There's a phrase I use almost as frequently as “oh boy, the Olympics!” and that would be “I love me some Los Angeles Dodgers!” But I do love me some Los Angeles Dodgers (!), for it is they who have won three consecutive games — including two in resounding late night walkoff fashion — over your Philadelphia Phillies. And with your Philadelphia Phillies stumbling around in the dark, your New York Mets have reconvened a first-place tie in the National League East.
Joe Torre…we love it!
Jeff Kent…we love it!
Brad Penny…we love it!
Sure, why not? Pennant races make strange bedfellows when it's after most decent East Coast people's bedtimes (I, of course, was wide awake when Nomar Garciaparra took Clay Condrey deeper than the night, stronger than the north wind blowing; I, of course, make no claim on decency). Should it all come back around to another Mets-Dodgers playoff series…well, talk about carts and horses all out of sequential whack. For now, we've got one more game in which we love us some Los Angeles Dodgers (and, for that matter, some St. Louis Cardinals in Miami). Brett Myers is pitching for the Phillies tonight. With Brett Myers on the hill, the repressive forces of communist China would look sympathetic.
Meanwhile, little-known American swimmer Michael Phelps strives desperately to garner the tiniest bit of attention within the vast shadow cast by the worldwide phenomenon that is Daniel Murphy. Phelps has won five gold medals, albeit in total obscurity, this Olympiad. Murphy, as the nonstop headlines and newscasts constantly remind us, is batting .467 in his first thirty Major League at-bats. NBC has left behind a skeleton crew in Beijing to record the remaining swimming events on the off chance anybody's still interested. Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira and Al Roker are broadcasting live this morning from in front of Murph's hotel room in Washington. Can't they let the poor kid excel in peace?
Love the Randy Newman interpretation.
The notion that people care about the Olympics utterly amazes me. Jingoism, weepy tearjerker human interest tales, and “sports” like swimming, running fast, and trampoline? Whoo, sign me up!
It's an intrusion on the baseball season. At least the winter Olympics have the sense to take place when nothing of import is happening.
Now, c'mon, you have to feel for poor Janos Baranyai, the Hungarian weightlifter whose elbow came apart on him in mid-jerk. It reminded me of Dave Dravecky.
If LT had hit Theisman's arm instead of his leg, it would look like that. Eeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww!