political ads

For months now, Barack Obama has been saying in his campaign speeches that John McCain voted with President Bush 90% of the time, trying to convince voters that voting for McCain would be like voting for Bush again. Today on the radio, a local democratic candidate for congress was saying the same thing about his opponent, saying that he voted with Bush 80% of the time.

These seem like nice scare tactics since Bush's approval rating is so low, but throwing out a number like that doesn't tell us anything. Obama has voted along with Bush somewhere between 40 and 50% of the time, so if the 90% number is accurate, McCain and Obama have indeed disagreed on the contents of a large chunk of legislation. I wish in the debates, McCain (or even one of the moderators) would have called Obama on it and asked for a specific bill that came up for vote in the Senate where Obama and McCain voted differently. And then the two candidates could have explained why they voted the way they did and showed how their views on the actual issues differed.

But heaven forbid we actually hear substantive debate on specific issues in a presidential election. Instead the campaigns decide that they can throw a number at us, point at our currently unpopular president and try to scare us. Stop insulting us with scare tactics and meaningless statistics!

he did what?

Minute Maid park in Houston, TX has been home to some great defensive plays around the unique Tal's Hill in center field. But yesterday, a great base running play made me sit up and take notice while watching sports center. Michael Born, the Astros' center fielder who has to navigate Tal's Hill when playing in the field, was on second base when Lance Berkman hit a long fly ball to center. Born with great speed tags up from second and SCORES! Scoring from second on a sacrifice fly has happened before, but it's often because the fielder had to dive to make the catch and wasn't able to get up quickly to make a throw back to the infield. This was not the case with Born. The catch was made at around the base of Tal's hill and the throw was made back toward the infield right away. Born flew around third base and scored well ahead of the cutoff throw. I've never seen anything like it.

news headlines

With the presidential election 39 days away, and with the current economic crisis, I've been paying more attention to the news in the past week than I usually do. The past month and the next two months feel historic to me. So I was on some news websites today finding out that the presidential debate will take place tonight with both candidates and the stock market is holding up a little better than I feared after word came in last night that the bailout deal was getting blown up. I came across a few headlines and stories that makes real life feel like the movies.

The action movie:

Pirates seize ship carrying 33 Russian tanks

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26901780/

Yup, this is 2008 and we still have to worry about pirates. (Pittsburgh fans have known this for the past 16 years).

The Comedies:

Charge dropped for man who farted at cops

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26877682/
The man still is being charged with drunk driving, but the prosecutor decided that directional farting wasn't egregious enough to punish him for.

Hot dogs cause Philly bomb scare

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/09/25/hotdogs.ap/index.html

Yup, some duct taped hot dogs got mistaken for a bomb and the bomb squad actually blew them up before realizing it.


Then there was another headline that made very grateful for good law enforcement around the world:

German police seize terrorist suspects on plane

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26899493/

Lord, keep us safe, and filled with hope, love, and peace in these turbulent times.

hope and fear as a sports fan

As a sports fan you live with the ultimate hope that a team that you root for can win their sport's championship. You also live with the ultimate fear that your team will throw away a golden opportunity to win a championship. As a Boston sports fan, I've lived through both in my lifetime. The fear had always been more powerful to me growing up because of Bill Buckner's error against the Mets in game 6 of the '86 world series. Watching Boston teams in the playoffs always brought about internal thoughts of "I wonder how they're going to blow this game (or series)". But after the Patriots had the miracle upset of the Rams in the 2001 Super Bowl and the Red Sox impossible comeback against the Yankees in 2004, hope has been winning out for me.

A year ago, the Celtics had finished one of the worst seasons in their history, and had also gotten the worst possible luck in the draft lottery. Now, they are one win away from being NBA champions and they did it in the most improbable fashion on Thursday night. As the road team they cut a 20 point deficit to 2 points in just the third quarter. For the game, they had been down 24 points at one point in the first half and ended up winning by 6!

I've been watching sports long enough to know that anything is possible. I've lived through it first hand when the Red Sox came back from down 3 games to none in the 2004 ALCS to beat the Yankees. So I know not to celebrate a championship until the buzzer sounds on one more win for the Celtics. But at this point my hope of them pulling it out is far far greater than my fear of them blowing it.

sport stacking

I was introduced to sport stacking back in December when someone sent me a link to the then world record holder...and I was absolutely amazed. The hands and cups moved so fast that it seemed like the video was being played in fast forward. If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch this video of the current official world record in the cycle:



This seemed like a fun activity to try out, so I bought a set of cups and began stacking away at an embarrassingly slow pace. Michael was fascinated from the beginning with my cups and wanted to learn to stack as well so I started teaching him the 3 basic stacks...and he turned out to be a natural! He's progressed so much that he's as fast now as some of the fastest 4-year olds in the world at the age of 2. Here's a recent video I put together of the two of us "racing".



Stacking cups is currently his favorite activity. I'm afraid he's going to be faster than me by the time he's 4!

Celts win!

Game 1 to the good guys!

It was a good start to what should be a great finals. Pierce's injury could prove very costly down the line though...we'll have to see how well he comes back from it. Garnett's put-back dunk near the end had me literally jumping up and down in my living room...there's something about the game of basketball that gets me really fired up (even more than the other sports). I really need to get back to coaching the game at some level.

sports crazy

As anyone could tell from my first ever posts on this blog, I'm a bit of a sports nut. I grew up in Boston during the '80s and fell in love with the Red Sox (despite the heart break), the Patriots (despite their terribleness), and the Celtics.

The Celtics were the only truly great team of the three during my childhood years. They were the only team to actually win a championship (3 of them during the '80s). The started 4 future hall of famers including Larry Bird who is one of the greatest players of all time, and even had hall of famers coming off the bench during the magical '86 season.

Fast forward years and years to the '00's and I'm moved out of the Boston area, living in Grand Rapids and Pittsburgh and the Boston sports teams are starting to win a lot! Since 2001, the Patriots have won 3 Super Bowls, been in another, and the Red Sox have won 2 World Series. The Celtics on the other hand have been mostly terrible this decade, and it's been 22 years since the '86 team hoisted the Celts' 16th banner into the rafters of the old Boston Garden.

Well tomorrow, the Celtics begin another finals battle against their historical rivals, the Lakers and it also means that my three favorite teams have all appeared in their sports' finals this past year. Combine that with the fact that I live in Pittsburgh where the Penquins are trying for the Stanley Cup, and I think I'm going a bit sports crazy...and loving every minute of it!

Beat LA! Beat LA! Beat LA!