Did I Leave The Iron On?
Created | Updated Sep 12, 2004
No Master B this week but we are pleased to welcome Egon back with a new subsection of your Post sport report.
Several A/K/A Random's 'sporting blues'
AmSports fans, just off the Olympic orgy (in more ways than one - reports are they used up the 130,000 free prophylactics issued to the 17,000 athletes and 'officials' during the Athens Games ) are settling into September, which means the startup of AmFoot on the high school, college and professional levels, in addition to the end of baseball's regular season.
This is also the 25th anniversary for the cable teevee network ESPN, which has become a GIANT in sports programming, from the cable-waves to the Internet. Were I to need the final stats of the Deutsche Bank Championship golf being played on deadline, ESPN would be what I clicked on, either my teevee or this here confuser up in the belfry. (And a Euro ESPN has begun, I had been informed... any comments or feedback if anyone is viewing it ?)
I rarely use info from ESPN in these dispatches to The Post, tho. I figure if I can click it on, so can you's, so no use repeating what 'they' say.
As for what ELSE this intrepid H2G2 correspondent has uncovered in the world of sport, we find there is a Junior Ryder Cup golf tournament1 this weekend, with 12 American boys and girls (all under age 16) against a dozen selected from Europe (all under 17.) I don't see reference to a website, or teevee broadcast, but this is the second formal meeting, with the Euros winning 9.5 to 2.5 in 2002 at the K-Club in County Kildare, Straffan, Ireland.
The kids are housed in an exclusive dormitory which features Internet access, video games and other amenities, and all 24 teenagers will be special guests at the REAL Ryder Cup event outside Detroit, Michigan next weekend, besides touring Cleveland, Ohio's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week.
The Junior Ryder is decidedly less competitive, more of a cultural experience for the players, who hail from Wales, Austria, Spain, England, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Germany, as well as North Carolina, New York, California, Illinois, Utah, Illinois, Indiana and Oklahoma, at a golf course in the farmlands of Ohio.
Sounds to me like the 55-passenger, state-of-the-art motor coach that transports the kids is gonna be golfing, I-surfing and rock-and-rolling - makes me wish I were 32 years younger and could hit a green in regulation without getting lost in the woods and wrapping an eight-iron around a tree.
As a wrap on the Olympics, I can only add that the state of California sent 124 athletes in 59 events to Athens and would have ranked fourth in total medals AND gold medals, even if they mis-handled a baton in a certain relay.
On the baseball front, Noo Yawk Yanker pitcher Kevin Brown broke his non-pitching hand punching a clubhouse wall in frustration at his individual performance and that of his team. Boston's Red Sox are only 2.5 games out of first in the East division as the Yankers slump, the BoSox and three teams from the West (Texas' Rangers, Anaheim's Angels are Oakland's Athletics are the other contenders for playoff positions in the American League, with a month's games left to play.
As always, any additions, comments, clarifications or outright lies will be cheerfully addressed... and mailed to a post office box in Florida that is currently under water. Over and out.
Popular Sporting Misconceptions
1: Soccer is an American term
There is a belief among a sizable proportion of English football fans
that the term soccer to refer to the game is an Americanism, and
some will even react to the use of the term with responses such as 'I
think you mean football' or 'what are you, American?' or suchlike.
In actual fact, soccer is an English word, in use long before the game was popularised in the US. It goes like this:
Association Football is the game we in Britain know as football.
However, when the sport of Rugby Football was founded, that was also
known as football by those who played it - hence Hull's rugby team
being called Hull Football Club.
This was all well and good except in those areas where both sports
were played. The solution to this, back in 19th Century English public schools, was to refer to Association Football as Soccer, an abbreviation of 'association', while Rugby Football was referrred to as rugger.
When Rugby Football devolved into two different sports, these new
sports were referrred to as Rugby League and Rugby Union. As this meant they weren't being referred to as football anymore, many people reverted to football as a name for soccer.
However, in those countries which still call more than one sport
football, such as the US and Australia, this Victorian nickname still exists.
So the next time you use the term soccer and someone asks if you're American, say 'no, Victorian'.
Did I Leave The Iron On? Archive
Master B
with Several a.k.a. Random
Egon
