OK, Listen up! It's the boss here.

With Master B being snowed under with work it gives me the chance to usurp his column and bring you the sports news from my angle.

I just knew it was a good idea sorting out The Post early so that I could join my Dutch friends and watch the football on a big screen. After the debacle on Saturday which saw them turn a 2-0 lead into a 3-2 defeat¹ anything could happen. The mood was subdued as Germany scored a goal to put them in a qualifying position and Holland out of the running. This soon turned to celebration as Ruud van Nistelrooy scored and, two minutes later, Heinz scored for the Czech Republic. Six minutes later and Ruud scores again - the whole of my hometown reverberated with car horns. Half time sees Holland/Latvia 2-0 and Germany/Czech Republic at 1-1. Of course, as has been said famously elsewhere, football is a game of two halves, so nerves were still taught as the teams enter the field of battle for a second time.

75 minutes of play gone and we are all cheering again - for the Czechs as they pull clear with a goal from Milan Baros. This means, with the Dutch looking at a win, Germany need a further two goals to stay in the competition. Two disallowed goals later, substitute Roy Makaay makes it 3-0 and the Dutch are ecstatic. The Czech Republic hold on to their 2-1 position, the whistle blows and the Dutch are through - Germany out. 'Hup Holland' as they say in these parts. Tomorrow I change hats and support England. If they beat Portugal (and my money says that they will) and Holland can reel in the Swedes on Saturday² , then next Wednesday I'll have to pin my colours to the flag. Services on your Post may be severely affected!

No surprises to report on the tennis front as the annual rain sweeps over London and disrupts play. Tim Henmen started by losing the first set of his Championship but recovered enough to win by 3 sets to 1. Roger Federer made short work of Alex Bogdanovic from the UK - infact all matches go according to seeding. Sadly, for the Dutch, Raemon Sluiter is out but Martin Verkerk, who just so happens to be from my home town, wins through after a close match. Greg Rusedski, Lleyton Hewitt and Goran Ivanisevichas have to wait until today (Thursday) because of the weather. Four British girls manage to skirt the rain and win through to the second round as do both Williams girls, Lindsay Davenport and golden oldie Martina Navratilova. Sadly, the wonderfully named Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi from Israel is already out. Hopefully the hastily re-scheduled matches will take place tomorrow.

American sprinter Michelle Collins, world indoor 200m champion last year, has been charged with a doping offence. Despite vigorously denying any offence she could face a lifetime ban if the US Anti-Doping Agency have their way.

Greetings, should there be any AmSport fans out there!

As usual, there's no sense in me reporting scores you already know, but a commendation to Ken Griffey Jr of Major League Baseball, who smote his 500^th career home run on last Sunday's Father's Day with Griffey Senior in attendance. Only 20 men in American pro baseball history have hit more and the feat pretty much assures Junior of a bust in the Hall of Fame after retirement.

It's the 'fortnight of Wimbledon' on the two major cable teevee networks the next two weeks, and fresh strawberries are in the grocery stores, but certainly not for that reason. Don't get me wrong, there are tennis junkies here across the pond, and I certainly know who Rod Laver is, but my tennis era went out with Chrissy Evert. The strawberries are in season, as you's well know.

I am given to understand that your EuroCup is getting the major coverage, which is understandable.

As I am a baseball junkie, however, I am compelled to make
note of the phenomenon of a website called yankeehater.com that is selling a subtle version of the 'I Hate the Yankees' and 'Yankees Suck' t-shirts so popular in Boston and among New York Mets fans. It's a version of the intertwined yankee 'NY' logo, only it's a Y and an H, as in haters, and sold out its first, second and third run of the caps and is expanding its market for other teams that have been beaten back over decades by the money and power of the Yankers.

Which somehow leads me into this story, from across a real big puddle to Japanese pro baseball.

Two teams, the Osaka Kinetsu Buffaloes and the Orix Blue Wave are meeting to merge the two clubs into one, thus making the two-division, 12-team Japanese league into an unequal schedule between the Pacific and Central divisions. This appears to be a reaction to the decade-long economic slump in the Japan economy and may force the consolidation of two other clubs, and the possibility that the nationally-owned Tokyo
Yomiri Giants (the Yankers or ManU of Japanese baseball) would share at least some of their nationally-televised marketing monie$ with the 'lesser' clubs.

It would be the first such alteration of the league since 1957, and reflects to the emergence of Japanese baseball stars on the American market, such as the Yanker's Hideki Matsui and Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners, who played for years in the Japan league, only to sign with MLB teams for larger contract$. What happens will be studied by MLB owners, who have a stray franchise themselves in the jointly-owned Montreal Expos.

And thus, this correspondent will serve this over to The Post Team so they can make me look and sound like I know what I'm doing once again. Any questions or comments will attempt to be replied to, if not partially answered and/or ridiculed below. Over and out.

Did I Leave The Iron

On? Archive

Master B

with Several a.k.a. Random 


and interloper ShazzPRME

24.06.04 Front Page

Back Issue Page