow this race here, as well. Every year it seems a struggle for fans to watch the race. Last year the race was broadcast by RTL Television. This channel is widely available in The Netherlands. This year the race is broadcast by Car Channel. This channel is absolutely not widely available here. I am very lucky that I have this channel in my cable package. Some other people are not so lucky. I have found a lot of anger on the internet involving this.

Naturally Car Channel is very lucky to have the broadcast rights for The Netherlands. It generates a lot of income, because advertisers are eager to advertise during the race. This event will put Car Channel on the Dutch TV Chart. Nevertheless, I believe that a sports event of this magnitude, size and popularity should be broadcast by a Dutch channel that is available and in reach of every Dutch household. If I find some time, I plan to write my cable provider and some national tv channels and start a campaign to make this happen.

For now … I just feel lucky.

Tonight the neighbors knocked on the door. The plan was to decorate our street to get ready for the world cup soccer. We actually decorated moderately (some streets go totally bananas with this). Anyways: I believe some other countries could learn from this, so I took pictures of the whole ordeal.

So… for your information and to learn from, the pictures are here. We are now officially world cup soccer proof .

Time for a beer!

I just finished watching the MLB game between LA Angels and Blue Jays in Toronto. One thing needs to go off my chest: I would have rooted for the Blue Jays, but some people in the audience had horns with them and used them almost every time an LA Angel hitter was at bat. It was extremely annoying and it wasted my enjoyment in the game. Those people had to be addressed at first and even be kicked out of the baseball park with a season ban from the ballpark. It’s unsportsmanlike conduct.

One of the most amazing plays was a ball being hit in the outfield of LAA. The outfielder returned the ball back to the catcher. A Blue Jays runner was coming in from third base. The catcher held his foot before the plate. The runner slided with his hand, thinking that he slided over the plate. Rather than that he slided over the shoe of the catcher. The catcher tagged the runner and the runner was called out. I didn’t know this was allowed. For the catcher it worked well.

All in all it was nice to see more baseball again.

I just noticed that spring training just started to show on our ESPN Network. Finally!! It also looks like that college Basketball is in it’s final episodes. No offense, but college Basketball is simply not my thing. So, let’s revisit last year’s World Series. It was the Yankees who won the World Series after a serious louzy season start. I have to think which team to root for this year. Last year Leann’s Dad was rooting for the Cubs, still, I believe. During last NFL’s season he moved from the Colts to the Titans. I wonder if he changed to a new MLB team, too (White Sox?? ducks!).

Tomorrow I am going to watch the first spring training game

I just listened to the bits and pieces of the closing ceremony. I missed the first part, though. Hopefully I get to see that, too at some point. The Games have been pronounced excellent and friendly. I recognize Canadiens as friendly, as well. They are a little bit more laid back than Americans are; a little bit more relaxed and at ease. The music in the closing ceremony was nice and it was good to hear Michael J Fox again (I didn’t know he is a Canadian, thouhg). It’s a shame to see what happened to him at early age, needing him to stop acting.

The weekend also came to an end. Today will be back to work. I am not sure how exactly that will work, because I didn’t get too much sleep. One of the advantages of the Olympic Games having ended will be that I’ll get my sleep back . Fortunately it’s just once in the two years. It was well worth it. In two years, the Olympic movement will visit London, which will make things a little easier.

I hope to get a little easier week this week. At least I’ll have my day off on Wednesday. I wanted to visit some former colleagues, but I plan to postpone that a little further. On Wednesday we’ll have the elections of the city council. I also look forward to that, as I am curious to see what the results we’ll be. Now trying to get another hour of sleep.

It’s been a very bad day for The Netherlands as a nation. Today’s Olympic programm was the 10,000 metres ice speed skating. The Dutch have mastered that event as well as the 5,000 metres. The two favorits were Bob de Jong and Sven Kramer. Sven was skating in the final race and… he made a very bad mistake in changing lanes which disqualified him. The worst news is that he was on track to sharpen the Olympic record by another 6 seconds and getting the gold medal for sure. The saddest part is that the coach probably sent the skater to the wrong lane. The rule is that the student always obey the coach, so…. the coach has some issues to work out. He looked beat!

Someone on Twitter commented that this news probably has more impact than our Government going down. I think this person is right. It’s a sad day…. then again… it’s part of the sport.